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lordloadsoflolly - I have never shied from the truth and am not quite sure how to reply, but as there is anonymity on bb's - here goes.
I am both a simpleton and complicated. Complicated because I manage the SIPPs for self, wife and both children. I also manage 2 speculative personal accounts and the ISA son. My ISA and that for my wife are managed on a discretionary basis and have been since 2002. A discretionary trust into which I settled an eye watering amount in 2015 is also managed on a discretionary basis. The discretionary stock broker is Charles Stanley.
So, to provide clarity I have shares in ATT in differing amounts in the following accounts - my ISA, my SIPP and elder son ISA. I have shares in ISPY in my ISA. I have shares in SMT in elder son ISA and my wifes SIPP. My wife has low exposure to technology through Investment Trusts but does have exposure through Polar Global Technology.
In all, although my holdings have been scaled back in terms of numbers, it is because turgid holdings have been liquidated and better performing ones strengthened. Within my ISA for instance, my most valuable holding is NVDA and although it represents almost 5% wealth (for greater then my target max of 4%), I don't have a problem with this as momentum is on its side.
This month the ISA holdings for self and wife crossed a major threshold. These, along with elder sons ISA, the distretionary trust and both childrens SIPP are at all time highs. The laggards are SIPPs for wife and self - consequence of poor decisions in in 2016 and worse decisions in 2017 - this saw an 80% collapse in capital. Most of it has been recovered so am now just 16% down from previous high in 2015!
For myself, I failed to get into medical school, cannot bear the "old school tie" process used by contemporaries to enjoy employment in rarified environment and abominate political authority. I am, I suppose a genuine anarchist in my disapproval of all governance.
So, you will note I am very open in my comments, hide nothing and always am honest in my opinion. I have got things right more often that I have them wrong. This year I am up against my target 16% and am targetting 21% overall growth. There are always going to be some holdings in a portfolio structured for HIGH GROWTH that fall by the wayside, with high growth comes HIGH RISK. I am happy to accept a 50% loss on 50% of my holdings. Occasionally I go on holiday. it is on these rare occasions that I do not pay heed to those holdings under my influence. History and part of the game.
A portfolio takes decades to build, goes through many phases where goals are reached and new ones created. Our eventual goal is to be able to settle all assets that my wife and I have worked bloody hard to build up on our children while enjoying good health without financial impairment.
I will not comment further on this board. Phew!
Ooooops... and another 6.02% down today for DARK. Sometimes on these BB's it's best just to dicuss the relevant share which in this case is SMT. Fingers crossed for a better day tomorrow.
Alas_Smith - I'm interested in your comment that ATT is "the techie equivalent to SMT". My understanding is that SMT has a heavy tech bias in itself (though possibly less than ATT's). Trustnet shows SMT's benchmark index as IT Global, whilst ATT's is IT Technology & Media. SMT also has a better short & long term performance. much lower charges & - unlike ATT - it even pays a small dividend. I get you need to hold a diverse portfolio, but can't really see why you'd buy both these funds. Especially as they each have heavy US exposure (ATT in particular), so aren't even geographically diverse. You may not be suggesting anyone buys both. Just that ATT is a potential alternative to SMT. Anyhow, I'd be interested in your view. PS: I only hold SMT, so am not professing to be an expert in ATT!
ISPY, might be worth considering if cyber security is a priority, otherwise, ATT is a fabulous choice the techie equivalent to SMT. There was a share split recently in case you are alarmed with the chart.
A fund that might also appeal is Polar Global Technology.
I have shares in varying amounts in all of these so am a little prejudiced
Thanks Charlesrixon, I took a look st DARK and it's 6.5% down today!
A Family Investment Company is an unlimited company. It is beneficial if an estate exceeds exceed £3m.
A Discretionary Trust, although fairly costly to setup, once in place is very flexible.
Good plan helping daughters through University. Further education needs reform with many courses downgraded and the education element covered by the State. I have no problem with the maintenance funded nominally by students but most parents, I hope, would wish to support their childrens welfare until they are on the earnings ladder when financial support begins to be withdrawn
I haven't investigated Family Trusts. But I think if you die before 75 you can leave your Pension tax free. For over 75 its taxed as income to whoever you leave it to.
I have created ISA 's for my daughters to get them thru University without debt.
I am now 73 and in good health (fingers crossed), no medication and I go cycling every day. My wife and I have a DB pensions and we only spend about half of our income, the rest has been invested over the years and we are sitting on ISAs worth nearly £1m. No mortgage etc and we lead a fairly quiet life. We currently pay our grown up kids a monthly allowance to go into their SIPPs. No grandchildren so will probably start offloading capital to kids in the next year or two. Investing has become a game to me now and I don't regard it as real money as I never withdraw any.
R7632, average life expectancy has risen to 81.6 in UK (World Bank figures correct in 2018), but appears to have plateaued. If your family has a history of dying andnotmaking it much beyond 70, there is a pretty good case to assume similar outcome for you. It is the same if most reach 90+
Through a combination of house price inflation and disciplined savings, despite using ISA wrapper, were my wife and I to die now, our estate would attract a substantial IHT bill. We both have a parent alive and yet, ourselves to inherit. There is also the possibility that we and our respective siblings need to help with any care provision, which, as each year passes, greatens.
Hence, with such realisation, and certainly not rich enough to set up a Family Investment Company, we set up a discretionary trust in 2015 and began to settle cash and other assets into that trust. Next year, these begin to fall out of our estate though not enough to cancel liability to IHT. It is also a balancing act to reach our goal so that we can retire comfortably and succession planning.
Some investments can and do fall outside IHT rules, SIPP investments for instance and some AIM investments (complicated rules apply).
You were very fortunate to be able to have retired at 55 and I hope you live in fine health well beyond 80. At that point you might find your expenditure pattern changes.
Yes State Pension - Actually of 67 for me.
Yes things change When I was 50 I had enough years of NI for a Full State Pension. Since then they increased my Pension Age to 67 and I am one year short of NI contributions for a full Pension . Only worth a couple of £ per week more so not really bothered.
I also got caught out by them reducing the Life Time Allowance. and got shafted with 55% Penalties on the excess. But couldn't start my pension any earlier to avoid breaching the limit which was reduced the year of my retirement by 250k.
cheers Michael, silly me, just seemed strange at 68, its 66 for me, just keeps going up
The State Pension?
yea cheers guys, onwards and upwards we hope
r7632 Re: Oh and when you get to 68 you get another £8 k a year from the National Insurance you've paid for 40 years
don't understand what you mean by that mate, maybe you could explain cheers
I was thinking i am 60 and may live to 80 that's 20 years. So I could could take 5% per year and use it all up as it would attract 40% inheritance tax when I die. But if I get 3% return pa over those twenty years they would still be a lot left if I lived longer.
You have to bear in mind you will probably be less active as the years pass and you spend less. Highly likely to be ill for a few years too. And you could go any time.
Spend and enjoy your retirement. Oh and when you get to 68 you get another £8 k a year from the National Insurance you've paid for 40 years. So you can spend that as well or reduce the take from you pension.
Ah yes I retired at 55. Little point in spending 11 hours a day traveling on the tube, working, and having lunch. I think I'm much fitter and healthier for it.
I think its too easy to think you will live forever and keep money back - you wont.
What an excellent summary on investment.
lordloadsoflolly, Thanks for your reply, a lot of good general advice there i think, most people i speak to seem to have a different strategy, and as long as its working that's great, i agree about overweight with Lloyds, but had the opportunity of topping up at the bottom prices during this Pandemic, and hopefully will get some rewards from that, do normally try not to exceed 5 % on individual shares, and also still have 8 varied funds, and will probably increase my holdings with smt, once i can see its turned a corner, would prefer to buy on the way up, rather on the way down
best of luck to you all
robleo - I didn't say "don't put any money into dividend shares or Lloyds". I simply cautioned over-reliance on dividend payers. Below is my investment mantra since you asked. But everyone's risk appetite & time horizons will be different, so it's not intended as a recommendation. 1) If you decide to self-select individual shares, I'd be wary of holding more than 3%-4% in any one company. That way, you can better spread risk across different commercial sectors, geographic territories & management teams. 25% invested in a single share to me rings loud alarm bells. Even with an ultra high conviction share, I'd be wary of exceeding 10%, as your hunch might still be wrong. 2) Balance out the risk from individual company holdings by investing in a diversified range of funds as well. Generally I much prefer investment trusts to OEICS, as they can sometimes have lower charges and you know exactly what price you'll buy & sell at. I've always regarded forward pricing on OIECS as archaic and it introduces further risk, as you never know quite what price you're dealing with. Charges can have a huge corrosive impact over time. So all other things being equal, it's well worth choosing the lowest fees you can find, providing past performance has also been good. 3) Use Trustnet or similar to research fund performance over time. Look at 1, 3, 5 & 10 year charts and ALWAYS value consistency of performance well above occasional erratic periods of stellar out-performance. 4) Having selected your funds, watch out for any management changes and monitor performance closely after any transition period. Don't give a new manager the benefit of the doubt for too long (I'd say after 12-18 months max, you should have a fair idea whether they're up to the previous team). If not, bank your profit/cut your losses as applicable and move on. 5) Monitor the premium/discount on any IT you're interested in, setting limit orders at an historically low level of premium / high level of discount. (Some ITs will almost always trade at a discount, others at a premium, so it's when they err from the norm that it can be a good time to top up). I did this with SMT back in Feb & March 2021, when the discount rose to an unusually high level. This enabled me to top up at just below £11 and again a bit below £10, which for the moment looks like decent timing. Though that could always change! 6) Don't chop & change investments too frequently. It's always hard to get the timing spot on and excessive commission charges will eat into profits. There, in a nutshell, is what I'd do.
It's all in the book "Little Book of Common Sense Investing" by John Bogle. Everyone should read it before being allowed to post on LSE forum :-)
If your point is that nothing is guaranteed when it comes to investing, your right.
However, any comparison of SMT and any fund that was managed by Neil Woodford is total BS....its like comparing a local newsagent with Harrods....go and have a lie down.
My statement is true. Over a 10 year period 90% of managed funds under performed v the S+P 500. I did not say that all ITs have poor track records.
SMT has indeed performed well and I have invested in them due to strong recent momentum. However it is no guarantee that they will contnue to perform well.
A note of caution, not so long ago Neil Woodford was regarded as Britain's best fund mangager. He held shares for on average 15 years. We all know how that ended.
lordloadsoflolly, you have said what you wouldn't do ( not put money into dividend stocks or Lloyds ), maybe you would like to say, what you would do
cheers
OWLS - the only strategy that has works 80% of the time is a global passive fund. Momentum Factor has not been around long enough and can be disrupted. Happy to add my first batch of SMT on a >6% discount today.
Alas_Smith - I'm inclined to agree. You can't lump all ITs together to draw any meaningful conclusions. Robleo - I'd caution too much reliance on dividend payers. Some dividends may look high, only because the share price gets ahead of itself. That may not mean the dividend always stays high. The share price could equally come back down to earth, followed by an almost inevitable dividend cut. Lloyds isn't a company I'd want to put a quarter of my retirement pot into. Its long term historical share price suggests why. But I appreciate 2008 in particular had a pretty devastating impact on it from which it has yet to recover.
OWLS, your latest remark is absolute tripe. Some IT’s have an atrocious track record and others brilliant. There will ALWAYS be equity star performers which, in turn become the benchmark for an index or a sector.
But to tar all IT’s as having a poor track record is ridiculous. SMT has had a decent run in the past BECAUSE there was one (or more) holdings that did well. I am banking that those will continue to do well and be joined by others
Investment trusts overall perform worse than the market. SMT has done well in the past but this is no guarantee that it will do well in the future. The only strategies that have stood the test of time are momentum and defensives.