r00lish67
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Post by r00lish67 on Jan 21, 2019 13:10:47 GMT
I'm under no illusions as to my total lack of market edge
I couldn't resist inserting my two-cents worth here:
There is no such thing as a market edge. If there were, the Carribean would be rammed full of wealthy centilionaires.
The holy grail of the "market edge" for what it is, largely comes form intangible such as, but not limited to:
Your attitude to (and ability to safely afford) risk. If you can't stand the thought of any part of your portfolio being "in the red", then you're never really going to have much of an "edge" because you're just going to be following the rest of the sheep in the middle of the road for very meagre returns.
I'm not saying go crazy and "put it all on red", only ever take risks once you've correctly evaluated them. The other side of the "edge" is avoiding risk. Stay the $@$! away from leverage, from businesses you don't even begin to comprehend, from illiquid small-caps etc. etc.
You have a lot of "edge" through time. Stay the *@£@* away from day-trading, you're only fighting a loosing battle against the HFTs who have clever mathematical geniuses and lots of very fast computers and all the best live data. You should only ever be making decisions on a mid-term-plus horizon (i.e. months to years).
Similarly, as a "retail" investor, you do actually have a surprising amount of edge in the form of being unconstrained. You are not constrained by the regulatory framework, you are not constrained by mandates imposed on you by your employer or your clients (or both !). You can invest in whatever you like, for however long you like, whenever you like and you don't have to explain yourself to anyone except yourself (and maybe your significant other !).
Building on the above, being unconstrained means you have a wider "investible universe" at your disposal. I'm not saying FTSE100, NASDAQ and S&P500 are all bad, but lets face it, they are researched and traded to death by every man and his dog. I'm not saying don't have any of them in your portfolio, I'm just saying the "real" opportunities are to be had in the wider markets (both globally and locally speaking).
As for funds. All I would say is be weary of the double-edged sword nature. There are some good ones out there for sure. But there are others that only offer mediocre performance. Also be weary of fees and holdings overlap. In the case of pure-passives, also be weary of replication method and tracking error. Do your homework, being passive doesn't mean you can be passive on the homework front !
The stockmarket is a great place to be. Personally I view it as much lower risk than P2P for many reasons (most people in P2P don't even begin to comprehend the nature of the risks they're taking on in return for those high-percentage headline rates). Yes there's no escaping the need to do homework, but ultimately equities are well proven to be worth it for those who operate on mid-long term horizons.
Totally agree, esp. with "You have a lot of "edge" through time". Also agree that P2P is a far riskier proposition. My head continues to tell me that doing something like these guys is actually what I should be doing with my capital (in my particular circumstance). I don't think I'd ever go with 100% equities, but I can certainly see the logic. Meanwhile, no matter how clever you think you are with P2P it's just too easy for there to be totally devastating and unpredictable circumstances to destroy your returns/capital. It's just a shame that equities investing is so damn boring compared to P2P!
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r00lish67
Member of DD Central
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Post by r00lish67 on Jan 21, 2019 15:12:58 GMT
It's just a shame that equities investing is so damn boring compared to P2P!
I guess it depends how you define boring.
Some may derive enjoyment out of the research process. Finding those obscure Japanese mid-caps that make widgets used in the manufacturing process of gadgets and that have a 70% marketshare. Or sniffing out the British drinks companies back in the days when they were already well underway bashing out quality product but underappreciated by the markets.
Some may derive enjoyment out of picking and beating some benchmark index.
Or if you want something a bit more adventurous, you could always try your hand at risk arb. Find some recently announced M&A deal with enough of a risk spread on it and buy shares in the target company, then just leave it to the passage of time. (I can't stress the word announced enough. Risk arb deals with events, not rumours !!!). Divestitures and IPOs also provide similar types of opportunities for the adventurous.
I'd be interested in all of the above, but I think it more depends how you define your own approach to equities investing. My definition is 'deploy funds in passive tracker and leave for (just about) ever', which is pretty effective and dreadfully dull. As per the nibblet you extracted from my comment this morning, as much as I'd love to try my hand at ferreting out gems I just don't have the capital to spare in proving what I thought I might know but turns out I didn't. If that makes sense 
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Post by faraday815 on Jan 28, 2019 16:06:49 GMT
Echoing what some others have already said, don't invest anything meaningful into things you don't understand. Read Tim Hale's Smarter Investing and understand index funds. Invest via Vanguard or other low cost trackers of your choosing.
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macq
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Post by macq on Jan 28, 2019 17:37:19 GMT
Echoing what some others have already said, don't invest anything meaningful into things you don't understand. Read Tim Hale's Smarter Investing and understand index funds. Invest via Vanguard or other low cost trackers of your choosing. Not sure how highly you rate the book? - but if looking at passive investing maybe you could save the £20 for your first investment payment and read the Monevator blog(and maybe callaborative fund blog from the states) and the MSE,Lemon Fool and bogleheads forums
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macq
Member of DD Central
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Post by macq on Jan 28, 2019 21:11:38 GMT
Probably right about being wary - yet here we are all giving our views and reading a forum anyway  |
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Post by faraday815 on Jan 29, 2019 9:44:53 GMT
Echoing what some others have already said, don't invest anything meaningful into things you don't understand. Read Tim Hale's Smarter Investing and understand index funds. Invest via Vanguard or other low cost trackers of your choosing. Not sure how highly you rate the book? - but if looking at passive investing maybe you could save the £20 for your first investment payment and read the Monevator blog(and maybe callaborative fund blog from the states) and the MSE,Lemon Fool and bogleheads forums It's a good book, and all those resources you called out are also very good (haven't heard of Lemon Fool though).
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Post by dan1 on Jan 29, 2019 9:55:54 GMT
Not sure how highly you rate the book? - but if looking at passive investing maybe you could save the £20 for your first investment payment and read the Monevator blog(and maybe callaborative fund blog from the states) and the MSE,Lemon Fool and bogleheads forums It's a good book, and all those resources you called out are also very good (haven't heard of Lemon Fool though). Launched following the closure of The Motley Fool (www.fool.co.uk) forum, I believe.
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james100
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Post by james100 on Jan 31, 2019 12:45:13 GMT
Lemon Fool is an excellent place to hang out! In addition to the more obvious equity-based discussions there's heaps on other investments from bonds, to whiskey and cannabis investing. Generous portfolio review section and good discussions on FIRE etc. Well worth a few hours poking around, whatever you're in to.
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Post by brettb on Apr 24, 2019 23:52:29 GMT
Some good stuff in this thread, I'll check it all out some time.
I was heavily into P2P from 2014 - 2015 but have now scaled it back to just over 5% of my assets. I've taken some bad losses on FS, Lendy and Bondora but I'm probably still ahead.
I've just found a buyer for my BTL. I just couldn't make the numbers add up and on top of having to repair virtually everything in the property it turned out it would cost a fortune to extend the lease. I'll take the money and search for anything else that generates income.
I had some reasonable income from it but repairs, letting agencies and the tax man ultimately wanted too much of a slice of the pie.
I've started buying some individual stocks. I've got BATS and IMB - the share prices are going nowhere but they're good divi payers. Maybe all that Brexit angst will be good for business.
I've also got the Big Box REIT. This is an ecommerce play. I'm currently teaching English in China. Online shopping is huge here and so the UK is going to need more Big Box warehouses in future if it's going to embrace online shopping as much as they have in Asia and the US.
I got some Belvoir too - they have a good yield and it makes up for selling my BTL. I'm somewhat of an expert in knowing how much money letting agents make. Belvoir are pretty good - I nearly used them to let my own place out.
Other than that I'm mostly in funds. I like the covered call ones, especially the Schroeders Income Maximiser, the Premier Optimum Income and the UBS and Insight ones. I just love getting dividends. Templeton have some high yielding funds too.
I find the Hargreaves Lansdown site is pretty amazing these days. I've been a long time investor there. Their stock charts are really great, and make up for when iii went and ruined itself.
As for other investment themes, I found a robotics fund (Pictet?). I used to work in tech and I think there's still huge opportunities there. Just not for employees as the industry clearly told me that as a guy in my 40's I should clear off out of it and do something else.
AI could be good too. Google have so much data they worked out which niches were the most profitable. For example search for "water coolers" and all you see are their ads. Now they can apply that knowledge to other industries and provide outsourced cloud services for anything that's gigantically profitable. The stuff too small for Google will still make stacks of cash for startups. I actually bought my BTL after making a small niche software product on my kitchen table.
I've invested a fair bit in Asia. There are a lot of strong and stable governments which is good for business. Europe's been dying for decades. I went to Sicily a couple of years ago and it was a sorry sight. The USA is overvalued and the UK is at a major turning point following the failure of the European integration experiment that's been going on for my entire lifetime.
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hazellend
Member of DD Central
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Post by hazellend on Apr 25, 2019 8:17:25 GMT
Some good stuff in this thread, I'll check it all out some time.
I was heavily into P2P from 2014 - 2015 but have now scaled it back to just over 5% of my assets. I've taken some bad losses on FS, Lendy and Bondora but I'm probably still ahead.
I've just found a buyer for my BTL. I just couldn't make the numbers add up and on top of having to repair virtually everything in the property it turned out it would cost a fortune to extend the lease. I'll take the money and search for anything else that generates income.
I had some reasonable income from it but repairs, letting agencies and the tax man ultimately wanted too much of a slice of the pie.
I've started buying some individual stocks. I've got BATS and IMB - the share prices are going nowhere but they're good divi payers. Maybe all that Brexit angst will be good for business.
I've also got the Big Box REIT. This is an ecommerce play. I'm currently teaching English in China. Online shopping is huge here and so the UK is going to need more Big Box warehouses in future if it's going to embrace online shopping as much as they have in Asia and the US.
I got some Belvoir too - they have a good yield and it makes up for selling my BTL. I'm somewhat of an expert in knowing how much money letting agents make. Belvoir are pretty good - I nearly used them to let my own place out.
Other than that I'm mostly in funds. I like the covered call ones, especially the Schroeders Income Maximiser, the Premier Optimum Income and the UBS and Insight ones. I just love getting dividends. Templeton have some high yielding funds too.
I find the Hargreaves Lansdown site is pretty amazing these days. I've been a long time investor there. Their stock charts are really great, and make up for when iii went and ruined itself.
As for other investment themes, I found a robotics fund (Pictet?). I used to work in tech and I think there's still huge opportunities there. Just not for employees as the industry clearly told me that as a guy in my 40's I should clear off out of it and do something else.
AI could be good too. Google have so much data they worked out which niches were the most profitable. For example search for "water coolers" and all you see are their ads. Now they can apply that knowledge to other industries and provide outsourced cloud services for anything that's gigantically profitable. The stuff too small for Google will still make stacks of cash for startups. I actually bought my BTL after making a small niche software product on my kitchen table.
I've invested a fair bit in Asia. There are a lot of strong and stable governments which is good for business. Europe's been dying for decades. I went to Sicily a couple of years ago and it was a sorry sight. The USA is overvalued and the UK is at a major turning point following the failure of the European integration experiment that's been going on for my entire lifetime.
Stop wasting your time and speculating. You know nothing that the market doesn’t. I laugh when I hear people saying USA is overvalued, everybody says and thinks this, it is what is drilled into our brains by “the noise” Just buy a whole world index tracker and keep buying through thick and thin. TLDR: Vanguard all world ETF or vanguard life strategy fund is all you need, forget that other stuff. DOI: 500k holding in vanguard all world (one fund portfolio)
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Post by queenvictoria on Apr 25, 2019 12:15:30 GMT
Some good stuff in this thread, I'll check it all out some time.
I was heavily into P2P from 2014 - 2015 but have now scaled it back to just over 5% of my assets. I've taken some bad losses on FS, Lendy and Bondora but I'm probably still ahead.
I've just found a buyer for my BTL. I just couldn't make the numbers add up and on top of having to repair virtually everything in the property it turned out it would cost a fortune to extend the lease. I'll take the money and search for anything else that generates income.
I had some reasonable income from it but repairs, letting agencies and the tax man ultimately wanted too much of a slice of the pie.
I've started buying some individual stocks. I've got BATS and IMB - the share prices are going nowhere but they're good divi payers. Maybe all that Brexit angst will be good for business.
I've also got the Big Box REIT. This is an ecommerce play. I'm currently teaching English in China. Online shopping is huge here and so the UK is going to need more Big Box warehouses in future if it's going to embrace online shopping as much as they have in Asia and the US.
I got some Belvoir too - they have a good yield and it makes up for selling my BTL. I'm somewhat of an expert in knowing how much money letting agents make. Belvoir are pretty good - I nearly used them to let my own place out.
Other than that I'm mostly in funds. I like the covered call ones, especially the Schroeders Income Maximiser, the Premier Optimum Income and the UBS and Insight ones. I just love getting dividends. Templeton have some high yielding funds too.
I find the Hargreaves Lansdown site is pretty amazing these days. I've been a long time investor there. Their stock charts are really great, and make up for when iii went and ruined itself.
As for other investment themes, I found a robotics fund (Pictet?). I used to work in tech and I think there's still huge opportunities there. Just not for employees as the industry clearly told me that as a guy in my 40's I should clear off out of it and do something else.
AI could be good too. Google have so much data they worked out which niches were the most profitable. For example search for "water coolers" and all you see are their ads. Now they can apply that knowledge to other industries and provide outsourced cloud services for anything that's gigantically profitable. The stuff too small for Google will still make stacks of cash for startups. I actually bought my BTL after making a small niche software product on my kitchen table.
I've invested a fair bit in Asia. There are a lot of strong and stable governments which is good for business. Europe's been dying for decades. I went to Sicily a couple of years ago and it was a sorry sight. The USA is overvalued and the UK is at a major turning point following the failure of the European integration experiment that's been going on for my entire lifetime.
Stop wasting your time and speculating. You know nothing that the market doesn’t. I laugh when I hear people saying USA is overvalued, everybody says and thinks this, it is what is drilled into our brains by “the noise” Just buy a whole world index tracker and keep buying through thick and thin. TLDR: Vanguard all world ETF or vanguard life strategy fund is all you need, forget that other stuff. DOI: 500k holding in vanguard all world (one fund portfolio) I do exactly the same. All my pension funds are now held in ii (INTERACTIVE INVESTOR)and invested in Vanguard LifeStrategy 80/20 (VANGUARD INVESTMENTS UK LTD LIFESTRATEGY 80 PERCENTAGE EQTY ACC NAV) and L+G (LEGAL & GENERAL(UNIT TRUST MNGRS) INTERNATIONAL INDEX TRUST I ACC). I pay ii £13.99/m and the funds are charged at 0.22% (vanguard) and 0.13% (L+G). Cheap, simple, effective. I restrict my dabbling to P2P where I have around 2% of Net Worth invested (down from around 5% 2 years ago).
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james100
Member of DD Central
Posts: 1,084
Likes: 1,287
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Post by james100 on Apr 25, 2019 17:27:52 GMT
Some good stuff in this thread, I'll check it all out some time.
I was heavily into P2P from 2014 - 2015 but have now scaled it back to just over 5% of my assets. I've taken some bad losses on FS, Lendy and Bondora but I'm probably still ahead.
I've just found a buyer for my BTL. I just couldn't make the numbers add up and on top of having to repair virtually everything in the property it turned out it would cost a fortune to extend the lease. I'll take the money and search for anything else that generates income.
I had some reasonable income from it but repairs, letting agencies and the tax man ultimately wanted too much of a slice of the pie.
I've started buying some individual stocks. I've got BATS and IMB - the share prices are going nowhere but they're good divi payers. Maybe all that Brexit angst will be good for business.
I've also got the Big Box REIT. This is an ecommerce play. I'm currently teaching English in China. Online shopping is huge here and so the UK is going to need more Big Box warehouses in future if it's going to embrace online shopping as much as they have in Asia and the US.
I got some Belvoir too - they have a good yield and it makes up for selling my BTL. I'm somewhat of an expert in knowing how much money letting agents make. Belvoir are pretty good - I nearly used them to let my own place out.
Other than that I'm mostly in funds. I like the covered call ones, especially the Schroeders Income Maximiser, the Premier Optimum Income and the UBS and Insight ones. I just love getting dividends. Templeton have some high yielding funds too.
I find the Hargreaves Lansdown site is pretty amazing these days. I've been a long time investor there. Their stock charts are really great, and make up for when iii went and ruined itself.
As for other investment themes, I found a robotics fund (Pictet?). I used to work in tech and I think there's still huge opportunities there. Just not for employees as the industry clearly told me that as a guy in my 40's I should clear off out of it and do something else.
AI could be good too. Google have so much data they worked out which niches were the most profitable. For example search for "water coolers" and all you see are their ads. Now they can apply that knowledge to other industries and provide outsourced cloud services for anything that's gigantically profitable. The stuff too small for Google will still make stacks of cash for startups. I actually bought my BTL after making a small niche software product on my kitchen table.
I've invested a fair bit in Asia. There are a lot of strong and stable governments which is good for business. Europe's been dying for decades. I went to Sicily a couple of years ago and it was a sorry sight. The USA is overvalued and the UK is at a major turning point following the failure of the European integration experiment that's been going on for my entire lifetime.
I think you would enjoy this book: www.amazon.co.uk/Millionaire-Expat-Wealth-Living-Overseas/dp/1119411890 there's also a blog/forum run by the same author. What matters is that you have an over-arching portfolio strategy with a clear, realistic net total return target (with minimal fees and taxes, especially given your expat status) in your "resting" currency i.e. the currency you'll be predominantly spending it in (generally but not always, retirement), and acceptable expected volatility limits which consider how much you can afford to potentially lose and for how long. Until you have worked that out, it's really not possible to determine whether your investment choices are "good".
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stevio
Member of DD Central
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Post by stevio on Apr 25, 2019 17:50:37 GMT
Stop wasting your time and speculating. You know nothing that the market doesn’t. I laugh when I hear people saying USA is overvalued, everybody says and thinks this, it is what is drilled into our brains by “the noise” Just buy a whole world index tracker and keep buying through thick and thin. TLDR: Vanguard all world ETF or vanguard life strategy fund is all you need, forget that other stuff. DOI: 500k holding in vanguard all world (one fund portfolio) I do exactly the same. All my pension funds are now held in ii (INTERACTIVE INVESTOR)and invested in Vanguard LifeStrategy 80/20 (VANGUARD INVESTMENTS UK LTD LIFESTRATEGY 80 PERCENTAGE EQTY ACC NAV) and L+G (LEGAL & GENERAL(UNIT TRUST MNGRS) INTERNATIONAL INDEX TRUST I ACC). I pay ii £13.99/m and the funds are charged at 0.22% (vanguard) and 0.13% (L+G). Cheap, simple, effective. I restrict my dabbling to P2P where I have around 2% of Net Worth invested (down from around 5% 2 years ago). vanguard life strategy fund has a relatively huge UK bias in the equity, 25% vs 6% weight of the UK in the global market P2P teaches dabbling and diversification
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hazellend
Member of DD Central
Posts: 2,363
Likes: 2,180
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Post by hazellend on Apr 25, 2019 19:12:18 GMT
I do exactly the same. All my pension funds are now held in ii (INTERACTIVE INVESTOR)and invested in Vanguard LifeStrategy 80/20 (VANGUARD INVESTMENTS UK LTD LIFESTRATEGY 80 PERCENTAGE EQTY ACC NAV) and L+G (LEGAL & GENERAL(UNIT TRUST MNGRS) INTERNATIONAL INDEX TRUST I ACC). I pay ii £13.99/m and the funds are charged at 0.22% (vanguard) and 0.13% (L+G). Cheap, simple, effective. I restrict my dabbling to P2P where I have around 2% of Net Worth invested (down from around 5% 2 years ago). vanguard life strategy fund has a relatively huge UK bias in the equity, 25% vs 6% weight of the UK in the global market P2P teaches dabbling and diversification I use the all world etf to avoid the U.K. bias but vanguard have a pretty good argument for a bit of home country bias
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Post by gravitykillz on May 11, 2019 20:04:45 GMT
Thinking of investing £1k in metro bank shares if it hits £4.80 on Monday. Am I crazy ? I think if kept for 24 months could give me a decent profit. Not to mention this is fast becoming a possible takeover target.
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