Education

Interesting FT Articles on Fund Performance , Nick Train and Executive Pay

There have been some very interesting articles in the FT in the last few days. On the 25th February John Authers discussed market timing and passive versus active management. He quoted consumer research group Dalbar who have compared active and passive funds. Although passive funds have beaten active funds in the long term, because of their lower costs, investors in active funds have received higher returns in the last 15 years. How can that be? It's because to quote: "Holders of ...

Asset Management Market Study

I commented previously on the FCA's Asset Management Market Study, which suggested there was weak competition in this market. Needless to say, most asset managers do not seem to agree. ShareSoc has now submitted a response to the questions raised in that document which you can read here: Asset-Management-Market-Study-Response-2017-02-21. In summary, we agree with the general conclusions and support regulatory intervention where necessary. We also note that although the study does not address the issue directly of financial education, it is our view ...

Brexit, Industrial Strategy and Productivity

What next now that we are committed to Brexit? Well first we need an "industrial strategy" to help us develop a new place in the world and possibly to pay for the up to £60 billion that might be demanded by the EU (as settlement for outstanding commitments if you believe that - yes divorce can be expensive). Now it just so happens that the Government has just published a Green Paper entitled "Building our Industrial Strategy" on that topic which ...

Share Tipsters Poor Performance in 2016

There was an article published on stock screens in the last edition of the ShareSoc Informer Newsletter which has just been issued. It reviewed a number of published screens and the performance overall was poor, mainly because few of them tipped mining or oil sector stocks. So how did the national newspapers share tipsters perform in comparison? Private Eye just published a report on that subject. It said only one national newspaper, the Sunday Times, beat the index with its collective tips. ...

Learning from the Experts 2 – Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust

A previous blog post covered how one could learn from experts such as Harry Nimmo at Standard Life UK Smaller Companies Trust. Another company, but a very different one, I hold is Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (SMT) and I thought this comment in their recently received Interim Report was worthy of note: "Outlook: There is a strong structural asymmetry in equity market returns, given the potential for a successful company to grow to many times its size. This means it is of ...

FCA Study of Asset Management – Interesting Interim Results

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published an interim report on its Asset Management Market Study. Some of the results are not that surprising, but others are. For example, it reports that around half of retail investors were not aware that they were paying fund charges. Needless to point out perhaps that can be linked to another conclusion. Namely that there is weak price competition. How can investors be expected to compare prices when they are not even aware of the charges? Indeed ...

Do Active Funds Underperform? But Costs are the Real Problem

On the 24 October the Financial Times FTfm supplement led with a front page article that was headlined "99% of Active US equity funds underperform". It also had a sub heading of "Almost all UK, global and EM funds have failed to outperform since 2006". So I sent a letter to the Editor which said the following, much of which they have published today (31/10/2016) plus letters from other writers making the same point. This is what my letter said: "Your headline in ...

Learning From The Experts

One way to learn about how to invest successfully is to follow the style and rules of the experts. Yesterday (27/10/2016) I attended the AGM of Standard Life UK...

Wealth Manager’s Charges Still High

There were a couple of interesting articles in the FT over the weekend (27/8/2016) on the costs to investors of having someone else manage your portfolio. Data from Grant Thornton suggests that investors who buy investment advice and financial products from mass market investment groups are still paying 2.56% per annum on average. This is only down from 2.86% in 2012 when the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) which unbundled product commissions was expected to reduce them substantially. Indeed product costs may have ...

Book Review – Invest In The Best

The book Invest In the Best, written by Keith Ashworth-Lord, has recently been published. I am familiar with Keith's work (he currently runs the Sanford DeLand UK Buffettology Fund which has been performing very well), because he presented at a ShareSoc Masterclass event. I also remember reading the Analyst publication many years ago to which he was a major contributor and which very much influenced my own investment style. The subtitle of this book is "Applying the principles of Warren Buffett for ...

Cash or Shares. Which is Better?

An interesting article in Saturday's FTMoney (18/6/2016) by Paul Lewis suggested that you might be surprised to learn that if you had invested £10,000 in a cash account in 1998, you would have done better than investing in a FTSE-100 index tracker. It's surely odd for the Financial Times to persuade their own readers that cash is better than equities because a choice of cash might mean they no longer needed to read the FT - they could just use a ...

Where Bonds are Concerned, Trust No-One

The news that the holders of Lloyds bonds (ECNs) have lost their legal battle in the Supreme Court reinforces the message that when it comes to investing in bonds, you should trust nobody - not the issuer of the bonds, your friendly stockbrokers and wealth managers who advise you, or the FCA to protect your interests. The bondholders won their case initially in the lower courts, that Lloyds should not be able to force redemption of these bonds at par. But after ...