Intelligent Money - your investment questions answered

[JapanRed]

n3il123 said:

Are there any pages/ replies on the thread that I can read (without having to go through the whole thread) that are good for someone wanting to invest a small amount regularly and also adhoc?

I'm sure that it has been answered about a million times in the past!

It’s really all over the place and difficult to find information. Your best bet is to email [e-mail]

Both Nik and Julian are happy to chat via email or telephone and were super helpful when I opened my accounts with them earlier this year.

[n3il123]

JapanRed said:

It’s really all over the place and difficult to find information. Your best bet is to email [e-mail]

Both Nik and Julian are happy to chat via email or telephone and were super helpful when I opened my accounts with them earlier this year.

Thanks, i thought it would be muddled up, I'm not looking to dump 6 figs into anything so didn't want to waste anyone's time if the info was available easily in the thread.

[Mazinbrum]

I know we shouldn’t be checking our portfolios everyday but the recent Saturday morning updates are much appreciated .

[Tony Angelino]

n3il123 said:

JapanRed said:

It’s really all over the place and difficult to find information. Your best bet is to email [e-mail]

Both Nik and Julian are happy to chat via email or telephone and were super helpful when I opened my accounts with them earlier this year.

Thanks, i thought it would be muddled up, I'm not looking to dump 6 figs into anything so didn't want to waste anyone's time if the info was available easily in the thread.

I'm small fry (judging by some of the figures talked about on here) and have been made to fee more than welcome and Nik was happy to take time with me explaining things despite this, I only put a couple of hundred quid in every payday.

[JulianPH]

n3il123 said:

Are there any pages/ replies on the thread that I can read (without having to go through the whole thread) that are good for someone wanting to invest a small amount regularly and also adhoc?

I'm sure that it has been answered about a million times in the past!

Morning Neil

As Rob said above, emailing Nik is the easiest starting point now this thread has become so long.

Everyone is, of course, different, but a common approach is a blend of using Index trackers as a foundation and then something more targeted (managed by humans) that aims to outperform markets as a whole.

The targeted approach may or may not outperform markets and so having the index tracker foundation hedges against this.

An index tracker simply follows a stock market at low cost without human intervention, and a global index tracker follows world markets in line with their global weighting (so the vast majority of a global tracker exposure will linked to the US markets, then Japan, the UK and the rest of the world). Examples are IM Index and Vanguard All-World

Managed investments can also invest in index trackers yet still have active management (IM Optimum or Vanguard LifeStrategy, for example), but more often they involve individual stock selection (PH Equity or Fundsmith, for example).

You also have the option of reducing risk by adding bonds into the mix. This can be done automatically for you at your selected level (IM Optimum, IM Index and Vanguard Life Strategy are examples of this).

Whilst I have given some example here, I should point out that there are literaly thousands of options available, which can be quite daunting!

IM distil this down to 5 actively managed index tracker portfolios, 5 purely passive index tracker portfolios and 2 actively managed stock selection portfolios.

So with us you just pick the approach (or combination of approaches) you feel comfortable with and we do the rest.

Charges are another important consideration as these impact on your investment returns. IM has total (all inclusive) charges of 0.57% to 0.87% a year and this includes unlimited access to a Private Client Manager (Nik, in your case) who can assist you in all matters of your financial planning and development and also tax planning.

After investment selection then there is the question of shielding your money from tax. An ISA is an excellent way to do this, as is a Pension/SIPP. Most good providers do not even charge for these.

Many people make the mistake of assuming ISAs and pensions are investments. They are not. They are tax allowances that enable you to hold your selected investments tax efficiently.

As this post has become quite longwinded I won't go into these further unless you ask me to!

One final thing, everyone on here knows IM does not give financial advice, but as you are new to this thread I feel I should raise this.

We offer information, guidance, financial planning and tax planning, all of which are not regulated by the FCA (just like the majority of the work undertaken by accountants or solicitors is not) and a range of investment portfolios together with ISA, pension and SIPP management (all of which is very strictly authorised and regulated by the FCA!).

Cheers

Julian

[JulianPH]

jimPH said:

Can you put in more than your ISA limit as a separate account? Got a similar strategy in mind to fund the wife's next car purchase, so a temporary speculation in the meantime is right up my street.

Hi Jim

Yes, you can open up a GIA (General Investment Account).

You just click on add new product on your dashboard and select the GIA, then fund it.

Cheers

Julian

[JulianPH]

dingg said:

Yes you can open a gia (General investment account) to run alongside your isa

Thanks for that Grant!

[JulianPH]

Fatlad1973 said:

Hi IM,

A bit of a change from the PH Recovery banter (although it's definitely an option I'm interested in): my SIPP is currently in AJ Bell and I have really enjoyed the transparency and autonomy compared with the Zurich 'executive' pension I was previously in.

My biggest investment related beef is with the managed fund industry's abject failure to admit that they are worse than trackers over a long period. So I like my all-Vanguard mix of trackers: FTSE 100 (for higher dividends and global balance), FTSE 250 (for higher growth), Global emerging companies (because... well global and emerging must mean high risk so high long term reward, right?) and the targeted retirement 2035 because... well I'm 47 now so 2035 seemed a good shout.

I recently found this thread and I'm loving the tone of the responses. I do no asset allocation beyond the thought process above and the only element of rebalancing would be the automatic element in the Vanguard 2035 fund: I came into Covid with close to a 100% equity portfolio and I'm OK with that. I'd like to think of my portfolio as something my kids can pass to their kids, but failing that even if it's just to sustain me it's hopefully got 20+ years to run.

I know you don't 'sell' yourselves, but if you could explain a bit more what the active management of a range of passive funds is and how you increase return without increasing risk I would be most grateful. Basically, should I be transferring at least a chunk of my SIPP to IM?

Morning Brian

I will answer your question below, but the bottom line is AJ Bell is a great company (and Andy Bell is a top bloke) and Vanguard offer great low cost funds.

So whilst we would warmly welcome you as an IM Private Client and be able to offer additional services to you, there is also an element of if it is not broke, there is no need to fix it!

Active management of passive funds is a mechanism that allows the selection (and amendment) of the underlying weightings, rather than just using global market capitalisation.

It is effectively exactly what you are already doing with your Vanguard tracker selections!

The aim is to provide similar investment returns at reduced risk/volatility and part of the way we do this by having a UK bias.

Historically this has worked very well, but a combination of oil taking such a huge hit (and UK markets being so weighted towards oil and energy stocks) and Covid 19 led to this tactic not working this time round.

So IM Optimum Global Growth (managed passives with a UK bias) has been hit harder than the completely passive IM Index 100 (with its huge US bias due to global market capitalisation).

You are right that most managers do not outperform trackers over time (and charges also play a part in this) but there are some rare exceptions.

You might want to take a look at PH Equity!

Please feel free to PM me or email Nik ([e-mail]) if you would like to have a chat about any of this in more depth and thank you for your kind words regarding the tone of our responses.

Cheers

Julian

[JulianPH]

Ron-ski said:

Some typo's on the website https://private-client.intelligentmoney.com/ph-equ...

"PH Recovery

This portfolio aims to provide capital growth from a Covid 19 recovery investment strategy in 16 stocks stocks that we consider are fundamentally sound (or are important enough tofor strong government backing), but are now available at a significant discount"

Thanks Ron-ski

Everything I touch ends up with typos!

I'll get Laura to fix them in the morning.

Cheers

[JulianPH]

Mazinbrum said:

I know we shouldn’t be checking our portfolios everyday but the recent Saturday morning updates are much appreciated .

Cheers Maris!

[JulianPH]

Tony Angelino said:

n3il123 said:

JapanRed said:

It’s really all over the place and difficult to find information. Your best bet is to email [e-mail]

Both Nik and Julian are happy to chat via email or telephone and were super helpful when I opened my accounts with them earlier this year.

Thanks, i thought it would be muddled up, I'm not looking to dump 6 figs into anything so didn't want to waste anyone's time if the info was available easily in the thread.

I'm small fry (judging by some of the figures talked about on here) and have been made to fee more than welcome and Nik was happy to take time with me explaining things despite this, I only put a couple of hundred quid in every payday.

Thanks for highlighting this Tony.

We are more than happy to help any PHer regardless of the amounts involved, or indeed, regardless of whether they decide to invest with IM or not.

Of course it is great when people become clients, but the whole point of this thread is to give something back to the PH community that has given me so much over the years.

[dingg]

JulianPH said:

dingg said:

Yes you can open a gia (General investment account) to run alongside your isa

Thanks for that Grant!



De nada

I'm not looking for a job honest guv

[BritPop]

Hi Julian

A minor feature request, but would it be possible to have a summary tab on the client dashboard which lists all the accounts and their values? At the moment, when I log in it defaults to the "My Pensions" tab.

Not a big deal, but would be nice to have

[JulianPH]

dingg said:

JulianPH said:

dingg said:

Yes you can open a gia (General investment account) to run alongside your isa

Thanks for that Grant!



De nada

I'm not looking for a job honest guv

You would be welcome!

[JulianPH]

BritPop said:

Hi Julian

A minor feature request, but would it be possible to have a summary tab on the client dashboard which lists all the accounts and their values? At the moment, when I log in it defaults to the "My Pensions" tab.

Not a big deal, but would be nice to have

Hi BritPop

We already have something similar built into the next software release whereby your home page when you log in will show the combined value of all of your accounts.

I can ask the team if they can also list each account separately under this.

Good call!

Julian

[B9]

Hi Julian, Nik

I used the Manage > Transfer process on Thursday from Cash to PHR - Just checking when we can expect to see this take effect in case I've made a mistake?

[JerryDXB]

Possibly the most frivolous PH Recovery question for the day but why is mine shown in a murky green ...



Whereas Mrs Jerry’s is shown in a much more pleasant blue ...

[JerryDXB]

B9 said:

Hi Julian, Nik

I used the Manage > Transfer process on Thursday from Cash to PHR - Just checking when we can expect to see this take effect in case I've made a mistake?

I did the same (I think), had an email confirmation from Dan on Friday stating that it would be done today and, as you’ll see from my previous post, this has happened.

[JulianPH]

JerryDXB said:

Possibly the most frivolous PH Recovery question for the day but why is mine shown in a murky green ...



Whereas Mrs Jerry’s is shown in a much more pleasant blue ...

And mine is showing in a hideous bright green!

The honest answer is that I really don't know, it seems to be randomly generating a colour for it. I'll get Laura to select a nice colour and have the team apply this to everyone.

Cheers

Julian

[JulianPH]

JerryDXB said:

B9 said:

Hi Julian, Nik

I used the Manage > Transfer process on Thursday from Cash to PHR - Just checking when we can expect to see this take effect in case I've made a mistake?

I did the same (I think), had an email confirmation from Dan on Friday stating that it would be done today and, as you’ll see from my previous post, this has happened.

Hi B9 and Jerry

Yes, if you refresh it is showing.

If not - contact Nik or me in case you did make a mistake.

Cheers

Julian