Managed Funds: What Has Been Your Experience?

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  Diji1 on 13/06/2017 - 10:25

  The only fund worth looking at is one where the investors own the fund such as by owning shares in the fund equivalent to the value of their investment. This is because any other structure provides an incentive to rob you collect fees.

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  AlloAllo on 13/06/2017 - 10:29

  My best managed fund experience has been with passive Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs).
  An introduction to ETFs can be found here:
  http://www.asx.com.au/products/etf-and-other-etp.htm
  BlackRock iShares, State Street SPDRs and Vanguard ETFs are some of the bigger providers:
  https://www.blackrock.com/au/individual/ishares
  https://www.spdrs.com.au/
  https://www.vanguardinvestments.com.au/adviser/common/html/m…
  They are passively managed and are designed to deliver a return equal to the relevant market index (say the ASX200) less fees. They generally won't outperform the market, but won't underperform it either. They go up when the market goes up and down when the market goes down. Not sexy, but true to label.
  Fees are generally low (0.15% p.a. for example on the iShare ASX200 ETF - IOZ).
  Purchase and sale is easy via an online share broker (like CommSec etc).
  Wide range of ETFs to choose from (different markets).
  Understand the benefits and risks. They won't suit all.

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  Almost Banned on 13/06/2017 - 11:19

  I invested in managed funds when each of my children was born.
  The results were mixed, but generally fairly poor and fees too high.
  Ended up cashing them all in.

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  Oofy Doofy on 13/06/2017 - 23:07

  Would personally just stick to stock standard diversified index funds mate. Let somebody else sort out all the rebalancing and tax for you too.

  Start with checking out what Vanguard offers.

  ETFs are more work, so there's that, but if you don't mind being more involved for rebalancing and at tax time, it'll suit you. You'll save a little more on fees with them too, generally. In saying that, a few online brokers now make the tax side of things very easy, as they auto compile a few pages for you to do your taxes.

  I have somewhat of a complex selection of ETFs targeting income, but I'm cashing them out and popping them into a balanced index fund setup from Vanguard (maybe somebody else, but I haven't had a look yet).

  I'm using smart betas and all that atm, a mix of things. Not recommended for the faint of heart, and after all is said and done, I'm not much better off than using a 'nothing fancy' approach.

  Look up an article called 'Make them pay'. I basically copied (mostly) what that article advised.

  Some managed funds have been making 15% per year since inception, for a long ass time. Each to their own I guess. Some investments will offer consistent 10% returns for income with no increase in share value, but they want 5 months to release your funds if you want to cash out.

  So many caveats to these things.

  Read Money magazine and take photos of articles relevant to things you're interested in, or for further reading when you look them up online.

  I could talk all night about this, but it's best you just ask lots of questions, read a lot and do plenty of homework.

  Feel free to PM me if you like.

  Oh, and your investment horizon should be for at least 5 years or so to be worthwhile. Otherwise an income strategy is really all you can do in the meantime. It all depends on what you're looking to achieve within a certain period of time.

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  sydsm on 28/09/2017 - 14:19

  stumbled upon this thread - seems like nobody has made the 15% PA returns most funds online seem to be reporting.