Where do you invest personally?

Nath

Bit of lighthearted fun really more than anything else, but I'm actually quite interested in where other paraplanners personally invest.

I appreciate people will be at different stages of their journey but I'll start.

I'm 'almost' 42 so at least 20 years before retiring and have a Vanguard SIPP invested in 100% equities in the Vanguard Global All Cap fund with a smaller % also in their Global Small Cap and Emerging markets tracker.

My children's investments also in the Global All Cap.

My AE pension with my employer I couldn't choose so is with NEST and have moved away from default into the Sharia fund as this again had the highest equity exposure and risk level.

Just generally interested in what other paraplanners do. E.g. if in house paraplanner, do you use your own firm CIP or pick your own.

Andy_Schleider

I have a bit of a mixture:
I invest a fair amount each month into my Fidelity S&S ISA, in the Artemis US Select. I withdrew a quarter of the investment a few months back and it's more than made back what I took out.
My pension has been consolidated and is invested in (what Aviva consider to be) higher risk funds, including Rathbone Global Opps, Stewart Investors Asia Pacific Leaders, Blackrock China Opps. Very little UK exposure. My performance graph looks a bit like the Valco tick as it took a 30% hit in March, had recovered by July and kept on climbing (apart from a small plateau in Sep/Oct).
I also invested in Octopus Choice in July 2019, as I was able to get just over 4% on a fairly safe investment. Obviously Covid has battered it, to the extent that I can only access around 60% of the funds, but I never saw it as a short term investment so expect it to sort itself out in the mid-to-longer term.
For the kids, we started an ISA for them early, so we put lumps in Fidelity UK Special Sits (when Anthony Bolton was looking after it), First State Asia Pacific, a China fund before China took off plus a couple of other funds which have done really rather well.

They've mostly been self selected; I did get some tips for a couple of funds on the way, but all in all I'm happy with my choices

Nath

Thanks for replying Andy. So you are definitely in the active/stock picking camp then based on those choices. What do you normally base your choices on and what allocations etc if you are choosing funds. Its interesting that you are putting all of your monthly savings into mainly US equity markets only. Do you have a set allocation for your portfolio or is it more about trying to pick the winners?

Andy_Schleider

I don't really have a set allocation - for example with my Aviva pension I redirected the premiums by altering the percentages rather than the funds until fairly recently when I dumped a couple off that were never really going to perform well and put them in something different which turned out to be a good choice. I do have a little UK exposure, but I found that N America and emerging markets have served me well over the years (as well as that China fund!). I reckon I still have at least 20 years ahead of me before I start thinking about retirement (it will certainly be after I start drawing the state pension!) so I still have the luxury of time in the pointy end of the markets and am not thinking of volatility control just yet.

So I guess it's trying to pick the winners!

Nath

Yeah same for me with allocation, time is on my side so global equities all round. I've just gone cheap and simple with globally diversified trackers. Didnt want lifestrategy purely due to overweight UK exposure.

DanAtkinsonUK

You guys might like https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Invest-My-Money-Finance/dp/0857198084 which I'm dipping in/out of. I've got one part in an Impact portfolio and others in an ESG indexing type strategy. Need to review it later in 2021 alongside my GPP.

Andy_Schleider

shock not Amazon Smile @DanAtkinsonUK ??!!

benjaminfabi

Mostly Wheb and Hermes impact funds since 2018. A little bit in VLS 100%

DanAtkinsonUK

> @Andy_Schleider said:
> shock not Amazon Smile @DanAtkinsonUK ??!!

Couldn’t work out how to do the link... All our Amazon spending is via Smile with proceeds to Tommy’s.