You are absolutely spot on TB. Institutional investors are sitting on their hands becuase they are being scared out of the equity markets by the hedge and bond funds. Both are short equities and long bonds and will devote any time and resources they have to use the hapless media idiots to peddle apocalypse scenarios helpful to their positions. As we saw from yesterdays' snap back rally the market is getting tired of bein sat on by these crooks. Sadly the the institutional funds continue to watch from the sidelines as a lot of money is now run by kiddies barely out of school. Gibbs, Nutt , Woodford and others like them have it all before. They may not always get it right but at least they have the experience that many of the current grop of fund managers lack. By the time the herd begins to put their money to work the future value of the pensions many of their customers were hoping to get will have been substantially lowered. Hedge funds and some of the large bond funds are mugging us on a daily basis. Do your own research and back up the truck - dont give your future wealth to the Mayfair muggers.

Hi Terence

I am glad you are pointing out one of the higher yielding FTSE100 companies.

You may be interested in our write-up on National Grid's dividend history and prospects, at http://www.early-retirem...d-dividend-history.html

Best

Steven Dotsch
Editor
www.Early-Retirement-Investor.com

Thanks for the feedback Jeremy. I will stay with Centamin for the moment. I also do country diversification, mainly Asia (but not Japan). I'm sure the US and the EU will come back, but I don't feel it is quite yet. I will have a look at the Greenwich Loan Income Fund - and I agree about dividends being a bit unreliable! Lloyds, Persimmon etc etc.....

Joe Soap is right.

People who bought and held index trackers, invested via churning unit trusts or commission grabbing advisers are certainly down. Those who paid attention to their own affairs are well up.

I agree with Ines about unit trusts being expensive, even with supermarket discounts. I use investment trusts and REITs myself . ETFs are generally cheap and good to access particular markets or sectors, currently through Invesco Powershares Palisades Global Agriculture Fund based in Dublin. I have been thinking of swapping it for an agriculture themed investment trust. You can use ETFs to access sectors not represented in the UK market such as steel companies.

The trouble with ETFs is that they tend to mimic indices which is generally not good. There is very little alternative for access to some countries such as Brazil. A few that apply some kind of selection process such as the Lyxor Eurostoxx 50 Dividends or iShares FTSE UK Div PLus and the Powershares RAFI series of intelligent trackers are worth a look. All in the right conditions. But some of the agriculture and commodities ETFs and ETCs are a lot more complicated than they look involving futures and all kinds of expensive dealing. Gold can be either the physical metal or all kinds of derivatives. You really have to do your research and understand what you are getting into.

Over the years I have probably broken even in ETFs and their relatives. Covered warrants on the other hand have generally been a disaster in my attempts to call the market.