Funds Insider - Opening the door to funds

Welcome to the Citywire Funds Insider Forums, where members share investment ideas and discuss everything to do with their money.

You'll need to log in or set up an account to start new discussions or reply to existing ones. See you inside!

Notification

Icon
Error

Harry Trout's Portfolio
Newbie
Posted: 02 November 2023 18:46:02(UTC)

Joined: 31/01/2012(UTC)
Posts: 3,816

Thanks: 6009 times
Was thanked: 7025 time(s) in 2602 post(s)
Did you get rid of the Gilt allocation in your portfolio completely ?
1 user thanked Newbie for this post.
Harry Trout on 03/11/2023(UTC)
Harry Trout
Posted: 03 November 2023 09:08:04(UTC)

Joined: 08/06/2014(UTC)
Posts: 1,012

Thanks: 3965 times
Was thanked: 3537 time(s) in 821 post(s)
Newbie;284750 wrote:
Did you get rid of the Gilt allocation in your portfolio completely ?

No, so far I have been holding gilts to maturity. Here is an analysis of 54.4% "Non Equities" figure in my previous post to show you what gilts I hold and their relative weighting

Oct 23 Non Equities Breakdown


Mrs T also has a decent chunk of gilts, hers are slightly longer dated on average.
5 users thanked Harry Trout for this post.
Guest on 03/11/2023(UTC), Jon.Snow on 03/11/2023(UTC), Jay P on 11/11/2023(UTC), Newbie on 11/11/2023(UTC), Charles Light on 03/12/2023(UTC)
MarkSp
Posted: 11 November 2023 13:38:07(UTC)

Joined: 02/02/2020(UTC)
Posts: 2,176

Thanks: 282 times
Was thanked: 5797 time(s) in 1715 post(s)
HT

I can't recall if you were using gilts for Tax reasons as they were un-wrappered but, all of that is 2 years or less. A bit lopsided for 50% of your portfolio?
2 users thanked MarkSp for this post.
Harry Trout on 11/11/2023(UTC), PW2021 on 11/11/2023(UTC)
Harry Trout
Posted: 11 November 2023 17:39:40(UTC)

Joined: 08/06/2014(UTC)
Posts: 1,012

Thanks: 3965 times
Was thanked: 3537 time(s) in 821 post(s)
MarkSp;285790 wrote:
I can't recall if you were using gilts for Tax reasons as they were un-wrappered but, all of that is 2 years or less. A bit lopsided for 50% of your portfolio?

No, the gilts are all in wrapped accounts

I think your question is asking why the 50% non equity part of my portfolio is so short dated?

Just over a year ago I started some detailed modelling to find out what return we really need from our investments.

The answer is less than the 5% that you can currently get on short dated gilts, MMFs and ERNS. So I'm happy with that for now. Mrs T has longer dated gilts and a decent amount in high yield bonds.

Our youngest of two is an assumed 8 years from becoming financially independent so we have a sequence of returns risk in the meantime.

Hence why our investments have been so risk-off since the global equity peak of December 2021.

However, I can see us dialing up the risk a bit going forward. This is because our passive income is now growing a lot faster than our expenses, Thus we can probably trade a bit of income for growth soon.

"Win by not losing"

"Winning" in this context is not running out of money

None of the above pulls a crowd at parties but we do sleep soundly enough.
4 users thanked Harry Trout for this post.
Jay P on 11/11/2023(UTC), Guest on 11/11/2023(UTC), Jon.Snow on 12/11/2023(UTC), Chalky W on 09/01/2024(UTC)
Harry Trout
Posted: 28 November 2023 07:50:43(UTC)

Joined: 08/06/2014(UTC)
Posts: 1,012

Thanks: 3965 times
Was thanked: 3537 time(s) in 821 post(s)
Harry Trout;285804 wrote:
MarkSp;285790 wrote:
I can't recall if you were using gilts for Tax reasons as they were un-wrappered but, all of that is 2 years or less. A bit lopsided for 50% of your portfolio?


Mrs T has longer dated gilts and a decent amount in high yield bonds.


Thank you to MarkSp who has got me thinking about my asset allocation, together with various forum posts recently on asset allocation and permanent portfolios etc

So I've crunched the numbers and created a new report which looks across both our portfolios with HL and Vanguard. So this is the consolidated investment portfolio by asset type:

Oct 23 Asset Allocation

"Cash & Equivalents" is cash, ERNS and Money Market Funds. Gilts are mostly shorter dated. Bonds are less than I thought - these are all high yielding and all in Mrs T's portfolio. I might start buying some for mine.

In addition to the investment portfolio above we have roughly 6 years of expenses in a term deposits ladder

So pretty conservative which is food for thought. As I've said before I see me increasing the equity allocation over time.

Something to monitor and think about; I am particular enjoying the discussions on the forum around the permanent portfolio and can see how a better understanding of that could play a role in how I structure my portfolio going forward ........
6 users thanked Harry Trout for this post.
Evies Dad on 28/11/2023(UTC), Jay P on 28/11/2023(UTC), Jon.Snow on 28/11/2023(UTC), Helen L on 29/11/2023(UTC), L.P. on 29/11/2023(UTC), Wave Action on 07/12/2023(UTC)
Harry Trout
Posted: 03 December 2023 08:35:56(UTC)

Joined: 08/06/2014(UTC)
Posts: 1,012

Thanks: 3965 times
Was thanked: 3537 time(s) in 821 post(s)
Here are my transactions for November in Hargreaves Lansdown

Nov 23 Summary

In recent months equities tended to rise early in the month and give back some of their gains in the second half. So I held on to my brought forward cash thinking it might happen again.

In November equities didn't give up their early gains so I plonked a fair amount into ERNS later in the month. This is why the equity allocation has only risen a small amount for what was a great month for equities (VWRL up 5.2%)

I moved £20k into SIPP Drawdown in November which has all gone through and the £5k tax free amount has arrived into my personal bank account. So I am up the drawdown learning curve a bit now. I will use up most of the £15k remaining in drawing out my 23_24 personal allowance. So this is all in Vanguard MMF in my drawdown account waiting for that.

And here are the results for the sub portfolio of individual stocks that I started in September 2012

Shares Nov 23
2 users thanked Harry Trout for this post.
Wave Action on 07/12/2023(UTC), Jay P on 03/01/2024(UTC)
Harry Trout
Posted: 02 January 2024 16:59:08(UTC)

Joined: 08/06/2014(UTC)
Posts: 1,012

Thanks: 3965 times
Was thanked: 3537 time(s) in 821 post(s)
Happy New Year to you all. December was a quiet month, here is a summary of transactions

Dec 23 Summary

December was quite a good month for income so I would expect to have a few more transactions to report for January .......

1 user thanked Harry Trout for this post.
Wave Action on 03/01/2024(UTC)
Harry Trout
Posted: 03 January 2024 07:06:36(UTC)

Joined: 08/06/2014(UTC)
Posts: 1,012

Thanks: 3965 times
Was thanked: 3537 time(s) in 821 post(s)
Whilst updating the thread with the monthly summary, I am copying this post over from the thread "Which bond fund?" to keep more significant posts in one place.

Which bond fund?

Harry Trout;291185 wrote:
Like you Jesse I am early in my bond journey. So far I've gone down two routes in the main:

1. ERNS iShares Ultrashort Bonds

2. Individual UK Gilts (short dated)

I also have a small amount of longer dated stuff which I am growing into in terms of understanding (these are in Mrs T's account)

Where I see my approach evolving is to look at the bond allocation as providing certainty of cash being available when I need it and I'm thinking the allocation will be around 10 years of expenses which feels plenty. It will probably be a gilt ladder combined with something like ERNS and some MMFs (for emergencies?)

With kids at home for several more years and expenses currently significantly higher I have a sequence of returns risk issue. So I am 50%:50% right now

In time though when the kids are independent I would see the equity element rising as long as I've got certainty of 10 years of expenses in non equities. That's because equities for the most part deliver positive returns over 10 years - and most of my equity allocation would be in passive trackers earning a regular yield for rebalancing.

Long story short, UK gilt ladder to do the heavy lifting of our non equity allocation (best guess right now)

Context: Aged 56. I've modelled our future cash flows and a low single digit return is acceptable for us.
1 user thanked Harry Trout for this post.
Jay P on 03/01/2024(UTC)
xxd09
Posted: 03 January 2024 10:17:19(UTC)

Joined: 23/01/2012(UTC)
Posts: 1,203

Thanks: 19 times
Was thanked: 4287 time(s) in 1011 post(s)
Bonds………!
I threw in the towel many years ago and chose the one bond fund only but ……..
Amount saved,ability of investor to cope with the extreme volatility of a high% equity portfolio (especially in retirement) and withdrawal rate also critical
xxd09
3 users thanked xxd09 for this post.
Harry Trout on 03/01/2024(UTC), Jay P on 03/01/2024(UTC), dlp6666 on 03/01/2024(UTC)
Harry Trout
Posted: 09 January 2024 10:25:33(UTC)

Joined: 08/06/2014(UTC)
Posts: 1,012

Thanks: 3965 times
Was thanked: 3537 time(s) in 821 post(s)
Something I've never done before is look at our consolidated holdings, i.e. for Mrs Trout and I across our two platforms Hargreaves Lansdown and Vanguard. I've found it useful and am sharing our consolidated Top 10 at the end of 2023 here ......

Top 10 Consolidated Dec 23

The total of this top 10 is 79.6% and the consolidated equity% is 46.1% - lower than I would like and it was a bit of a surprise to be honest.

I'm not sure that I'm going to post the regular monthly transactions on this thread any more but where there are any bigger transactions (say >£10k) or anything that I think may be of interest to the forum then I will share these somewhere.

Really, posting the above top 10 from time to time would be a more concise and informative update I think.

Many actions arising from the above exercise so it's been worthwhile.
7 users thanked Harry Trout for this post.
Peanuts on 09/01/2024(UTC), andy mac on 09/01/2024(UTC), Chalky W on 09/01/2024(UTC), Newbie on 09/01/2024(UTC), Martina on 09/01/2024(UTC), Jay P on 09/01/2024(UTC), Jon.Snow on 09/01/2024(UTC)
23 Pages«Previous page1819202122Next page»
+ Reply to discussion

Markets

Other markets