Looking for some advice on how to make my portfolio easier to track and manage

[christian4059]

As I was growing up, my dad managed an ISA for me (using Hargreaves Lansdown). A few years ago, I started managing it and investing myself. It is doing okay, but I do not really know what I am doing… I have been stalking this sub for a while and read through the wiki, but unsure how to 'get my portfolio back on track' and manage it better.

I think one of the main issues is I have too many funds (all funds listed at the bottom). It is hard to track how they're doing and I have neglected them, leading to some investments slowly trending downwards for years.

I also think there is a large amount of crossover within the funds, so little diversity benefit whilst making it harder to track. Is going through each fund and mapping them out across sectors and geographies the only way to do it? Or, is there a tool that might help?

I am 29 and have a pretty good salary so willing to be a little less conservative. I just feel like I need to get to grips with my portfolio and more appropriately manage it, but am a little unsure where to start.

Stocks and Shares ISA:

Artemis Income Class I - Acc

AXA Framlington

Global Technology Fund Class Z - Acc

Baillie Gifford American Class B - Acc

Baillie Gifford China Class B - Acc

Fidelity Index World Class P - Acc

First Sentier Global Listed Infrastructure Class B -Acc

FTF Martin Currie Japan Equity Class W - Acc

FTF Martin Currie UK Mid Cap Class S - Acc

JP Morgan Emerging Markets Class B - Acc

Legal & General Global Technology Index Trust Class C - Acc

Lindsell Train Global Equity Class D - Acc

Rathbone Global Opportunities Class S -Acc

Sanlam Global Artificial Intelligence Class I - Acc

Stewart Inv Asia Pacific Leaders Sustainability Class B - Acc

Steward Inv Indian Subcontinent Sustainability Class B - Acc

Vanguard Global Credit Bond - Acc (hedged GBP)

Lifetime ISA:

Vanguard FTSE 100 Index - Acc

Vanguard Lifestrategy 60% Equity - Acc

Vanguard US 500 Stock Index Institutional - Acc

SIPP

Vanguard ESG Developed World All Capp Equity

Vanguard FTSE 100 Index

Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap Index

Vanguard Lifestragey100% Equity

Vanguard US 500 Stock index

 

[garfieldp]

@christian4059 For 90%+ people the recommendation is to invest in a single global index.

One of the many benefits is you don't have the temptation to tinker with it constantly/worry that you're missing out.

Another benefit is you'll probably beat the vast majority of people who try to 'manage' a complex portfolio of investments.

 

[christian4059]

@garfieldp Yeah I have seen that, and if I was starting from scratch I would probably do that.

Thing is, some of these funds aren't in a great place at the moment so I'm reticent to sell at a fairly sizeable loss for the sake of simplicity.

Might be worth it in the long run, though. Just spend the time over the next few months to figure out which to bin off and slowly downsize my portfolio.

 

[garfieldp]

@christian4059 Money is fungible though so your 'losses' argument is purely psychological.

The question you should ask is: If I had the same value of money in my ISA today as I have in all these funds, what would I invest it all in?

 

[christian4059]

@garfieldp I think I might be misunderstanding.

I get that the 'loss' is only realised when I want to access the money, which isn't for a while. So although I may have 'lost £500' on a fund now, if I take the 'loss' now, and reinvest as I would like, in the long-term, I could regain that £500 and then some. Whereas if I leave it in it's current fund (that I am not happy with) I am potentially just compounding my losses at hopes of a potential return to net profit.

But from my understanding, there is still a real terms loss as I invested X and I am now getting X-£500.

 

[garfieldp]

@christian4059 Your proposal is a pretty classic example of a sunk cost fallacy.

You have, let's say, £10,000 in 30 etfs.

My point is that, because there is virtually no cost to transferring that to cash or to other etfs, it doesn't make sense to make investment decisions about the future in terms of which of your assets has made money so far.

You have 10k. 10k is 10k is 10k (it doesn't matter how you got here).

Just pretend it's in cash and think what would you invest in with that cash?

 

[sashieng]

@christian4059 Try thinking of it this way...

At the moment you have £50k (for example). Does it matter that one is up £1k and another is down £2k, and another down £500, and another is at break even? You still have £50k.

If you sold them all you'd still have c. £50k (perhaps a little less die to spreads or charges).

If you bought one fund with your c. £50k cash, you'd hold an investment valued at c. £50k

You started with £50k and you've ended up with probably nearly £50k.

So, what have you lost exactly?

Holding on to poor investments because of sentimental reasons or because you hope they will rise again at some point is your 'opportunity cost'.

 

[colinvy]

@christian4059 By owning all these funds you basically have a global index fund except your paying 1% fees to a bunch of random funds.

Best course of action is to sell them all and move to a single global index fund that has much lower fees.