Was send a link to an online discussion which was interesting
Question Asked:
Many DIY investors just see performance of the last 1,2,7,10 years and the star ratings and invest.
So they do not see the portfolios. Even IFAs do not know portfolios. I want to know – Do you need to see portfolios esp. of large and multi cap schemes or just follow the ratings and performance.
For mid caps – what is your opinion. Many just see performance and ratings. That may not be good??
Some say that one must check since holding in your portfolio will overlap if u dont see. That’s why I asked, for benefit of us who only DIY. Great place to start good discussion and will help us see how others do their investments
Answers:
1. You mean what stocks the funds hold? I don’t. If I knew how to analyze that, I would be a direct stock investor. Overlap is important. You don’t need to check that if you only use funds with a narrow mandate. Like one blue chip fund and one mid/small cap fund
2. If you see all large cap funds have invested in more are less same companies but the return is not always same, I think it’s mainly due to fund manager ability to manage the fund well and get best return so probably just one fund in each category may be bit restricting yourself.
Question Asked:
Many DIY investors just see performance of the last 1,2,7,10 years and the star ratings and invest.
So they do not see the portfolios. Even IFAs do not know portfolios. I want to know – Do you need to see portfolios esp. of large and multi cap schemes or just follow the ratings and performance.
For mid caps – what is your opinion. Many just see performance and ratings. That may not be good??
Some say that one must check since holding in your portfolio will overlap if u dont see. That’s why I asked, for benefit of us who only DIY. Great place to start good discussion and will help us see how others do their investments
Answers:
1. You mean what stocks the funds hold? I don’t. If I knew how to analyze that, I would be a direct stock investor. Overlap is important. You don’t need to check that if you only use funds with a narrow mandate. Like one blue chip fund and one mid/small cap fund
2. If you see all large cap funds have invested in more are less same companies but the return is not always same, I think it’s mainly due to fund manager ability to manage the fund well and get best return so probably just one fund in each category may be bit restricting yourself.
3. I am currently invested only in one fund, and am predominantly into direct stocks. When i wanted to finalize this fund, i did check portfolios of the funds i had shortlisted (VR/Moneycontrol/Morningstar provide these snapshots). Surprisingly, what i found was that a lot of mid cap/value funds also had large caps; probably to act as a cushion. There were many which had exposure to dominant stocks in the index itself – again probably as a way to protect downside in case of a drop in mid cap stocks.
4. I think this is a good way to shortlist a fund, along with metrics like churn rate, returns % etc. While this helps in finding out actual portfolio overlaps as suggested above by Pattu, this also gives a hint whether the fund manager is backing duds ( say for example – is the fund invested in a Sahara Group or equivalent); and could help investors take a more informed call.
5. There are some practical difficulties in studying the portfolio of mutual fund scheme. They are
1. We always get information about their holding at the end of month, which IMO is very late
2. We do not know either the rationale behind buying those stocks. Nor do we know either their purchase price, time of purchase or holding period or exit price. Again we do not know whether the exit is partial or full and at what price and for what reasons.
3. The very purpose of approaching the stock market through MF is to a. Compensate our ignorance or lack of time or both with regard to stock investing
b. To get reasonable returns (I mean superior returns) for the fees and commissions we pay to MF and also for taking the risk of investing in stocks.
c. If we know how to do the aforesaid things, we can do it by ourselves and save the fees and commission paid to MFs
b. To get reasonable returns (I mean superior returns) for the fees and commissions we pay to MF and also for taking the risk of investing in stocks.
c. If we know how to do the aforesaid things, we can do it by ourselves and save the fees and commission paid to MFs
4. Portfolio overlap? You can hardly avoid that. All large cap funds have almost the same stocks albeit in slightly different proportion. It is mid and small cap funds whose portfolios vary by vast extent. But they move up and down too much and too fast. By the time you get the information about them, it is too late.
So my suggestion is stop worrying too much about fund portfolios and stick with the funds that you are comfortable with.
Hope this helps
6. I strongly believe that you should check the portfolio of the MFs you are investing in! A few reasons being, you are entrusting your money to the fund manager, don’t you want to know what’s being done with it? (Imagine you gave someone the money as a loan, would you not check?)
secondly, you want to ensure that the fund walks the talk. If it’s chasing glamour by taking high risk, then you will know from the portfolio.
finally, by knowing the portfolio you will start learning what decisions are going wrong and whether the fund manager is learning from them, acting quickly, etc. this helps you in increasing your confidence and remain invested when the market tanks (trust me, if you are a long term investor, you’ll see a few crashes.) if you don’t have complete faith in the fund manager, you’ll exit at the worst possible time…Disclaimer: I’m mostly a direct equity investor and ETF guy
secondly, you want to ensure that the fund walks the talk. If it’s chasing glamour by taking high risk, then you will know from the portfolio.
finally, by knowing the portfolio you will start learning what decisions are going wrong and whether the fund manager is learning from them, acting quickly, etc. this helps you in increasing your confidence and remain invested when the market tanks (trust me, if you are a long term investor, you’ll see a few crashes.) if you don’t have complete faith in the fund manager, you’ll exit at the worst possible time…Disclaimer: I’m mostly a direct equity investor and ETF guy
