UK Investment Trusts for 2022

Any picks for 2022?

I’ve £20k to invest in investment trusts, I’m considering spreading it across the following but would like to hear your thoughts.

Scottish Mortgage IT
Bankers IT
City of London IT
F&C IT
Standard Life Private Equity IT
Smithson IT
Monks IT
3i Group IT

Thanks!

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What are your goals / trying to achieve with these investments?

Have you considered these:

https://www.theaic.co.uk/companydata/0P00008ZOF/performance
https://www.theaic.co.uk/companydata/0P0001EXYD

There is also an Investment Trust thread, might be worth a :eyes:

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Thanks Dougal, not entirely sure really I’ve just had a windfall and wondered what to do with it, I’ve earmarked a similar bunch of cash for ETFs and thought I’d have a go at some active funds too. I was thinking of buying property but I suspect a price correction in the coming years so maybe I want to expect to have made some growth over the next couple of years. Income can just be ploughed back in anyway - thinking out loud, if I can expect higher growth than income then growth products would be of more interest. I’ll take a look throught he other thread thanks.

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All solid ITs and I’d happily invest in any of them. I’d suggest narrowing it down to a handful though. Morningstar’s X-ray tool is really useful, it shows you the underlying holdings based on your allocations. The problem I found with having too many funds is that you can end up with an expensive quasi-tracker.

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Thanks topher! I rather liked the idea that spreading across a few ITs would give me more exposure to more active managers and therefore more people responding to market situations … if that makes sense (I’m sure I could have worded that better)

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Just to check is the reason you want an investment trust because you think they will outperform some index funds? Whilst many would say don’t time the market a lump sum right now could be risky with valuations high and interest rates rising and inflation high, so I personally would go as low risk a fund/index/trust as possible if I was you. Unless this money is not significant to you.

You mention expecting a property correction, and perhaps, but it might not be for 2-5 years and I would argue one approach if long term is to use the money to buy a property an rent it out, rental proceeds then dollar cost average into these trusts/etfs you decide you like.

Side note, if you are doing stocks/trusts etc, consider if you will need these money before retirement, putting it in a SIPP could mean you get an instant boost of 20%+ of govt matching the money, no idea if the trusts you mention are SIPP compliant but worth a look.

Thanks Hbomb, yeah Im also putting some similar amount into passive funds and considered having active funds to complement. Yes perhaps I should keep half as cash in anticipation of a market dip or two too!

I get your point about property, and buying high only means you have a bigger mortgage (I’d be borrowing about 60%) however the last place I bought was in 2006 and a few years later an identicle property in the street sold for 2/3 the price I paid - it’s always been profitable yet that buying point still bothers me to this day!

Sipp advice is solid thanks!

Ah yes, I can understand if there is a strong emotion to it like buying high before 08 crash, near me even if you bought at the peak of 07/08 prices you would have made serious money if held for even 4-5 years not to mention the rent. Also I believe we will have another 2-3 years of strong house price growth so I am bias.

Hope whichever trusts/index you choose just research well, there is no rush to invest, take months if you need to as suddenly wedges of money can warp decisions making. Look at fees closely too, I love simple index funds like VWRL, VUSA, VFEM by vanguard as so low fees.

That X-ray tool is brilliant, thanks for bringing this up, really insightful cheers :+1:

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I bundled all my passive funds into my main monthly investor pie:

https://www.trading212.com/pies/l71hcXfyd7d1WUZoK3Ho0MjXKtAJ

One thing to consider - some of the trusts you have picked have exposure to private companies, so I would watch on doubling up on some. Scottish Mortgage IIRC has exposure to MNTN Schiehallion.

If it were me, go for no more than 5% in private companies, and ignore the F&C High Income Trust, but check out their other one.

It’s only my 2p worth but I think 14 ETFs is too many considering the number of underlying holdings. To my mind, a mishmash of ETFs undermines the goal of passive investing which is to guarantee that you track the returns of the market in a broad sense. Do you really need trackers to cover the FTSE 100, 250 and All-share when VHVG includes UK equities? I think you should concentrate your holdings and have no less than say 5% in any one fund. It’s also worth noting that by combining FTSE and MSCI indices for developed and emerging markets, you may be missing some countries such as South Korea which may be classifed differenltly.

Thanks for the tips Dougal and topher.

I hadn’t really considered private equity like that - thanks!

Yeah I think I’ve gone a bit too overboard on the ETFs - there is crossover in the ETF basket, the thinking for UK market was that having a little direct exposure to the FTSE100 (or 250) would give direct weight exposure to any changes there. Actually I took this idea from Vanguard’s LifeStrategy products (see Vanguard: Helping you reach your investing goals | Vanguard)

I see there is major cross over between FTSE World and MSCI USA - bringing the US exposure to about 48% - but I’m happy with this.

I really appreciate your feedback - thanks for taking the time.

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Double checked - South Korea is in MSCI EM (EMIM)

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This is why I have EMIM and not VFEM

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EMIM was luck rather than judgement for me! I spent quite a lot of time looking at other metrics (costs etc) so maybe one of those swayed me to EMIM.

My only problem is I have no exposure to Japan anywhere, not sure I’ll be missing out on too much anyway.

Japan is the FTSE Developed’s 2nd largest country (~7%) suggesting they value it highly.

Thank you for great information. I keep hesitating about investing in long-term share or buy to let. It is great to learn from others experience. Thanks.

Hi shiling22, I’ve been considering spending around £150k on a BTL property, around my area these properties were selling for around £20k less not too long ago. With my deposit of around £50k, this price difference affects the mortgage payments by around £100 / month (25 year mortgage @3.29%)

Worthy note, if I invest that money in markets, I don’t get the option to borrow - the £50k is just £50k however when buying property the £50k buys into something worth a lot more (at the cost of the mortgage.)

That being said, BTL comes with its own set of issues such as property maintenance, rent collection and tenant finding when a tenant leaves. And when a BTL is empty, you have to pay the council tax and continue to pay the mortgage, lease and ground rent (if leasehold) whilst taking no income. In popular areas, these issues aren’t so bad as property doesn’t stay empty for long.

Hope that helps!
Angus