Just having a look at some literature from XYZ regarding some of thier managed funds of choice, namely: 1- The Colonial First State Geared Fund Over the last 7 years it has produced an average of 21.68% 2- Merryl Lynch Global Allocation (Australia) A mix of shares/bonds/variety of international investments 3- Perpetuals Wholesale australian Fund 4- IOOF/Perenial Global property Trust They look reasonably good and get a good write up, I'll just have to see how applicable they are to my circumstances I guess; does anyone know much about these Funds?
CFS Geared Fund invests in blue chip Australian shares with internal leverage. If you look at the performance of the fund compared to the market - it is very volatile ... with large falls, but also large gains (when the market is good). In my opinion, this fund should only be held with a longer term timeframe in mind, since a market downturn may see this fund drop significantly over the short to medium term, but come back strongly once the market is going well again. Because of the high volatility, if you are going to add your own gearing to the mix via margin, I'd suggest you should make sure you allow a decent buffer - this fund can drop a LOT in a short period of time. I currently have money in the CFS Wholesale Geared Fund. I don't know anything about the other three funds.
Thanks Sim, Still finding my way through the MF maze Came across this as well whilst searching the net Hot funds Three Hot Funds for 2007? Three hot funds for 2007 Learning as I go along, its an interesting read looking at the various funds, gotta say, i'm happy with My NAVRA Funds as well though as they assist with the IP's; looking to gear further into MF this year
These are funds I am currently investigating: Colonial First State Colliers international property securities Colonial First State Indexed Australian Shares Colonial First state Developing Companies Macquarie Master Small Companies Fund Australian Unity Property Securities Growth The CFS ones are hopefully available in the CFS wholesale fund, the others I will probably have to use investsmart or something because 4% entry is just ridiculous. I do like the CFS Geared Aus Shares, but am having some problems with leveraging into it - just seems like a bit too much levereage with my limited knowledge of managed fund investing, but i guess this is probably only a mental thing anyway! By the way, does anyone know of any other Wholesale Funds like the CFS one that allow you to invest in a number of individual funds within the wholesale banner while getting all the benefits of wholesale in the individual investments? The CFS one is quite limited in the number of funds available.
Here's my three definite steps before I ever by a managed fund. 1. I see how stable the investment team behind the fund is. There have been a few high profile members or whole teams leaving a managed fund being replace by lesser experienced investor teams. Generally not a good thing 2. What assets within the chosen area of specialization has the fund been investing into. Have they been keeping to there investment mandate .. ie sticking to top 100's if they are a blue chip fund or have they ventured outside to try and garner better returns. This is generally a bad sign as it would indicate the investment team cannot get returns using only there mandated sectors. 3. Look at historical returns, I know past returns aren't always the best indicator of future returns but I still like to see a decent level of consistency with returns, particular over the last few years where average returns may have been skewed because of the massive rise of equities. If the fund performed decently during the bad times .. ie 2000 - 2002 and that may even mean just breaking even or minor + returns then it boads well for when markets are good ie 2003 - 2006+.
