Archive: 2019

  1. A Conservative victory: now what?

    Comments Off on A Conservative victory: now what?

    The Conservative Party’s 2019 manifesto is now the starting point for the Government agenda for the next five years. The majority which the Party now has, with many new MPs, will mean a sea change from that of the hand-to-mouth Government of the past two and a half years.

    In theory that majority allows Boris Johnson to flesh out what was a relatively thin manifesto in whatever way he wishes. A repeat of the forced U-turn which marked the first Budget of the previous Government looks nearly impossible: a majority of around 70 allows the Prime Minister to face down not only the remnants of the official opposition, but also pockets of opposition (think ERG) within his own party.

    We can now look forward to a Budget in February. Sajid Javid, who has already been confirmed as Chancellor, may now choose to revert to the previous norm of giving the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) ten weeks’ notice to prepare an Economic and Financial Outlook. That means a Budget date at the end of the month, possibly 26th. As a reminder, from a financial planning viewpoint, the Conservatives’ main manifesto proposals were:

    Personal Taxes

    • No increases in income tax rates and National Insurance Contribution (NIC) rates.
    • NIC threshold to be raised to £9,500 for 2020/21.
    • A review and reform of Entrepreneur’s Relief.

    Businesses

    • Corporation tax to remain at 19% rather than reduce to17% as currently legislated for.
    • Increase R&D tax credit rate to 13% and review the definition of R&D.
    • Increase NIC Employment Allowance from £3,000 to £4,000.
    • No increase in VAT rates.
    • Reduce business rates “via a fundamental review of the system”. Initially reduce business rates for retail businesses and extend the discount to grassroots music venues, small cinemas and pubs.
    • Increase the straight line allowance for structures and buildings from 2% to 3%.

    Social Care

    • Additional funding of £1bn a year throughout the term of the Parliament.
    • An effort to build a cross-party consensus on social care policy with a guarantee that no one needing care will have to sell their home to pay for it.

    Social Security, Housing

    • Continue the roll out of Universal Credit.
    • End the working-age benefit freeze.
    • 3% SDLT surcharge on non-UK resident buyers of residential property.
    • End child benefit payments for children living overseas.
    • Keep the state pension triple lock, the winter fuel payment, the older person’s bus pass and other pensioner benefits.

    Private Pensions

    • Within the first 30 days, hold an urgent review of annual allowance taper issues. A pre-election statement from the Conservatives suggested this would only deal with the NHS problem, but it is hard to see how any reform can be restricted to just one part of the public sector.
    • Conduct a comprehensive review to fix the issue of net pay pension schemes for those with earnings between £10,000 and £12,500.
    • Reintroduce Pension Schemes Bill 2019-20, covering collective defined contribution (CDC), action against employer pension debt and pension dashboards.
    • Unlock long-term capital in pension funds to invest in and commercialise scientific discoveries.

    Tuition Fees

    • Examine the interest rates on loan repayments with a view to reducing the burden of debt on students.
    • The February Budget is also likely to see changes to inheritance tax (IHT) stemming from the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) review of earlier this year – there was no comment on IHT in the Conservative manifesto.

    Summary

    The currency markets, once described as the real official opposition, have pushed sterling up by around 2.5%, with Sterling crossing $1.35 and €1.20.

  2. Friday the 13th… Should you be scared?

    Comments Off on Friday the 13th… Should you be scared?

    If it wasn’t so important, politics would be a joke. We are experiencing unprecedented uncertainty and tension in the political system with Trump’s impeachment hearing, US/China trade tariffs, Brexit and the British elections on the 12 November, which for some will be a scary announcement on Friday 13th.

    Does all of this, and who sits in Number 10, affect your investment strategy?  If it does, do you need to rethink your plans ahead of the election?

    Surely, the economic policy of a Conservative Government will affect the economy and the returns we achieve on our investment portfolio differently than a Labour, Liberal Democrat or coalition government.

    Their fiscal policies are often completely different; the left-wing governments are known for taxing the higher earners and greater Government spending, whereas right-wing parties are better known for reducing taxes and simulating businesses, or that’s what traditionally we have seen.

    So what is in the data; can we see any trends of party led returns?

    The data shows that over this sample period of 691 months, or 57 ½ years, a Conservative Government has produced a 34% higher monthly return in the FTSE All share than under a Labour Government.  This is the difference in you doubling your money every 15 years to doubling your money every 11 years.

    When Warren Buffet was asked his favourite holding period for an investment, the legendary investor replied, “forever”, however, forever is a long time.

    Fidelity did some interesting research, which shows the impact of market timing with your investments.  They showed the effect when you missed best 10, 20, 30 or 40 days in the market and compared this to the overall return if you had remained fully invested all along.

    Over a period of fifteen years, the message is clear.  If you try and time the market and get it wrong by just ten days over a fifteen-year period, you could be looking at a reduction in your annualised return from 7.7% to 3.5%pa.  Miss the best 30 days in the fifteen-year period and you’ve gone from making money to losing money.

    Timing the market, switching your investments around, increases the costs and taxes associated to your portfolio which has a further drag on your returns not included in this research.

    A Conservative Government has shown to improve the investment returns, when they sit in Number 10, and holding your nerve during the investment ride and not trying to time the market, weather an election or recession, significantly improves your chances of a successful investment experience.

    Develop a plan which reflects your personal needs and goals, work with a Certified Financial Planner to support you, because when the markets are climbing, any fool can make money in the market, it’s during times of uncertainty, like this, when we need a coach, a sounding board to ensure you stay on track and don’t waiver.

    Warren Buffet would say, ‘it’s only when the tide goes out do you discover who has been swimming naked’.

    So maybe it is who’s sat in the Financial Planners chair that will have a greater affect your outcome, not who’s in Number 10.

  3. Good-bye Help to Buy

    Comments Off on Good-bye Help to Buy

    Let’s face it, buying your first house is expensive, it’s never been easy, Nicky and I purchased our first house in 1996 and it was expensive then, thanks to her parents generosity, they made it a little easier for us, but what if you don’t have this kind of benefit?

    Well, in December 2015 the government launched the Help to Buy ISA, an ISA savings plan, that gives a bonus when you buy your first home.  The government announced in 2017 that over 1 million Help to Buy ISAs have been opened, and more than £1.8 billion has been saved into these ISAs, to help first time buyers get onto the housing ladder.

    If you want to open a Help to Buy ISA, you will need to be quick because the Help to Buy ISA is due to close to new customers on 30th November, but if you already have an account open, don’t panic you can continue contributing.

    However, don’t despair the successor to the Help to Buy ISA was launched back in April 2017 and is well underway, so until the end of the month, you have two options to help you save for your first home, the Help to Buy ISA and the Lifetime ISA, often referred to as the LISA.

    So, what’s the difference between these two ISAs?

    What’s the youngest age?

    The youngest age you can open a Help to Buy ISA is 16 which is younger than the LISA, so if you’ve just finished your GCSE’s and you’re wanting to save for your first pad, open a Help to Buy ISA.  The LISA can be opened from age 18 to 39 and you can continue saving until you’re 50.

    How much can I save?

    You can save up to £4000 pa into a LISA (subject to the overall ISA limit of £20000) and you’ll receive a generous government bonus of 25% on whatever you contribute, if you were to encash, or use the LISA within the first 12 months, this bonus is removed.

    The Help to Buy ISA is stricter on the contributions, with an initial contribution limit of £1200 when the account is first opened, then a maximum monthly contribution of £200, no additional lump sums are permitted, however there’s no penalty if you withdraw money, you just don’t get the bonus.

    At the point the Help to Buy ISA is used to buy your first home, a 25% bonus is added to all the money you have paid in, including interest.  However, there are some exceptions, which include;

    • You will need to have saved at least £1600 (to get the 25% or £400 bonus)
    • The maximum you can receive a bonus on is £12000 (or £3000 bonus), additional money in the account does not attract a bonus.

    The bonus scheme is set to run until December 2030, but I can’t see there being many Help to Buy ISAs around then.

    What’s the minimum term?

    Technically there is no minimum term, but to get or keep the bonus, there is.  With the Help to Buy ISA, you need to save at least £1600 to get the 25% or £400 bonus, so a minimum term of three months (£1200 in the first month plus two months at £200pm)

    To keep the bonus with the LISA, you must have the account for at least 12 months.

    Can I have two?

    You can only have one Help to Buy ISA provider, period.  However, you can have a new LISA provider each new tax year, if you wish.

    Remember, if you are buying with your partner, or friend, you can have a Help to Buy, or a LISA each.

    What is the ISA used for?

    The LISA allows for your savings to be used towards the purchase of your first home, like a Help to Buy ISA, but also it allows you to keep the investment and use the money for retirement too.  So, if you decide that it is just too expensive to buy a house all is not lost, the money can be used to top up your retirement income from age 60.

    House price limits

    There are limits on the value of the house you can purchase the Help to Buy ISA limits the purchase price to £250,000, outside of London, or £450,000 in London.  For most first-time buyers, this is a nice problem to be faced with, however with the LISA, the London differential has been removed and your purchase limit is £450,000 regardless of location.

    Can I get my money back?

    If things don’t work out and you need your money back, the Help to Buy is a better choice as no penalty is applied for withdrawing your money.  However, with the LISA you’ll face a penalty of 25% on the amount withdrawn, this is not quite as bad as it initially looks, because after repaying your bonus, the way the numbers work, it relates to about 6.25% penalty on what you paid in.  The cynic in my says that the government hates exit charges on any other regulated product, other than it’s own!

    What happens to the money in the ISA?

    With he Help to Buy ISA, it is a cash-based ISA and will be opened with either a bank, or building society.  The LISA can either be cash-based (ideal if you have less than 7 years until you need the money), or investment based (perfect for longer term savings).  Therefore, banks and investment providers are offering LISAs.

    One of the best Help to Buy ISA at present is with Barclays, paying 2.55%.  A good LISA provider would be my own Lexo or MoneyBox

    What happens when I purchase the property?

    With the Help to Buy ISA, you will close your account down, transfer the fund, usually to your conveyancer’s client account.  You will need to provide your conveyancer your closing letter from your Help to Buy provider, so they can claim your 25% bonus, between exchange of contracts and completion.  This can take some time, and you can be charge £50+VAT for the work.

    The Help to Buy money you have saved, plus interest, can be used on exchange, but not the bonus, this can only be used on completion.

    The LISA, is a similar process, don’t just withdraw the money you’ll be penalised, you need to apply to the LISA provider for the money to be sent to your conveyancer.  The money can be used for your exchange deposit (the money you hand over when you “exchange” contracts). However, this must be done less than 90 days ahead of your completion, when you hand over the rest of the money and get the keys.

    If the sale falls through your conveyancer will be able to put the money and bonus back into your LISA – though it must be the exact same amount.

    However, if there was mistake and you weren’t eligible to use the bonus, say the property actually cost more than £450,000, then you’ll be hit with withdrawal charges – so make sure you can use the cash before it’s taken out of the LISA.

  4. Styles of Investing; Active or Passive

    Comments Off on Styles of Investing; Active or Passive

    Before I became a financial planner, investing was all about making money and buying a ‘hot stock’, 25 years later, I reflect on my naivety and appreciate how others may also be thinking this and asking themselves what is the right way to invest?

    Over the years there has been so much research in how stock markets work, this makes sense since there’s a lot of money at stake, it seems sensible to understand it.  You’re unlikely to trust your neighbour on medical decisions, preferring to rely on a qualified doctor, so why would you trust your neighbour over your qualified financial planner, or what some of the leading business schools have been telling us for decades, on investment decisions?

    There are, at a top level, two ways to access the stock market; directly by buying a share yourself, or via a fund, which is a collection of shares, managed by a fund manager.  If we agree that you want to entrust an expert to manage your investments i.e. a fund manager, because of the benefits this brings, you have a choice in the type of manager you choose, as they manage money differently;

    • They can manage your money actively, or
    • They can manage your money passively

    Active vs Passive Investing

    After reading this ask yourself which would you prefer, an actively managed fund, or a passive fund?  Surely, all our life we have been taught that doing something i.e. being active, is better than doing nothing, i.e. being passive, so why would investing be any different?

    I think this is a reason so many people have chosen active management in the past, however recently we have seen more and more institutional (big players) and retail (you and me) investors buy passive funds.

    Buyers of active funds say things like the fund managers are entrepreneurs, they believe in capitalism and making money, they surely know what they are doing.  The passive guys just ‘buy and hope’.

    Nothing could be further from the truth, and after decades of research and hundreds, possibly thousands of academic studies conclude that it’s too difficult, to consistently outperform the stock market or in another way, active funds are unable to consistently outperform passive funds.  I even wrote an article about a $1m bet Warren Buffett placed to prove this.

    But rather than tell you, let me try to explain the differences and how each works.

    How the managers work

    The manager of the fund has a mandate which explains what and how they should manage the fund.  An active fund manager will buy and sell shares with the hope that their decisions make a profit, which is in excess of the index.  The index is their benchmark or the league ranking they are measured against, to give a sporting analogy.

    Each day the manager will arrive at their office and trade (buy and sell) shares in the fund, because they think (often based on some research or meetings) the shares that they sell are going down in price and the shares that they buy are increasing in price.  This is the activity, of active fund management.

    Now let’s compare this to passive fund management.  Their remit may be, for example, to buy every share in the index, like buying each team in a league, and therefore rather than buying shares than rise and selling shares than fall, they buy both.

    You may say that’s silly why do both? Well long term overall, share prices increase in value, historically this has been by c.9%pa, so the shares that rise often increase by more than this, and the shares that fall, fall by less than the risers, so the net effect or average is 9%.  They don’t return 9% every year, sometimes the risers win, sometime the losers win, but overall the winners win, they win by an average of 9%pa.

    I appreciate that logically it makes sense to only buy the winners, but if you think about it, the fund manager doesn’t know for certain that they are winners, until they have won, then it’s too late.  It’s like being at the bookies, you may have a favourite, but the favourite doesn’t always win.  When you talk about the future, you’re giving an opinion, nothing is certain.

    A picture can paint a thousand words, and below is a chart of the average active fund (in blue) and the UK stock market (in red) from January 1990 to November 2019.

    active versus passive investing

    Diversification

    Some shares win and some loose, in fact, some loose so badly they go out of business and you lose your money.  This is why we buy funds rather than one or two individual shares; it spreads our risk.

    So, how much does it spread your risk, investing into a fund?  If you are an active manager, typically your portfolio will have about 300 shares, therefore the fund manager, will need to know the ins and outs of all 300 companies, what they are doing, how they are trading and their challenges…a difficult job, if one or two go bust, you’ll feel it, not massively, but you would.

    Whereas some passive funds, like the ones we operate at Lexo.co.uk have over 10,000 shares, so if a couple go bust…we’re less likely to be effected by it, and when you must own all the companies, it’s less essential knowing everything about them.

    When investing, unless you have a crystal ball, diversification is your friend.

    Charges

    There’s a cost to investing, these costs are rarely explained in detail, but as a summary you have a manager’s fee, a custodian fee and trading fees, which includes the buy sell spread.

    The managers fee pays for the management of the fund, the fund manager, the offices and marketing etc of the fund.  This is referred to as the Annual Management Fee (AMC)

    The custodian’s fee is the price for your money to be held safely, in a custodian’s account, away from the fund manager.  You see, your money is not held in the fund managers account, encase they go bust, it’s held in a custodian’s account, so it’s safer and protected for you.

    Finally, there are trading fees to include.  When you buy a share, there are several costs some of which are;

    • The difference, or spread, between the buying and selling price, which if you sold immediate would be a cost.
    • The stockbroker receives a brokerage fee for placing the trade.
    • HMRC receives stamp duty on every purchase.
    • There is also a cost referred to as slippage, which is where the agreed purchase price moves from the actual price paid hence the term slippage, this is also a factored costs.

    If you are holding a share for a long time, you can loan the shares out to another fund, who has security and pays an income to you for the loan period they hold the shares.  Why they do this, is probably beyond this article, but they are hoping to make money on the shares if they fall in value!  Irrespective of their plans, you’re making money whilst you hold onto the shares, often whilst they are rising in value.

    These are the charges, lets see how they effect the different managers; active managers are often paid substantially more than the passive managers, mainly because the passive managers are guardians and a computer programs makes decisions, so passive funds tend to have a lower management fee.

    Custodian fees are generally similar for both active and passive funds, because this is a storage/safe keeping charge.

    If you’re an active manager, your trading costs are substantially more, because you’re always buying and selling, hence active manager.  The turnover ratio (how much you sell of the fund and replace it) can sometime be over 100% in a year for an active fund, and less than 10% for a passive. Therefore, a passive fund has much lower trading costs.

    If you’re always buying and selling and not holding on for long periods of time, you can’t really loan your shares and receive an income for this, but passive managers can, and this income effectively reduces the other fees charged.

    It’s fairly typical for the total costs to be in excess of 2% for an active fund, and less than 0.5% for a passive fund.  Charges are a guaranteed (negative) drag on your investment returns each year.

    Emotions of the manager

    We’re all human and effected by our emotions, and market turmoil is a great example that effects our emotions, when the markets fall it can be worrying.  If you see your shares falling in value, selling them and holding cash seems a sensible decision, but when do you buy back in? It’s one thing to get out, but you can’t stay out, your job is to manage money, so when do you buy back in? When it’s recovered, so you have the cost of the trade, and you could end up buying back in at a higher price.

    An argument against passive is that they follow the market down, it’s true they do, but to complete the sentence, they follow the market back up again too and without additional trading costs.

    Summary

    So in summary, with active fund management you are betting that the person managing the money has skill and insight to beat the collective market as a whole plus the additional cost incurred to achieve this.  Or you could accept that it’s virtually impossible to beat the market, why take the chance with your retirement money, and accept that a market return of c. 9% is acceptable.

    The challenge is that you don’t know that you can beat the market, until you have given the manager a period of time to prove it, say five years.  So, you could look back and say over the last five years, you’ve done well, so you will in future?  However, Morningstar researched this and found that the top fund managers over one period, did not repeat their success over the following period, so novice investors were buying funds based on a track record, not knowing the probability the funds were about to go down!

  5. Early Retirement with a defined benefit pension

    Comments Off on Early Retirement with a defined benefit pension

    What is a defined benefits pension?

    A defined benefit pension is the gold standard of pensions, the scheme promises you a guaranteed income at your agreed retirement age for the rest of your life, the amount of income you receive will rise in line with inflation and the amount you receive is based on the number of years you were a member of the scheme and your pensionable salary.

    These schemes offer benefits, which for the majority of cases mean that they are best left alone until your scheme retirement date, however, if you wanted to retire early, should you take benefits early?

    What happened to me this week?

    This is the situation I found myself in this week with a client, they needed access to capital and an income, about 12 months earlier than expected and their scheme retirement date, which is when they had planned to retire.  Due to health reasons, they have both decided to retire now, the main pension was a defined benefits pension due to become payable in 12 months’ time, however they needed capital and income now.

    We reviewed all their options, which included early access to their defined benefits pension, however this early access involved suffering a 5% reduction/penalty on the pension income for the privilege of taking benefits now, rather than in 12 months, was it worth it?

    Our first thoughts were that it would be silly to pay a penalty of 5% on a c.£30,000 pension just to access it early, because this would reduce the pension not only in year one, but in every single year in payment, the client was 64, so for an estimated 36 years, that’s a lot of 5%’s!

    What did the numbers show?

    In financial planning it’s important not to prejudge a decision and an open mind has options, so we ran some numbers.  We assumed an indexation rate for the pension in payment and forecast this to age 100, next we reduced the initial pension by the 5% penalty and ran the numbers again, with the same indexation, on the reduced pension.

    The calculation showed that the pension taken early would never catch up with the normal retirement age pension, so it seemed silly to access it early.  However, what I also showed the client was the cumulative value of the pension received over the years.  Taking the defined benefits pension 12 months early, gave a full year payment head-start and the cumulative figures showed that it would take about 20 years to receive more pension income cumulatively taking the pension early, than at normal retirement date.  In other words, for the first 20 years you would have received more money, each year, by taking the pension early.

    Chapters in our life

    The client is age 64 so from 64 to 84 she would have received more income.  I often speak to my clients about chapters in their life, your retirement years I find has three distinct chapters; the first where you’re newly retired, active and hopefully healthy enjoying the fruits of your available time traveling, family and activities.  The second chapter tends to include less long-haul flights, more European travel and time at home, the third chapter is the least expensive (care fees excluded), and little flying is involved.  Therefore, a front end loaded retirement income, taking more money in the first two decades, rather than later, is a lifestyle financial planning decision which would work for them, also if their health does deteriorate, they have 12 months more memories to value.

    It’s important you calculate the numbers, reflect on any decision before it’s made and discuss the decision with everyone effected, but doing what everyone else does, may not be the right thing for you.  Because of the complexities surrounding this, I recommend you seek independent financial planning advice before making a decision, even if you can crunch numbers, having a professional review your calculations and acting as a sounding board is invaluable, you won’t get a second chance at this decision.

    State pension deferral

    The case is similar when considering the deferment of the state pension, every year you defer, you effectively give up as you are unable to get that year back and this has been the case for retirees since April 2016, yes I appreciate you receive a higher indexed pension amount, but the 5.8% increase takes about 15 years to make up the missed year.  Make sure you run the numbers first, maybe I’ll cover state pension deferral in a future article.

    Pension Tracing Service

    If you know you had a defined benefits pension, but have lost the details, you can use the government’s Pension Tracing Service by clicking the link below, please don’t use any service, there are companies charging for this free service provided by your tax paying £’s!

    https://www.gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details

  6. Financial Planning Week Money Talk

    Comments Off on Financial Planning Week Money Talk

    Next week is Financial Planning Week and UK consumers nationwide are being offered free financial planning sessions by CISI Certified Financial Planners. The aim is to give everyone a helping hand in achieving financial wellbeing, resilience and life goal planning.  To contribute to this Warren Shute CFP will be holding a free talk at the Lydiard Millicent Village Hall.

    The annual campaign is organised by the-not-for profit professional body the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI). It is a national initiative to help improve the financial fitness of the UK public, while highlighting the fact that Certified Financial Planners represent the pinnacle of professionalism for their knowledge, skills, and integrity.

    Warren is one of the UK’s leading financial planners, radio presenter and author of the best selling personal finance book The Money Plan.  His firm Lexington Wealth Management is a local multi-award winning financial planning practice and he will be sharing his ideas and advice on how to make better decisions with your money.

    Here are a few things Warren may cover:-

    • Do you have a clear plan of what your future looks like? not only financially, but actual goals you would like to achieve. Would it be helpful if you did?

    • Do you sometimes feel unorganised with your finances and want to learn how to manage money better?

    • Are you unsure when you can retire?

    • Are you confused about how and where you should be saving money for the future?

    • Would it be helpful to know a way to make your financial decisions automatic?

    • If you are struggling with debt management, did you know there is a proven system to accelerate the repayment of your debts?

    • Have you arranged your will and lasting powers of attorney’s?

    We very much hope you are able to make the free presentation;

    Venue: Lydiard Millient Village Hall, Church Place, Lydiard Millicent, Wiltshire, SN5 3LS

    Date: Thursday 10th October 2019

    Time: 11.30am – 12.30pm

    Price: Free (and definitely no sales pitch!)

    Anyone is welcome, however, if you would like to attend please email theresa@lexingtonwealth.co.uk to secure your space.

  7. The David Norton Building Excellence Award Winner

    Comments Off on The David Norton Building Excellence Award Winner

    It is with great pleasure and a huge amount of pride to let you know that Lexington has won the David Norton Building Excellence award at the CISI conference.

    Warren was at the awards ceremony to collect the award and bought it back with him yesterday – we need a bigger shelf!

    Warren worked really hard on Lexington’s application and this was followed by an interview with four judges two weeks ago.

    This award is seen as “the one to win” within the industry, recognising  firms striving for financial planning excellence.

    Thank you Warren for constantly striving for excellence and always believing anything is possible.

  8. Our latest charity walk

    Comments Off on Our latest charity walk

    We have previously walked at Avebury, Cricklade to The Cotswold Water Park and last years was from Kemble to the Source of the Thames.  Thank you to all who came along for these walks and for the many additional supporters who sponsored us.

    This year we have decided to walk the Railway Path from Three Trees  Cafe at Chisledon (just off the M4 junction 15) to The Wellington pub on Marlborough High Street, which will be about seven miles and take around 2.5 hours.

    This time we will be raising money for Breast Cancer Care as this is a terrible illness that has affected the lives of so many people we know.

    The details are below, please try and join us, it’s enjoyable, good for your health and for this great charity.  If you are unable to join us, please try and support us, we have a Just Giving page set up which can be found here for Breast Cancer Care.

    The Walk
    Route: Start at The Three Trees Cafe for coffee and breakfast at Chiseldon and walk along the disused railway line to Marlborough passing Ogbourne St Andrew and Ogbourne St George
    Distance: c. 7 miles
    Difficulty:  Nice  and traffic free peaceful walk
    When: Friday 18th October
    Start:  Meet at Three Trees Cafe, Chiseldon, SN4 0HS at 9.30am (just off Junction 15 M4)
    Finish: The Wellington, Marlborough High Street for lunch.

    If you can join us, please let me know (theresa@lexingtonwealth.co.uk),  if you would also like to come along to The Wellington, Marlborough for lunch so I can reserve a table.

    Once you confirm we can organise return transport from Marlborough to Chiseldon, Warren is driving ahead and leaving a car or two there.

    Please confirm to me by Monday 14th October 2019.

    Please donate to our just giving page here.

  9. How do Currency Returns affect my International Investments?

    Comments Off on How do Currency Returns affect my International Investments?

    Many investors take a global perspective when building portfolios to achieve their investment goals. With the potential benefits of an expanded opportunity set and increased diversification comes exposure to foreign currencies. Currency returns can be volatile, creating winners and losers. While there is little evidence that currency movements can be predicted, investors still want to know about whether to hedge their currency exposure.

    To answer this question, it is helpful to see whether exposure to currency returns is consistent with the investor’s goal. Some investors may want to hedge currency exposure due to the volatility of currency returns and the impact on a portfolio. In global equities, currency hedging does not meaningfully reduce portfolio volatility, since equities are generally more volatile than currencies. For fixed income, currency hedging can be a useful tool to reduce portfolio return volatility.

    This article looks at the impact of currency movements on global equity and fixed income portfolios as well as the merits of hedging.

    CURRENCY RETURNS

    For investors with unhedged international investments, when their home currency appreciates it has a negative impact on returns; when it depreciates, the impact is positive.

    In 2018, the weakening of the pound versus the strengthening of other currencies had a positive impact on returns for British pound investors with holdings in unhedged non-UK assets, and contributed 3.9% from the returns as measured by the difference in returns between the MSCI All Country World IMI Index in local returns vs. GBP.

    Currency movements have had a positive versus negative impact on returns for British pound investors with about the same frequency, being positive half the time (12 out of 24 years) as measured by the difference in returns between the MSCI All Country World IMI Index in local returns vs. GBP. The implication for investors is that although currency returns may be volatile at shorter time horizons, they are not expected to be a driver of expected return differences over longer time horizons.

    DOES HEDGING REDUCE VOLATILITY?

    Equity
    Some investors may want to hedge currencies with the goal of reducing the volatility of returns. For an investor with a global equity portfolio, hedging currencies tends not to significantly reduce return volatility, as illustrated in Exhibit 1. Equities tend to be more volatile than currencies, so the volatility of an unhedged global equity portfolio tends to be dominated by the volatility of the underlying equities, not the currency movements. As a result, unhedged and hedged equity portfolios have had similar standard deviations.

    Fixed Income
    In global fixed income, hedging currencies is an effective way to reduce return volatility because currency returns are more volatile than investment grade fixed income returns. If the currency exposure is unhedged, the currency will be mostly responsible for the volatility in a fixed income portfolio. As shown in Exhibit 2, the annualised volatility of the hedged index (1.50%) is much less than the unhedged index (8.06%).

    INVESTOR TAKEAWAY

    For investors with global portfolios, their return is determined by the return of the foreign asset and the return of the currency. However, academic evidence suggests that currency movements are very difficult to predict in the short- to medium-term in a manner that is relevant for making investment decisions.

    Should an investor with a global portfolio hedge the currency exposure? The answer depends on investor goals and the underlying asset. For global equities, our research indicates that currency hedging does not meaningfully reduce portfolio volatility. In contrast, for fixed income investors with investment grade securities, hedging can be an effective way to reduce the volatility of returns.

    GLOSSARY

    Currency hedging: Establishing a position that mitigates or decreases the risk associated with an existing currency position.
    Forward contract: An agreement to buy or sell an asset at a specified price on a future date.
    Market capitalisation: The total market value of a company’s outstanding shares, computed as price times shares outstanding.
    Standard deviation: A measure of the variation or dispersion of a set of data points. Standard deviations are often used to quantify the historical return volatility of a security or portfolio.
    Volatility: A statistical measure of the dispersion, or variability, of returns for a given security or portfolio. Volatility is often measured using standard deviation.

    RISKS

    Investments involve risks. The investment return and principal value of an investment may fluctuate so that an investor’s shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original value. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. There is no guarantee strategies will be successful. Diversification does not eliminate the risk of market loss.

  10. Total Cost of Ownership

    Comments Off on Total Cost of Ownership

    Mutual funds have many costs, all of which affect the net return to investors.

    Costs matter. Whether you’re buying a car or selecting an investment strategy, the costs you expect to pay are likely to be an important factor in making any major financial decision.
    People rely on a lot of different information about costs to help inform these decisions. When you buy a car, for example, the list price indicates approximately how much you can expect to pay for the car itself. But the costs of car ownership do not end there. Taxes, insurance, fuel, routine maintenance, and unexpected repairs are also important considerations in the overall cost of a car. Some of these costs are easily observed, while others are more difficult to assess. Similarly, when investing in mutual funds, different variables need to be considered to evaluate how cost‑effective a strategy may be for a particular investor.

    ONGOING CHARGES FIGURE (OCF)

    Mutual funds have many costs, all of which affect the net return to investors. One easily observable cost is the OCF. Like the list price of a car, the OCF tells you a lot about what you can expect to pay for an investment strategy. OCF strongly influence fund selection for many investors, and it’s easy to see why.

    Exhibit 1 illustrates the outperformance rate, or the percentage of funds that beat their category index, for active US-domiciled active equity mutual funds that beat their category index, over the 15-year period ending December 31, 2017. To see the link between OCF and performance, outperformance rates are shown for quartiles of funds sorted by their OCF. As the chart shows, while active funds have mostly lagged indices across the board, the outperformance rate has been inversely related to OCF. Just 6% of funds in the highest OCF quartile beat their index, compared to 25% for the lowest OCF group.

    This data indicates that a high expense ratio presents a challenging hurdle for funds to overcome, especially over longer time horizons. From the investor’s point of view, an expense ratio of 0.25% vs. 1.25% means savings of £10,000 per year on every £1 million invested. As Exhibit 2 helps to illustrate, those pounds can really add up over time.

    Exhibit 1. High Costs Can Reduce Performance, US-Domiciled Equity Fund Winners and Losers Based on Expense Ratios (%)

    The sample includes US-domiciled open-end mutual funds at the beginning of the 15-year period ending December 31, 2017. Funds are sorted into quartiles within their category based on average expense ratio over the sample period. The chart shows the percentage of winner and loser funds by expense ratio quartile; winners are funds that survived and outperformed their respective Morningstar category benchmark, and losers are funds that either did not survive or did not outperform their respective Morningstar category benchmark. US-domiciled open-end mutual fund data is from Morningstar and Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) from the University of Chicago. Equity fund sample includes the Morningstar historical categories: Diversified Emerging Markets, Europe Stock, Foreign Large Blend, Foreign Large Growth, Foreign Large Value, Foreign Small/Mid Blend, Foreign Small/Mid Growth, Foreign Small/Mid Value, Japan Stock, Large Blend, Large Growth, Large Value, Mid-Cap Blend, Mid-Cap Value, Miscellaneous Region, Pacific/Asia ex-Japan Stock, Small Blend, Small Growth, Small Value, and World Stock. For additional information regarding the Morningstar historical categories, please see “The Morningstar Category Classifications” at morningstardirect.morningstar.com/clientcomm/Morningstar_Categories_US_April_2016.pdf. Index funds and fund-of-funds are excluded from the sample. The return, expense ratio, and turnover for funds with multiple share classes are taken as the asset-weighted average of the individual share class observations. For additional methodology, please refer to Dimensional Fund Advisors’ brochure, Mutual Fund Landscape 2018.

    Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

    Exhibit 2. Hypothetical Growth of £1 Million at 6%, Less Expenses

    For illustrative purposes only and not representative of an actual investment. This hypothetical illustration is intended to show the potential impact of higher expense ratios and does not represent any investor’s actual experience. Assumes a starting account balance of £1 million and a 6% compound annual growth rate less expense ratios of 0.25%, 0.75%, and 1.25% applied over a 15-year time horizon. Performance of a hypothetical investment does not reflect transaction costs, taxes, other potential costs, or returns that any investor would have actually attained and may not reflect the true costs, including management fees of an actual portfolio. Actual results may vary significantly. Changing the assumptions would result in different outcomes. For example, the savings and difference between the ending account balances would be lower if the starting investment amount were lower.

    GOING BEYOND THE ONGOING CHARGES FIGURE (OCF)

    The poor track record of mutual funds with high charges (expense ratios) has led many investors to select mutual funds based on OCF alone. However, as with a car’s list price, an OCF is not an all-encompassing measure of the cost of ownership. Take, for example, index funds, which often rank near the bottom of their peers on OCF.
    Index funds are designed to track or match the components of an index formed by an index provider, such as Russell or MSCI. Important decisions in the investment process, such as which securities to include in the index, are outsourced to an index provider and are not within the fund manager’s discretion. For example, the prescribed reconstitution schedule for an index, which is the process of deleting or adding certain stocks to the index, may cause index funds to buy stocks when buy demand is high and sell stocks when buy demand is low. This price-insensitive buying and selling may be required so that the index fund can stay true to its investment mandate of tracking an underlying index. This can result in sub-optimal transaction prices for the index fund and diminished overall returns. In other words, for a given amount of trading (or turnover), the cost per unit of trading may be higher for such a strictly regimented approach to investing. Moreover, this cost will not appear explicitly to investors assessing such a fund on OCF alone. Further, because indices are reconstituted infrequently (typically once per year), funds seeking to track them may also be forced to buy and sell holdings based on stale eligibility criteria. For example, the characteristics of a stock considered value as of the last reconstitution date may change over time, but between reconstitution dates, those changes would not affect that stock’s inclusion or weighting in a value index. That means incoming cash flows to a value index fund could actually be used to purchase stocks that currently look more like growth stocks and vice versa. Metaphorically, these managers’ attention may be more focused on the rear-view mirror than on the road ahead for investors.

    For active approaches like stock picking, both the total amount of trading and the cost per trade may be high. If a manager trades excessively or inefficiently, costs like commissions and price impact from trading can eat away at returns. Viewed through the lens of our car analogy, this impact is like the toll on your vehicle from incessantly jamming the brakes or accelerating quickly. Subjecting the car to such treatment may result in added wear and tear and greater fuel consumption, increasing your total cost of ownership. Similarly, excessive trading can lead to negative tax consequences for a fund, which can increase the cost of ownership for investors holding funds in taxable accounts. Such trading costs can be reduced by avoiding unnecessary turnover and seeking to minimise the cost per trade.

    In contrast to both highly regimented indexing and high-turnover active strategies, employing a flexible investment approach that reduces the need for immediacy, and thus enables opportunistic execution, is one way to potentially reduce implicit costs. Keeping turnover low, remaining flexible, and transacting only when the potential benefits of a trade outweigh the costs can help keep overall trading costs down and help reduce the total cost of ownership.

    CONCLUSION

    The total cost of ownership of a fund can be difficult to assess and requires a thorough understanding of costs beyond what an OCF can tell investors on its own. We believe investors should look beyond any one cost metric and instead evaluate the total cost of ownership of an investment solution.

    1 A stock trading at a low price relative to a measure of fundamental value, such as book value or earnings.
    2 A stock trading at a high price relative to a measure of fundamental value, such as book value or earnings.