Unit Trusts worth it?

Thor187 said:
They are not going to chop and change Naspers everyday.

And all the funds publish the underlying companies - granted there are some more niche unit trusts that will work a bit differently sure, but to me in my own personal life those won't work for me so I do not care for it.

This is always a difficult topic to discuss becuase no matter what people will tell you they so not know what you want and what your goals are hence why you won't often find reliable advise everywhere or people that agrees since their goals, your goals are different.

Example, I personally would not buy gold, but I would buy woolies or steinhoff and keep it for 30 years to me that is sound to you that is not.

So point I'm making the unit trusts I track are not the ones that chop and change often are they the correct ones to track?, who knows, but they are the correct ones for me.
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Out of interest sake, which unit trusts do you track?
 
Idiosyncratic said:
How closely do you follow it? I see some lovely resource stocks that I doubt you'd be keen on? Then there's bliming MTN, which isn't usually my kind of stock.
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That is the beauty of doing your own thing I adjust my weighing differently depending on what I feel is right using their expertise and insight as a guideline.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
I've been putting R1000 a month into a Sanlam unit trust for about a year and half now.

It's moderate/low risk but I was expecting to at least see some growth over this time but I've got a few hundred bucks less than what I've put into it and doesn't really vary too much.

Is it possibly because it's still a small amount or just the state of the market currently?


I'm looking to put some more money away now and not sure where to put it, I've got a 7/32 day notice account open at FNB now which seems to make more sense to me as I'm actually seeing interest here. Thinking of just using this FNB account now and leave the unit trusts as is.

P.S. I'm not looking for high risk investments with this money.
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https://businesstech.co.za/news/finance/148321/4-stocks-you-should-invest-in-this-year/
 
Thor187 said:
That is the beauty of doing your own thing I adjust my weighing differently depending on what I feel is right using their expertise and insight as a guideline.
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Right, but my thing is always this - companies like Allan Gray, don't they aim to invest at a good time (when the price of a good stock is low)? I'll answer my own question... Duh, obviously!
But our timing won't be as good. We'll only find out about their purchases after the fact. By then the market has moved upwards already, thus minimizing our potential gain.
 
Idiosyncratic said:
Right, but my thing is always this - companies like Allan Gray, don't they aim to invest at a good time (when the price of a good stock is low)? I'll answer my own question... Duh, obviously!
But our timing won't be as good. We'll only find out about their purchases after the fact. By then the market has moved upwards already, thus minimizing our potential gain.
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They are not trying to time it much either. I'm sure when they reach a buy decision after analysing a stock they just buy it...
 
Idiosyncratic said:
Right, but my thing is always this - companies like Allan Gray, don't they aim to invest at a good time (when the price of a good stock is low)? I'll answer my own question... Duh, obviously!
But our timing won't be as good. We'll only find out about their purchases after the fact. By then the market has moved upwards already, thus minimizing our potential gain.
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Time in the market is what matters most for me. Who knows what Alan grey aims to do.
 
Oh yes, Thor187, I did listen to those podcasts.

So one can't really take advice from Simon about UTs since he knows so little about them (well, at the time of the podcasts) since he ignored them after being hurt by a Unit Trust with 6% fees in 1995 or something.

Same as trying to judge modern flexible cheap RAs based on old bad expensive RA's, hell, even ETFSA has a RA, http://www.etfsara.co.za/
 
Won't say ignore, he probably just knows what to look for and neither one has tickled his fancy who knows.

In my own experience DIY my own thing works well for me so I'm obviously biased to start off with since I'm getting results without the fees.
 
Idiosyncratic said:
In that case, why would one choose a unit trust over either an ETF or DIY with shares?
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Because they analyse the shares and other things for value or for dividends or whatever their fund mandate is? (and of course that means we are talking about active managed unit trusts, not index ones)

I think hedge funds will be the very active traders, vs the slower unit trusts. Of course there can be unit trusts that are more active in their buying and selling, but that would add costs.

And one gets index unit trusts which is almost exactly the same as the same ETFs (look on Satrix website ETFs and unit trusts, they have both ;)) and can save on cost for example with smaller monthly contributions VS ETF buying...

One can find unit trusts for things that you can't find ETFs for, but also the other way around.

There is no either or, one can use both and still do you own shares.
 
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supersunbird said:
Because they analyse the shares and other things for value or for dividends or whatever their fund mandate is?

I think hedge funds will be the very active traders, vs the slower unit trusts. Of course there can be unit trusts that are more active in their buying and selling, but that would add costs.

And one gets index unit trusts which is almost exactly the same as the same ETFs (look on Satrix website ETFs and unit trusts, they have both ;)) and can save on cost for example with smaller monthly contributions VS ETF buying...

One can find unit trusts for things that you can't find ETFs for, but also the other way around.

There is no either or, one can use both and still do you own shares.
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Fair enough, but won't fees flog you to death? I was with Satrix for a while until INDI tanked so I'm familiar with some of their products. What Thor is pointing out is that one can copy what the unit trusts are doing and thus do away with fees. With EasyEquities one doesn't have to purchase full shares either so there's that luxury without the need for unit trusts.
 
Idiosyncratic said:
Fair enough, but won't fees flog you to death? I was with Satrix for a while until INDI tanked so I'm familiar with some of their products. What Thor is pointing out is that one can copy what the unit trusts are doing and thus do away with fees. With EasyEquities one doesn't have to purchase full shares either so there's that luxury without the need for unit trusts.
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There are 0.4% fee index unit trusts. Most ETFs are the same or more expensive, as are some index unit trusts.

Yes, one can. I don't have the time or inclination, indexes are good enough for me.

One also can't have individual shares in a Retirement Annuity (and neither own basket of ETFs even) or TFSA (can have UTs and ETFs in those), so there is that limitation to that method too...
 
Thor187 said:
Won't say ignore, he probably just knows what to look for and neither one has tickled his fancy who knows.

In my own experience DIY my own thing works well for me so I'm obviously biased to start off with since I'm getting results without the fees.
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I've actually spoken to the guy when I was still thinking of moving my stuff to UTs. He isn't against the idea of a unit trust but are against those charging crazy fees for something you can do yourself in 10 minutes and the dishonest ones (the benchmark issue for example). His other big issue is that not even the unit trust companies can really explain their fees and that some charge upfront fees.

But honestly, how much effort does it take somebody to go over the details of a unit trust before buying into it?

Unit trusts scare the average guy who has heard big awesome promises of what ETFs can do and "look at STXIND". The same guy doesn't factor in transaction costs, BDA associated costs, brokerage fees etc. trading an ETF nor do they think about the liquidity or understand how and what the ETFs market maker doesand how that affects you.

Simon is pro ETF (fanboy levels IMO),no doubt, so you won't hear podcasts or anything pro u it trust from him. It's not his thing.

What we need is a Peter White with a justanotherday.com site focussed on UTs
 
Hamster said:
I've actually spoken to the guy when I was still thinking of moving my stuff to UTs. He isn't against the idea of a unit trust but are against those charging crazy fees for something you can do yourself in 10 minutes and the dishonest ones (the benchmark issue for example). His other big issue is that not even the unit trust companies can really explain their fees and that some charge upfront fees.

But honestly, how much effort does it take somebody to go over the details of a unit trust before buying into it?

Unit trusts scare the average guy who has heard big awesome promises of what ETFs can do and "look at STXIND". The same guy doesn't factor in transaction costs, BDA associated costs, brokerage fees etc. trading an ETF nor do they think about the liquidity or understand how and what the ETFs market maker doesand how that affects you.

Simon is pro ETF (fanboy levels IMO),no doubt, so you won't hear podcasts or anything pro u it trust from him. It's not his thing.

What we need is a Peter White with a justanotherday.com site focussed on UTs
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But very little unit trusts actually outperform indexes, no? I mean, the pro ETF crowd tell horror stories about unit trusts (and yes, I've been lending my ears to those types lately). Why would I invest in an Allan Gray Balanced Unit Trust if I can invest in ASHMID and thus knock some percentage points off my fees? I've also heard a lot of crap about RAs lately.
Sorry, I don't consider myself an expert in this field and have been largely dabbling with stocks only but I'm keen on learning more and investing through other methods.
 
Idiosyncratic said:
But very little unit trusts actually outperform indexes, no? I mean, the pro ETF crowd tell horror stories about unit trusts (and yes, I've been lending my ears to those types lately). Why would I invest in an Allan Gray Balanced Unit Trust if I can invest in ASHMID and thus knock some percentage points off my fees? I've also heard a lot of crap about RAs lately.
Sorry, I don't consider myself an expert in this field and have been largely dabbling with stocks only but I'm keen on learning more and investing through other methods.
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ASHMID - all the companies that used to in the top 40 or never quite made it

There are pros and cons to each (I make use of both) as long as you know the products you are using and the reason you picked it.

One pro of UTs that is often overlooked is that it is more difficult to make a rash decision with it. Impulse buying and selling is basically non-existant and that is exactly what eats away the money from somebody starting out with ETFs.
 
Hamster said:
ASHMID - all the companies that used to in the top 40 or never quite made it

There are pros and cons to each (I make use of both) as long as you know the products you are using and the reason you picked it.

One pro of UTs that is often overlooked is that it is more difficult to make a rash decision with it. Impulse buying and selling is basically non-existant and that is exactly what eats away the money from somebody starting out with ETFs.
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Hehe, just an example

Yeah, ok, but at the end of the day it's about the moola. Considering you now do both, in hindsight, what would you have done differently in the beginning? Does your UTs yield better returns than your ETFs?
 
Idiosyncratic said:
Hehe, just an example

Yeah, ok, but at the end of the day it's about the moola. Considering you now do both, in hindsight, what would you have done differently in the beginning? Does your UTs yield better returns than your ETFs?
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I would've planned my ETF strategy instead of cowboying and experimenting. School fees.

Biggest thing of all - I would've stuck with a platform that invests via monthly debit order. When I moved from FNB's Share Saver to EE and ABSA I needed to manually deposit and invest the money every month. Didn't take long for things to switch from "save first, live later" to "live first, save what's left".
 
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