Alternative Investments

[cara2]

Certainly there have been great individual stocks but the attraction of India was that there's some diversification, away from US tech . Many of the bigger Indian stocks are financial, but with a number of other sectors.
Unfortunately the market there is looking expensive now, the dollar and Trump's tariffs threaten.
Jupiter India actually made 52% over over 12 months, pity there's nothing quite like it now.
Maybe China or Japan will develop

I was using MAN GLG Dynamic Interest IH for some time. Domiciled in Ireland.
The return over 28 months was 68%, all in a nice smooth curve free of any pullbacks. Not bad for a "bond".
That slope has gone flatter now, down to about 10% pa slope at the moment.
They have apparently renamed the fund a couple of times, currently it's MAN Group either Dynamic or Dynint.

Bailllie Gifford American B and Morgan Stanley US Advantage have beaten really Mag7 concentrated funds like L&G Global Tech Index in the past weeks.
I'm constantly niggled by the so-called "settlement" period of around a week the platforms talk about. I don't believe it, it's just a way for them to make money by keeping hold of your funds for a week = 2%! Some platforms are better than others, but I'm tempted to put together my own Pies of the stocks which dominate the funds. Yes there are fees but the advantage of being able to time your trades better mitigates that.

 

[ChelseaR]

Certainly there have been great individual stocks but the attraction of India was that there's some diversification, away from US tech . Many of the bigger Indian stocks are financial, but with a number of other sectors.
Unfortunately the market there is looking expensive now, the dollar and Trump's tariffs threaten.
Jupiter India actually made 52% over over 12 months, pity there's nothing quite like it now.
Maybe China or Japan will develop

I was using MAN GLG Dynamic Interest IH for some time. Domiciled in Ireland.
The return over 28 months was 68%, all in a nice smooth curve free of any pullbacks. Not bad for a "bond".
That slope has gone flatter now, down to about 10% pa slope at the moment.
They have apparently renamed the fund a couple of times, currently it's MAN Group either Dynamic or Dynint.

Bailllie Gifford American B and Morgan Stanley US Advantage have beaten really Mag7 concentrated funds like L&G Global Tech Index in the past weeks.
I'm constantly niggled by the so-called "settlement" period of around a week the platforms talk about. I don't believe it, it's just a way for them to make money by keeping hold of your funds for a week = 2%! Some platforms are better than others, but I'm tempted to put together my own Pies of the stocks which dominate the funds. Yes there are fees but the advantage of being able to time your trades better mitigates that.

Looks like you have a pretty good understanding of strategies and funds, do you think the timing flexibility would outweigh the platform fees if we talk about the long term?

 

[cara2]

Hang on, it all depends where you go.
You can pay through the nose if you pick the wrong place, but somewhere cheap may not even have the asset you want.
Then there's the platform's usablity and features.
Invest Engine is cheap for the what they have, but no shares, and they're slow for ETFs. No screener at all. and you can't call them.
AJBell, great screener and info, pretty low fees, but they're another slow one afai have found so far.
Trading212. no screener at all, all sorts of practices I don't like, crappy platform imo, but for most shares out there, and a middling range of ETFs, though no OEIC's, they're instant and free. Unless you hit their crediit-card level swap rates which kill investment shorts completely.
EToro, wide spreads horrible Mickey Mouse platform imo, but they do have free shorting (if no leverage) and you can have Stop Losses amd Tailing Stops and Take Profits. Free, ish. Poor for ETFs beyond the basics.

For some events, like the recent bursts of populariy on , errm, Real Estata, Small cap US stocks, Gold, you need to be nimble. Some may not want to look at their longer term accounts that frequently. If you can, you can make a few percent in a few days. I have both done it, and failed to , where the platform was too slow. Some institutions can take more than 2 days to buy a fund. Just so you get the top....

So it's not quite as simple as flexibility vs fees.

I also have to factor-in the inconvenience of having several fund holders. If I document mine and my wife's I get an A4 page full of numbers, and it's not someting I really want to do when the markets close (9pm!). And by the way, some fund holders are always a day behind, others not.
Some will lecture didactically about investments having to be left for 10 years. OK if that suits you.

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Edit: It's worth mentioning that some do limit buy/sell orders, which you may have to correspond with them to find out.
For example Hargreaves L will do some on Funds if you phone the order in, which costs £20.
These are some popular US/Tech funds:

If on the 18th Dec you decided the prices were getting too extended and it was time to sell your £60k worth, the £20 order would save you £3000.