The Lemon Fool

Thanks for the link Snorvey - plenty of food for thought ! It's prompted me to do a little bit of research to clarify my understanding of the data being presented in the various HL tables & charts.

"Performance"
When I look at, say, City of London IT (CTY) it reports the funds performance over various periods of time in a tabulated form (1 week, 1 month, 3 months , 6 months, 1 year , 2 years, 3 years & 5 years). These numbers appear to relate to the change in share price only over the time period.
Indeed, it states "Performance figures are based on the previous close price"

example - over 5 years, the CTY share price has grown by 5.58%

"Total Return"
The comparison of funds tool, however, shows the effect of dividends reinvested and so is a better measure of Total Return (if that is where one is focused).

example - over 5 years, the Total Return for CTY (with divis reinvested) is ~ 30%.

That's my understanding...of course, if this is incorrect, please advise!

Snorvey wrote:Wanting to find out how various Vanguard trackers have performed against some of the more popular investment trusts I've found this on the HL website (pretty sure that other folk have used it or pointed us in the direction of it in the past - but there's no problem with a reminder once in a while)

I've just done a Vanguard UK Equity Income v City of London (CTY) v Schroder Income (SCF) v Perpetual Income (PLI) v Invesco Income (IVI) v Vanguard All share tracker

And the winner was (surprisingly imo) the Vanguard FTSE AS Tracker (just - from CTY).

https://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discoun ... dex-income

Note - 0.08% per annum is not to be sniffed at!

Historic yield of 3.67% is not to be sniffed at either.

https://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discoun ... ion/charts

I am surprised you are surprised.

Don’t forget the fees HL will charge on top. Once you have more than around 12k in your account (more for SIPPs) ITs and ETFs are free to hold while funds are not.

As always things are not that clear. When I compare Vanguard Life Strategy against all of my global IT's, not one of them fails to seriously outperform Vanguard over 5 years and 3 years. To me, it is clear you can quite easily outperform a tracker but it takes time, research and a slice of luck in picking the correct IT's. If you plump for ETF's then you are also in the boat of needing to do your research. A general tracker such as Life Strategy can save you a lot of work and time if you are happy to accept a little less performance but perhaps sleep easier at night

StOmer wrote:As always things are not that clear. When I compare Vanguard Life Strategy against all of my global IT's, not one of them fails to seriously outperform Vanguard over 5 years and 3 years. To me, it is clear you can quite easily outperform a tracker but it takes time, research and a slice of luck in picking the correct IT's. If you plump for ETF's then you are also in the boat of needing to do your research. A general tracker such as Life Strategy can save you a lot of work and time if you are happy to accept a little less performance but perhaps sleep easier at night

My thoughts about trackers boil down to, - I don't mind tracking markets up, but I don't want to track them down. Thus I prefer a selection of IT's.

Snorvey wrote:Wanting to find out how various Vanguard trackers have performed against some of the more popular investment trusts I've found this on the HL website (pretty sure that other folk have used it or pointed us in the direction of it in the past - but there's no problem with a reminder once in a while)

I've just done a Vanguard UK Equity Income v City of London (CTY) v Schroder Income (SCF) v Perpetual Income (PLI) v Invesco Income (IVI) v Vanguard All share tracker

And the winner was (surprisingly imo) the Vanguard FTSE AS Tracker (just - from CTY).

https://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discoun ... dex-income

Note - 0.08% per annum is not to be sniffed at!

Historic yield of 3.67% is not to be sniffed at either.

https://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discoun ... ion/charts

The All-Share Index yields about 4.3%. Why is the tracker's yield so much lower?

The AIC supplies dividend histories for all investment trusts, often stretching back for 20 years or more. Why is it so difficult to find similar records of distributions by open-ended funds for more than a year or two back?

On Hargreaves Lansdown's site the standard disclaimer under the stated yield for OEICs reads: 'This data is provided by Funds Library. HL accepts no responsibility for its accuracy and you should independently check data before making any investment decision. All yields are variable and not guaranteed.'

All very iffy and butty. You won't find anything like the data routinely supplied, for example, here for City of London IT using the 'view dividend history' pulldown:

https://www.theaic.co.uk/companydata/335

Given that nine out of ten British investors are solely or mainly interested in procuring a reliable stream of income to pay bills, why are multi-billion unit trusts and ETFs so opaque about their payout records? Can it be that since they are compelled to distribute all income as received, with no facility for smoothing it with a reserve, they bury the ups and downs?

Still, with a tracker you can rest assured about one thing: you will never, ever, equal the benchmark. Any tracker manager who did would be sacked for exceeding his authority. Mediocrity is enshrined.

Luniversal wrote:...
All very iffy and butty. You won't find anything like the data routinely supplied, for example, here for City of London IT using the 'view dividend history' pulldown:

https://www.theaic.co.uk/companydata/335

...

Ha ha ha, CTY dividend data goes all the way back to 1977, a 42 year historical record. It is quite a record.
In context for me, I started working to earn my keep in 1974.

midgesgalore