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How to screen based on funds top holdings

Posted: February 15th, 2019, 1:24 pm
by Indig0
I can’t seem to find anyway on the various fund screeners (Morningstar, FT, Trustnet, etc.) to filter the results based on the actual underlying holdings within the funds. If you select any fund individually, they will show you the top 5 or 10 holdings, so I know they have details of this available but it seems to not be searchable.

The reason for looking for this is that I’d like to buy some Berkshire Hathaway stock but thought it could be better to just buy a fund / IT that has a decent sized holding in this, ideally with GBP units to keep it simple.

Re: How to screen based on funds top holdings

Posted: February 15th, 2019, 2:39 pm
by EssDeeAitch
I have also searched for "which funds/trusts own ????? stock" but sadly, could not find anything.

Re: How to screen based on funds top holdings

Posted: February 15th, 2019, 2:55 pm
by Itsallaguess
Indig0 wrote:I can’t seem to find anyway on the various fund screeners (Morningstar, FT, Trustnet, etc.) to filter the results based on the actual underlying holdings within the funds. If you select any fund individually, they will show you the top 5 or 10 holdings, so I know they have details of this available but it seems to not be searchable.

The reason for looking for this is that I’d like to buy some Berkshire Hathaway stock but thought it could be better to just buy a fund / IT that has a decent sized holding in this, ideally with GBP units to keep it simple.


A rough method to get you going might be to use the Google Search functionality where we can focus a search on a specific website using the in-built 'site:' functionality...

We know that Trustnet will give details of most of the UK-listed Funds and Investment Trusts, and on the fact-sheet pages they will also usually have a section where the 'Top Holdings' are listed, so with this information we can use Google Search to carry out the following -

https://www.google.com/search?q=site:trustnet.com+%22top+holdings%22+%22BERKSHIRE+HATHAWAY+INC%22

Helpfully, it looks like the various percentage holdings of Berkshire do appear listed in the actual Google Search results, so I don't think you'll need to look through each link that's returned - you can hopefully get a feel for the funds or IT's with the larger holdings by simply scrolling through the Google Search results...

I've only had a quick dip into the search results, but it seems to at least give you a starting point, in the absence of a ready-made screener for this type of search.

One of the top listings I found after a brief trawl through was the Threadneedle American Extended Alpha INA GBP fund, which currently shows as having a Berkshire holding of 8.3% -

https://www.trustnet.com/factsheets/o/a6u6/threadneedle-american-extended-alpha-ina-gbp

There may be better alternatives, and I certainly don't want to be seen to be recommending the above fund, as I know absolutely nothing about it, apart from this specific point regarding it's Berkshire holdings......It's just given as an example of the type of information made available via the above Google Search - but I hope this at least gives you something to take a look through.

For anyone interested, the above Google Search can of course be modified to look for other specific holdings - hopefully it's clear when using the first link and taking a look at the Google Search box how this can be achieved.

I'd be interested in how you get on, and if you find a suitable route into Berkshire via this method, so please do report back if you find something that suits your intention.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Re: How to screen based on funds top holdings

Posted: February 15th, 2019, 10:14 pm
by Indig0
Very helpful indeed, Itsallaguess, and most appreciated.

I used your suggestion to also search on the HL site, as I could use hl.co.uk/funds for fund holdings and then hl.co.uk/shares for ITs.

Alas, I don't think any of the available options are holding more than 10% in this stock, so I may just go the direct route. But your suggestion will no doubt continue to assist my research going forward.