Proved to be a waste of time and now I have an allocation not even worth selling for a profit.
Simon
That's very disappointing. However, let's strip away the emotion. We're you investing just to stag it substantially and flog or you investing believing this was a company worth investing in for the long term?
If it's the later (but of course hoping for a big stag unrealised gain of course) then you should try to get some more (if available at a reasonable price) on listing.
Whilst it's impossible to do entirely, we should try to separate emotion from investment decisions. Or at least that's the theory...
Cheers
N.
__________________ Nigel
This is a general comment only and does not constitute advice. Before making legal or financial decisions you should seek advice from a professional adviser, who can take into account your specific circumstances and investment goals.
Here is a chart of Platinum International for the last 2 years (not logarithmic, shows value of $10,000 invested at fund inception assuming distributions reinvested, ignoring tax etc).
It's pretty clear that it's done basically nothing for the past 14 months or so, after doing very well the previous year.
__________________
Sim'
This is a general comment only and does not constitute advice. Before making financial decisions you should seek advice from a professional adviser, who can take into account your specific circumstances and investment goals.
Would appear that through comsec I received the full 4000 allocation twice
So happy with that result. Mind you the letter says sorry about allocation (must be standard letter) and then still fully allocated. I haven't seen the letter yet but bookeeper just read it for me.
My 3rd application was through Platinum direct as a fund holder. In this case I applied for 25000 and received 4880 instead. Seems like the allocation have no rhyme or reason. Have only been a Platinum fund holder for 2 years with a balance of $150k.
Simon - How did you apply for the $50k allocation?
Cheers
__________________
Comments made in this post may not be relevant to your individual circumstances. If you intend making any investment, financial or taxation decision you should consult the relevant professional adviser.
What international fund is doing well? It would seem that most of them have returned average results over the last 12 months, so you can't say that platinum has performed poorly. Compared to their peers, they are around the money..
And I think it would be silly to invest into a booming market, like the ASX because the last 12 months was going gangbusters.
1 rule of investing, do the opposite to what the market is doing.. and right now you should be reducing exposure to booming markets, and investing the the 'out of flavor' sectors, ie international funds.
To me, it would seem we have Platinum on sale, so why would you not buy it? If milk is on sale at your local general store, are you going to say, I don't want any because the price is cheap, and then come back next week when the price runs and then say, gee, milk is going up, I better buy some up?
1 rule of investing, do the opposite to what the market is doing.. and right now you should be reducing exposure to booming markets, and investing the the 'out of flavor' sectors, ie international funds.
I think taken out of context, rules such as this are quite dangerous to your wealth creation ... unless you have a LOT of time to wait.
You need to understand the fundamentals driving the market you are considering, and more importantly, for a particular fund, you need to understand what markets and even what individual shares that fund invests in.
If you believe that a market has been oversold, and the fundamentals indicate that strength should be returning, THEN it is possibly a good time to buy.
Simply buying because something has gone down without consideration to WHY it has gone down, is not a good strategy in my opinion - you run the risk of buying before the bottom is reached and having to wait a long time to show a profit. Better to buy once momentum has returned AFTER it has bottomed in my opinion.
However, if the fundamentals don't necessarily support the new upward momentum, it may stall - and you end up wasting your time ... it's difficult to pick where the bottom actually is.
Here's a chart of Platinum Japan (attached).
Note the distance between the peak in March 2006 and the trough in July 2006. Note that the fund is now LOWER than that trough, having performed very erratically over that 10 month period. Note the 200 day moving average (that's 200 trading days - around 1 year) ... it's been trending downwards for a while. That's not a good sign.
Would you buy into this fund just because it is "cheap" ?
The Nikkei hasn't exactly been showing stellar results lately - it's not much higher than it was 12 months ago ... unless there's a strong indication that growth has returned to that market, I don't think now is a good time to invest.
I prefer to buy momentum ... when the fundamentals driving a market push it to new highs, I see a good opportunity to invest in that market for so long as the fundamentals support the new valuations. The ASX200 is a good example - company profits have gone up significantly over the past 4 years and as such, P/E ratios are not absurdly high (yet).
The problem with Platinum International is that there is no single "market" that they invest in ... so it is very difficult for us to predict what it driving it.
__________________
Sim'
This is a general comment only and does not constitute advice. Before making financial decisions you should seek advice from a professional adviser, who can take into account your specific circumstances and investment goals.
I'm not saying that you buy something just because its cheap, but certainly you need to find something out of flavour.
So are you invested OS at the moment? or are you exposed to ASX only?
The problem with what your doing, is when you relise the tide has turned, usally the horse bolts and by the time you get out, the market has dropped 10%.. remember there is a old saying, the market goes up the stair case, but down the elevator.
I would be concerned about what the market will do come july 1, when all this super money stops flowing in..
When the dot.com crash happened, everyone still in was caught with their pants down... lets hope the same doesn't happen to zinc.com!
To me, it would seem we have Platinum on sale, so why would you not buy it? If milk is on sale at your local general store, are you going to say, I don't want any because the price is cheap, and then come back next week when the price runs and then say, gee, milk is going up, I better buy some up?
Bad comparison ... one is a commodity, the other is an asset. Those markets behave very differently.
Is Platinum really on sale ? I don't see it as being cheap - I see it as being dead. It's not doing anything, it hasn't dropped, it hasn't risen.
This is a general comment only and does not constitute advice. Before making financial decisions you should seek advice from a professional adviser, who can take into account your specific circumstances and investment goals.
So are you invested OS at the moment? or are you exposed to ASX only?
Platinum Asia
CFS W/S Global Resources
CFS W/S Colliers Global Property Securities (although I recently sold out of these to consolidate my other better performing investments ... I will look to buy back in once I've reached my limit for my other investments and growth returns to this fund).
Platinum European is high on my shortlist - and while the growth has been reasonable, I'm still doing far better with my other funds, so it's still on the bench.
Quote:
Originally Posted by crc_error
The problem with what your doing, is when you relise the tide has turned, usally the horse bolts and by the time you get out, the market has dropped 10%.. remember there is a old saying, the market goes up the stair case, but down the elevator.
Not necessarily.
One of three things will happen
the market will overheat and then stall
the market will be affected by some significant external event
the market will run out of steam and will drift downwards
The first you can see coming ... and if you like to take a few risks, you can make a lot of money while things get hot (right now I see the ASX as being quite warm, but certainly not hot ... I think we're in for some exciting times in the 2nd half of this year ... with "exciting" not always a good thing).
The second (external event) you can do little about except to have a well structured portfolio and a strategy for dealing with the unexpected (buffers, etc)
The third you can also see coming to a degree - looking at market momentum ... it tends to be a slow painful death, rather than a spectacular fireball like an overheated market crash.
... and at the end of the day, a 10% correction is nothing to cry about when you've just done 40%+ over the past 9 - 12 months.
Quote:
Originally Posted by crc_error
I would be concerned about what the market will do come july 1, when all this super money stops flowing in..
There will be still be super going into the market - just not as quickly ... the market may lose momentum for a bit - but I don't think we'll see a change in direction. We still have strong fundamentals - very low unemployment, inflation under control, good consumer and business sentiment, good company earnings growth ... I don't think it will be that big a deal.
Quote:
Originally Posted by crc_error
When the dot.com crash happened, everyone still in was caught with their pants down... lets hope the same doesn't happen to zinc.com!
The dot.com crash happened because the market became white-hot ... there was no longer any regard for the fundamentals (that was the whole sales pitch for tech stocks - it was a "new age" of business and all that crap).
We've only just started to see the euphoria enter the mass public consciousness in Australia - in my opinion, we're not quite in a bubble yet ... although I can see one starting to form.
If you aren't prepared to strap in and hang on for the ride (which is fair enough I think) ... I think now might be a good time to start looking at Sydney and Melbourne real estate again
__________________
Sim'
This is a general comment only and does not constitute advice. Before making financial decisions you should seek advice from a professional adviser, who can take into account your specific circumstances and investment goals.
Received in the mail today letters from Platinum (proforma signed by Kerr Neilson) confirming what Comsec told me about our allocations - 2,000 PTM shares for each of 3 Comsec accounts (one filled as applied, and 2 got scaled back from 4,000 to 2,000).
