VTP

has anyone invested in the Van Eyk 3 pillars fund, ive invested about $20,000 in this fund its supposed to track the ASX300 index, obviously its down like 20% bc the market is down,

but i havent heard of anyone else invested in this stock (ETF).

Actually it is a LIC (Listed Investment Company), not an ETF ... slight difference in structure.

I haven't done enough research into LICs. We need austini here - he has done quite a bit of research into this area I believe.

my portfolio is currently diverisified with the following stocks, obviously with the market turmoil some have fallen over 50% while the banks are down 30% from the time ive bought them.

CEU 3.46%
AMP 8.00%
TPI 10.05%
wes 11.40%
AIA 4.54%
SRH 4.33%
nab 5.43%
anz 5.24%
ivc 6.21%
mbl 4.75%
stw 30.39%
vtp 6.20%

Hi,

Although Sim mentioned I have researched LICs in detail this was quite some time ago when I was deciding which ones I wanted to invest in long term. From memory when VTP listed there was a whole rash of new LICs coming onto the market at the time as they seemed to be flavour of the month. But from what I can recall VTP seemed to be quite okay.

However I have seen a number of LICs come and go over the years and hence being a conservative, set and forget type of investor I tend to stick with those that have a proven track record and who are pretty much guaranteed to be around in the very long term. Hence for now I only invest in the boring older LICs such as ARG, AFI, MLT, AUI, and MIR etc. More recently I have added some ETFs. These are in our SMSF portfolio which won't be accessed for a number of years yet. Having few diversified holdings such as LICs and ETFs also keeps administration simple and just a importanly cheap to run.

When some of the newer LICs have been around for quite a while and look like they can last the distance I might consider investing in some of them.

Brickworks is another LIC that seems to rate highly according to an acquantance of mine who likes to continually research.

However don't take the above to suggest that VTP is good or bad but rather an indication of my boring, conservative investment style.

Cheers - Gordon

Hi again,

Out of interest I had a quick look at VTP and note it is currently yielding over 10% fully franked I also note on the chart that it is below its issue price. So if you're after income it is very tempting and one would assume that the share price will recover along with everything else overtime.

Whilst browsing around I stumbled upon a recent Dixon Advisory newsletter. Daryl Dixon (and Max Walsh), true veterans of the stock market, I would suggest know more about LICs than just about anyone else around. And in his newsletter I saw that he was buying large quantities of the following for his clients: VTP, WHF, SYL, BKI & HIC.

Having sought advice from Daryl a couple of times years ago I know he loves to buy what he considers safe LICs when they are trading at a substantial discount to NTA. The reason being that you are obtaining the income stream of the underlying shares at a substantial discount. I'm assuming this is still the case with his approach. I also note some of the other LICs mentioned above are offering a good yield.

Some food for thought. So given that a professional advisor who knows LICs like the back of his hand (and has been investing in these himself and for his clients for decades) has confidence in these I'm now almost tempted to buy some myself

Cheers - Gordon

Attached Images

vtp_ax28jan04_to_23aug08.png (11.5 KB, 14 views)

yep i got a variety in my portfolio, some income stocks some growth stocks and some dogs (AMP) lol