chiangmai
Crazy Mango Extraordinaire
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Post by chiangmai on Aug 15, 2018 12:03:18 GMT 7
I'm also in the UK and now approaching the one month mark, the weather in the South has been glorious and frequently around 32 degrees. Up norf however, Lancaster struggles to get much above 22 degrees on a good day - the beer however is very good, Ruddles at GBP 1.65 a pint at Weatherspooms is a bargain, otherwise it's craft beers at circa GBP 3.50 a pint, beats the pants off Chang even on a bad day. The headline however is I've become addicted to Greggs bacon butties for breakfast, however did I manage to survive without them, I fear the waistline will suffer. We were up north, for the month and was often above 30.
On the beers you can see how the UK pubs are struggling: 3 pound plus a pint for bitter/ales in the pub, but only a pound or so for a can in supermarkets.
Also reminds you how poor Thailand is for beer. Difficult to get good ale/bitter in Thailand - very limited choice - and you're paying ballpark 4 quid in a supermarket or 5 quid in a bar. More expensive of course than UK
Thai lager at around 40 baht a bottle in 7-11 is similar in price to UK beer at a supermarket, but not a patch on UK beer in terms of quality.
Glad I'm not on a backpacker's budget when it comes to drinking here ![LOL](//storage.proboards.com/6207754/images/7WqwXnsEcase2oKDoa3y.png) Either you were very lucky with the weather or Lancaster must have a climate of its own because we've only seen one day with temperatures higher than 19 degrees all month: www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/lancaster/historic
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Post by Fletchsmile on Aug 15, 2018 12:40:36 GMT 7
We were up north, for the month and was often above 30.
On the beers you can see how the UK pubs are struggling: 3 pound plus a pint for bitter/ales in the pub, but only a pound or so for a can in supermarkets.
Also reminds you how poor Thailand is for beer. Difficult to get good ale/bitter in Thailand - very limited choice - and you're paying ballpark 4 quid in a supermarket or 5 quid in a bar. More expensive of course than UK
Thai lager at around 40 baht a bottle in 7-11 is similar in price to UK beer at a supermarket, but not a patch on UK beer in terms of quality.
Glad I'm not on a backpacker's budget when it comes to drinking here ![LOL](//storage.proboards.com/6207754/images/7WqwXnsEcase2oKDoa3y.png) Either you were very lucky with the weather or Lancaster must have a climate of its own because we've only seen one day with temperatures higher than 19 degrees all month: www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/lancaster/historicHehe I was just pulling your leg a bit. That said though: July was much better than recent August shown in the link. Plus we did have quite a few days in late 20's, and occasionally in very early 30's.
Interesting website. The stats look a bit dubious though and some of the symbols missing and with question marks, I wonder about the accuracy.
Here's Bolton for July
vs Lancaster for July
For w/c Mon 23 July for example:
Bolton Highs: 27,22,24,30,29,20,23
Lancaster Highs: 20,18,22,24,24,18,18
Find it difficult to believe Bolton was so much better than Lancaster given it's less than an hour and about 40 miles for us ???
I wonder also where they are physically located when they take their stats, eg Bolton town centre or up on the moors. (We had fires up there just before I arrived and early days of our visit. Must have help make it hotter in some parts than other though ![LOL](//storage.proboards.com/6207754/images/7WqwXnsEcase2oKDoa3y.png) )
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chiangmai
Crazy Mango Extraordinaire
Posts: 6,312
Likes: 5,334
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Post by chiangmai on Aug 15, 2018 22:40:54 GMT 7
Hehe I was just pulling your leg a bit. That said though: July was much better than recent August shown in the link. Plus we did have quite a few days in late 20's, and occasionally in very early 30's.
Interesting website. The stats look a bit dubious though and some of the symbols missing and with question marks, I wonder about the accuracy.
Here's Bolton for July
vs Lancaster for July
For w/c Mon 23 July for example:
Bolton Highs: 27,22,24,30,29,20,23
Lancaster Highs: 20,18,22,24,24,18,18
Find it difficult to believe Bolton was so much better than Lancaster given it's less than an hour and about 40 miles for us ???
I wonder also where they are physically located when they take their stats, eg Bolton town centre or up on the moors. (We had fires up there just before I arrived and early days of our visit. Must have help make it hotter in some parts than other though ![LOL](//storage.proboards.com/6207754/images/7WqwXnsEcase2oKDoa3y.png) ) I don't understand the differences either, all I know is that today, mid-August, I went out and bought colder weather clothes, out of necessity, PLUS, it's raining - my phone tells me it's 17 degrees currently at 4:45pm! Mrs CM will be here in three weeks time and I've been slowly changing track with her regarding the Lancaster climate at this time of year, last seen she was headed to the North Face store in Central Festival, ouch! On that note....I just bought a new Berghaus Gortex jacket from Blacks at 105 quid, can you imagine, 4k baht for such a thing......first one cost me 240 quid in London 15 years ago.
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Post by Fletchsmile on Sept 6, 2018 19:49:43 GMT 7
Was revisiting this as I'll start reorganising in the next few days. I'll probably go with the original 6 and add Sanlam bond fund as mentioned above. The other thing I'll probably add which wasn't mentioned above is a smaller companies fund, just for the long term growth aspect and again a bit of diversification. That'll give about 25% in bonds and 1 mixed fund, which would take fixed income slightly above the 30% mark. Similar ball park to now Adding 2 funds will also simplify and make the numbers simple. 8 is a very nice round number. Also divides and sub-divides easy for quick calcs in my head when taking a quick look at things ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) 8 is also a nice reduction from the 18 I started with, and cuts down admin/ monitoring ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png)
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chiangmai
Crazy Mango Extraordinaire
Posts: 6,312
Likes: 5,334
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Post by chiangmai on Sept 10, 2018 11:48:21 GMT 7
I'm quietly watching and following this with great interest since your choice of funds for mum is very close to the ones that I hold, I've just made it even closer by buying Jupiter European, a fund that had interested me from the outset but which kept being postponed. You've chosen First State Asia whereas mine was Smith and Williamson Far East which was doing great things until Trump started to play the sanctions game, it remains however a keeper, as does Stewart Asia Pac.
I'd also like to slim down from 13 to around 8 but this would mean unloading two that have fallen in NAV but still yield 5% pa in income, I can't decide whether to bite the bullet and move on or take AyG's sage advice and continue to hold, the net position on them both is about 0% over fourteen months, I suppose in a rising interest rate environment it would be better to unload soon.
So all of that leaves my core holdings as follows:
Baillie Gifford International Fundsmith Lindsell Train Global S&W Far Eastern Baillie Gifford Managed Stewart Asia Pac. Jupiter European Royal London Extra Yield Witan iShares Gilts
Others include GAM Star Credit Henderson Income
And like you I chose to include a small caps and went with Schroder Small Cap Discovery which has been, er, interesting:)
I held Fidelity Far East for a while and it continues to do good things, with hindsight I might choose to hold onto it but hey, 10 out of 13 isn't bad in my book!
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Post by Fletchsmile on Oct 22, 2018 16:21:23 GMT 7
Here's what I went for in the end using HL's platform: 1) Funds: 8 all equally weighted to keep things simple 1 Sanlam FOUR Strategic Bond Fund Class I 12.5% £ Strategic Bond 2 Lindsell Train Global Equity Class D 12.5% Global 3 Royal London Sterling Extra Yield Bond Class Y 12.5% £ Strategic Bond 4 Jupiter European Class I 12.5% Europe Excluding UK 5 First State Asia Focus Class B 12.5% Asia Pacific Excluding Japan 6 Baillie Gifford Managed Class B 12.5% Mixed Investment 40-85% Shares 7 Lindsell Train LF Lindsell Train UK Equity Class D Accumulation Shares 12.5% UK All Companies 8 Amati Global Investors UK Smaller Companies Class B 12.5% UK Smaller Companies Type of funds = 2 bond funds, 1 mixed fund and 5 equity fundUsing their analysis tool, it's split: 2) AllocationInternational Shares 41.4% UK Shares 29.5% UK Bonds 12.8% International Bonds 10.2% Cash & Equivalents 2.7% UK Gilts 2.3% Other 0.7% Property 0.3% Alternative Trading Strategies 0.1% Unclassified Funds < 0.1% So approx 70% equity, 25% bonds, 5 % rest 3) geographical Country Region UK 44.60% Developed Europe - Excl UK 21.70% North America 13.30% Emerging Asia 7.00% Japan 4.40% Developed Asia 3.60% Cash and Equivalents 2.70% Australia & New Zealand 1.20% Non-Classified 0.50% South & Central America 0.50% Property 0.30% Middle East & Africa 0.10% Emerging Europe 0.10% Unclassified Funds < 0.1% .... and a nicer looking .pdf :
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