Investment advice

Mr.Boots

Looking for a bit of inpartial advice.
€200,000 to invest, something medium to long term.
Is property at the moment making sense?

The Dagda

Mr.Boots wrote: »

Looking for a bit of inpartial advice.
€200,000 to invest, something medium to long term.
Is property at the moment making sense?

Commercial property advertised in the Irish Times this week with a 12.5% yield. NCT premises on a 30 year lease.

215000 producing 28000 per annum.

Seems a good investment to me...

arrowloopboy

Michael Platts Bluecrest hedge fund, annualised return since inception in 2001 at around 14.5% ,largest drawdown from peak to trough was about 4.7%,even through 08/09(while some other funds were completely wiped out).
He's one of the best in the business,do some research ,you'll like it;).

euroboom13

The Dagda wrote: »

Commercial property advertised in the Irish Times this week with a 12.5% yield. NCT premises on a 30 year lease.

215000 producing 28000 per annum.

Seems a good investment to me...

council commercial Rates are high, but if your not borrowing ,long term you wont loose,but not easy being a landlord.

Gov/imf are determined to kill res property market with water rates / property tax and prtb ,so i wouldnt buy a shoebox without a 9%+ yield.if your not borrowing you will do well and ZERO cap gains tax if u hold for 7 yrs.Tenants can be a pain sometimes(u need a thick skin and to be pro active)

I have invested in the past 2yrs.../75% res prop/15% financial recovery stock/10% recovery stock(zero borrowings for fear of future interest hikes) .....doing well but foreign tenants causing irritation
good luck

Value Hunter

People seem to underestimate Warren Buffets returns due to his high Profile. Although Michael Platts returns are very impressive, the average of 14.5% is well below buffets of 21.5% ( achieved over 50/60 years as opposed to 10). The difference is an extra 50% ROI annually over Platts. He's called the best investor in history for a reason and most investors would do well to purchase some Berkshire Hathaway stock to gain from his excellence. Any contingency plans with regards Mr. Buffets retirement (which i believe to be well off) are well planed for, with his main investing understudies outperform even his exceptional results in recent years.

In the last 20 years alone this stock has returned over 2000%

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=BRK-A+Interactive#symbol=brk-a;range=my;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;

With regard other investment advice, there are still opportunities in the stock market despite there recent advances, although they require skill, research and patience to uncover. The general market does seem slightly high, and could be due a correction, or a major advance if there is US economic improvement. Judging which is the billion dollar question and should be avoided by any retail investor. If your not confident in your ability to spot individual companies who are undervalued I would hold out from investing in shares, for the next few months to see further developments.

As for property, I believe it provides a reasonable opportunity at present, although I would wait for 12 -18 months, as it seems repossessions and NAMA sales will increase during this period as the banks finally deal with insolvent mortgages. In may even be 24 - 30 months before this is finally challenged. Once this dumping on the market occurs, it is the time to buy! Things will improve over the next 10 years without doubt and any investor confident and shrewd enough to invest when things seems to be at their most challenging will reap large benefits from their investments.

Investment in Bonds in absurd at the current levels and should be avoided at all costs. Similar investments in precious metals I would suggest be avoided due to their volatility and in my view are outright speculation bets ( No one can reasonable predict the future economic environment correctly)

My best advice would be to chose a mix of exceptionally strong and undervalued stocks, and to keep a significant minority portion of the portfolio in cash (25% at most) until either a significant advancement in worldwide economic performance occurs, or a significant correction in global stock markets. If the €200,000 is purely cash, I would advise a small investment in property with a loan amounting to no more than 50% of the purchase price, the rental income can then service the loan and the investment can become self financing.

If you've any questions feel free to message me

Value Hunter

arrowloopboy

The fact that Berkshires A share price got cut in half in 2008 doesn't sit well with me,granted Buffets career has been spectacular,those type of drawdowns wouldn't sit easy with me,If their the best in the business ,how did that happen ?
Meanwhile,Bluecrest made a small profit that year if i'm not mistaken.
I'm not yet invested in Bluecrest,but its near the top of my shortlist.


After thinking a lot more about this over the weekend ,where had Berkshire their heads during the F/C of 08(up their bums ???),no matter how good Buffets reputation is,a 50% drawdown is not acceptable ,I couldn't possibly invest money with people that let their fund 1/2 in value in the space of a year.

aidanki

whats buffets fund actually called, or is simply buying shares in berkshire hathaway the way you put money into this fund and watch it grow

arrowloopboy

aidanki wrote: »

whats buffets fund actually called, or is simply buying shares in berkshire hathaway the way you put money into this fund and watch it grow

See the link in Value Hunters post,but its not as rosy as might first appear.

Procyon

aidanki wrote: »

whats buffets fund actually called, or is simply buying shares in berkshire hathaway the way you put money into this fund and watch it grow

It's simply buying shares. There are two types of shares, brk.a and brk.b (worth 1/1500 of a brk.a). The annual shareholder letters on the website are worth reading.

aidanki

is there something that you all don't like in the annual shareholders letter, it looks good to me

Value Hunter

Unless another economic disaster like 1929 or 2008 occurs Warren Buffets company will do exceptionally good, while being generally much less riskier than the general market. The 50% drop in 2008 was the result of an economic disaster, which effected almost every company worldwide. Don't read too much into it, he's the best money manager in the world.

$10,000 invested with Berkshire Hathaway in 1965 would be worth about $60 Million now.

aidanki

why aren't more investing with him, is it simply people don't know how successful he has been

Ill be honest, im from rural ireland, other than the farmers with shares in the major milk companies, I don't know a single individual who has invested directly in the stock market

HansHolzel

Buy land

Value Hunter

There value is $285 billion at present so a huge amount of people have invested in Berkshire Hathaway.

As for 'where were they' during 08 when Berkshire lost 50% of their value, well i don't believe Buffet controls the stock market :rolleyes:

What I do know is that he had built up an arsenal of cash just waiting for a fall in the market (a total of $45 Billion) which he then invested immediately after Lehmans Brothers collapsed, when everyone saw nothing but trouble he invested heavily, and made a killing.

He was well prepared for the crash, just because the market swung down in a temper doesn't mean a thing to me, only a fool would of sold then

Berkshire could collapse by 90% tomorrow and i'd be the happiest man in the world, the markets stupidity is there to be taken advantage of

arrowloopboy

Value Hunter wrote: »

Unless another economic disaster like 1929 or 2008 occurs Warren Buffets company will do exceptionally good, while being generally much less riskier than the general market. The 50% drop in 2008 was the result of an economic disaster, which effected almost every company worldwide. Don't read too much into it, he's the best money manager in the world.

$10,000 invested with Berkshire Hathaway in 1965 would be worth about $60 Million now.

Or $10,000 in 2008 would have been worth $5,000 in 2009,either way,a 50% decrease in share value in one year is not acceptable in my book.

Value Hunter

arrowloopboy wrote: »

Or $10,000 in 2008 would have been worth $5,000 in 2009,either way,a 50% decrease in share value in one year is not acceptable in my book.

And $10,000 invested in 2009 would be worth $20,000 in 2010! Using the biggest financial crash in 70 years as a reason to avoid investment is poor judgement, particularly when it was reversed after just 1 year.

lucky john

arrowloopboy wrote: »

Or $10,000 in 2008 would have been worth $5,000 in 2009,either way,a 50% decrease in share value in one year is not acceptable in my book.

No one in the world has studied the 1929 crash more than Buffet. He, as value hunter said, would have seen nothing but an opportunity in 08/09. The share value may have lost 50% but since he wasn't a seller what difference did it make he didn't loose a cent. If you were an investor lucky enough to be using Buffet as you advisor in 08, what would his advise have been. I suspect he would say hang on to your cash. . "Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful"

Its not easy to argue against a man who is amongst the richest in the world and every cent made through investing in business and stocks.

aidanki

lucky john wrote: »

No one in the world has studied the 1929 crash more than Buffet. He, as value hunter said, would have seen nothing but an opportunity in 08/09. The share value may have lost 50% but since he wasn't a seller what difference did it make he didn't loose a cent. If you were an investor lucky enough to be using Buffet as you advisor in 08, what would his advise have been. I suspect he would say hang on to your cash. . "Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful"

Its not easy to argue against a man who is amongst the richest in the world and every cent made through investing in business and stocks.

I wonder is he saying hold onto cash and sell shares now that the stock market is boombing or is he still saying buy buy buy

lucky john

aidanki wrote: »

I wonder is he saying hold onto cash and sell shares now that the stock market is boombing or is he still saying buy buy buy

I don't think he was ever a buy buy buy kind of guy. He more in the research research research buy camp. As I'm sure you know he is not a big seller of what he has bought. At the moment he is buying loads of different areas.... rail ways, wind farms, tv and print media, engineering, food and reducing ratings agencies(moodys).