In the back
AJ Bell Youinvest
The AJ Bell Youinvest offering
is professional, but jostles for
shelf space among a wide array of
investment options.
There are four portfolios: cautious,
balanced, adventurous and income.
There’s a simple explanation of what
they do, as although there are six to
seven funds in each portfolio, the
onus is on you to manage them.
The information on each portfolio
is excellent, with clear charges, a
useful (if rather broad) projected
performance graph and good risk and
asset-allocation graphics.
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Charles Stanley Direct
What is missing is the indicative
past performance of this portfolio
composition, although there are half-
yearly reports tucked away on the site.
Performance has been decent in
their first year, with reports that are
clear and echo the well-thought-out
model portfolio offering.
The selection process seems
credible, with a clear methodology,
but the group seems to only choose
funds from its Favourite Funds list
and not other asset classes such as
ETFs or investment trusts.
Overall, a strong offering.
Charles Stanley is another
respected wealth manager that has
built a direct-to-consumer service.
It offers a simple guided journey
to find the right portfolio for you,
which it has created from baskets of
funds from its Foundation list (a well-
researched shortlist of top funds).
The selection process is pretty basic,
asking whether you want income,
growth (or both), then whether you
would like a cautious, balanced or
adventurous portfolio.
Your selections will steer you into a
portfolio of just five funds which may
include low-cost ETFs, with a clear
asset-allocation illustration, but no
past performance figures or future
projections.
You buy the funds at the outset
and have to rebalance/manage the
portfolio yourself going forward.
This is a simple solution and
is reasonably priced for smaller
portfolios from a firm with a strong
heritage in wealth management.
Hargreaves Lansdown
Bestinvest
Bestinvest is part of the wider
Tilney financial advisory
powerhouse. The firm has built a
front-end tool to promote its home-
grown portfolios, which are average
performers, but have the benefit of
being managed on an ongoing basis.
Bestinvest has a great online
process to aid selection, taking you
through well laid-out questions and
summarising your choices.
TRUSTNET
There are five portfolios on offer:
defensive, balanced, growth,
adventurous and maximum growth,
all of which are visible on Trustnet if
you search for the name “Tilney”.
With larger amounts of money, this
could get expensive (fund charges are
about 1.43 per cent and the platform
fee is 0.4 per cent), but overall this
represents an impressive way to
encourage investing.
Hargreaves has an array of vehicles
to help investors get into the market,
including its Master Portfolios – a
selection of funds for five different
aims: income, conservative, medium
risk, adventurous and one for kids.
The process is simple – select the
style of portfolio you want and enter
the amount you have to invest.
There are seven funds in each
portfolio and there is a good level of
information on each one. There is
even a low cost (0.06 per cent) ETF in
the adventurous portfolio. I couldn’t
see any portfolio performance figures
and this is another solution where,
once you buy in, you are on your own.
The platform’s fund-picking has
been criticised in the past, but it is
now more mindful of compromising
its integrity. Again, this is a competent
offering from Hargreaves which is
attractively priced for smaller ISA
investments, but it is perhaps not as
appealing as the AJ Bell or Bestinvest
alternatives.
trustnet.com