Intelligent Investor

Model portfolios: Benchmarking performance Pt 2

If we're not benchmarking our performance against an arbitrary index, how will you know we're doing a good job? Richard Livingston explains how you should assess our model portfolios' performance.
By · 24 Feb 2014
By ·
24 Feb 2014
Upsell Banner

Key Points

  • Funds industry misleads with its comparisons
  • We’re using three separate measures so you can assess us
  • It’s very early days but portfolios travelling well

The funds management industry will tell you that portfolio performance is all about beating an index. Our volatility does not equate to lower risk, it does mean a restful night.

Fine-tuning

One of the key objectives of our model portfolios is to keep them simple and easy to follow. But there’s likely to be a trade-off between simplicity and performance.

Someone willing to put in more time and effort may find they can get better performance by, for example, managing a direct share portfolio (to replace the Australian Shares allocation) with the assistance of our colleagues at Share Advisor.

But if you don’t fancy the workload that involves, these model portfolios are for you. Pick the one that best suits your goals and use the three measures – beating cash returns, inflation and the appropriate Morningstar Multi-sector Index - to determine how well we’re tracking.

Finally, remember that these portfolios have been constructed for the long term. We don’t expect to beat each of these criteria every single quarter but over the years, that’s our goal. And if we can do that – and we’re very confident of it - setting up an SMSF to avoid the tentacles of a rapacious industry will be one of the best financial decisions you’ve ever made.

IMPORTANT: Intelligent Investor is published by InvestSMART Financial Services Pty Limited AFSL 226435 (Licensee). Information is general financial product advice. You should consider your own personal objectives, financial situation and needs before making any investment decision and review the Product Disclosure Statement. InvestSMART Funds Management Limited (RE) is the responsible entity of various managed investment schemes and is a related party of the Licensee. The RE may own, buy or sell the shares suggested in this article simultaneous with, or following the release of this article. Any such transaction could affect the price of the share. All indications of performance returns are historical and cannot be relied upon as an indicator for future performance.
Free Membership
Free Membership
Share this article and show your support

Join the Conversation...

There are comments posted so far.

If you'd like to join this conversation, please login or sign up here