# Should I have nearly all my money invested with quinn.



## Nomansland (3 Oct 2008)

Hi,
In late 2005 I invested 26K in the Celtic and Euro freeway funds with Quinn life (split 50/50). This is now worth 17K approx. I'm not too despondent about this as I had intended to leave it there for 10 years anyway so I am still hopefull that I will see a return on it. 
recently I have cashed in on sompany shares that I own. This has amounted to 20K and it is just sitting in my account. 
I am looking to put this to work for 5/6 years approx and I am again thinking of putting it into the Quinn life freeway funds (medium risk). 

My questions are as follows. Is it a good idea to have nearly all my money in similar investment vehicles with the one company? 
If I am to stick it in with Quinn would ye have any ideas as to what funds I should stick it in. I am interested in medium risk investments over a 5/6 year timeframe.

Thanks in advance.


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## ClubMan (3 Oct 2008)

Nomansland said:


> Is it a good idea to have nearly all my money in similar investment vehicles with the one company?


Probably not. You should be aiming to build a diversified portfolio to cater for short, medium and long term needs and to mitigate risk.


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## Gunship (3 Oct 2008)

Do not put all your money into Quinn, diversify into two other irish banks, too many stories floating around about Quinns overall liquidity structuring as a regulated insurer.


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## ClubMan (3 Oct 2008)

"Two *other *_Irish _banks"? _QL _is not a bank.


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## z103 (3 Oct 2008)

_Irish Banks_?
Very brave! I would prefer to put cash under the mattress, or buy gold or something.


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## JR Rizzo (3 Oct 2008)

Even though your current fund has probably (hopefully) bought a diversified set of investments, you have put your trust in that one fund manager and fund provider.

In this case you could diversify across fund managers,
by buying from an alternative investment vendor, with a different
fund manager.

*HOWEVER, BE CAREFUL!* 
in this case, even though you own two seperate funds,
you may not be as diversified as you think
because both funds may have allocated significant amounts to
the same shares! (well maybe 5%, 10% max)

Even more risky if work for that share's company itself (or in the sector), eg a bank, airline, etc
and have purchaed shares in it (or sector) already!

My advice:-
you are already in for 17k,
keep the 20k in high-interest deposit and wait for the markets to improve,
who knows how far they will drop more and how long it will take,

while you are waiting make a plan and study up on shares, make a list.
- if you dont have enough time, easier to make a list of funds and study them.

When it looks like the worst is behind us, start investing in units of say
e2k or 3k every month on your target list - be it shares or funds.

this is "dollar cost averaging" your new investment,
- tries to smooth out the overall cost of investment over time
and *remember you are already in for 17k to catch any big sudden jumps*.

but regardless of your investment timeframes, I dont think theres any rush right now, and strongly advise against going all in with e20k anyway.

JR.


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## ClubMan (3 Oct 2008)

JR Rizzo said:


> keep the 20k in high-interest deposit and wait for the markets to improve,
> who knows how far they will drop more and how long it will take,


Timing the market is a mug's game.


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## JR Rizzo (3 Oct 2008)

ClubMan said:


> Timing the market is a mug's game.


 
yes, its near impossible to be perfect - its luck really,
but staggered buying is surely more effective, esp with the medium time frame OP requires?

but again, in this case, though, OP is *already in *the market
so wont miss any big bounces

I'm not saying sell up the whole fund now and try time,
but I do advise against buying a fund AT ALL with next 20k,
and putting in time to buy stocks directly and hence have more control.

we all usually put more time and effort into buying better/cheaper
car, TV, etc than we do buying investments.

JR.


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## Nomansland (4 Oct 2008)

Thanks for the advice guys.
I also have an online trading account with Davy. I only have the bare minimum in it. There are a substantial number of ETF's across different geographical and sectorial areas. So I was thinking I could get the necessary diversification by investing in these. 
However as I am relatively clueless when it comes to the stock market I have a query or two.
If I buy shares in a US or UK company I understand the significant effect that excahnge rates can have on your investment. All the ETF's that are listed in my Davy Account are traded in either dollars or sterling. So take for example the ISHARES CHINA25 ETF which tracks the performance of the largest 25 companys in China. All these companies individual share prices which make up the over all ETF are quoted in Chineese Yuan. Yet the ETF is quoted in sterling only. How does this work and what is my overall exposure to the exchange rates.
Secondly I am thinking of getting a small bit of exposure to property in overall portfolio. Would investment in a construction related ETF be an appropiate way of doing this.


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## PMU (4 Oct 2008)

Nomansland said:


> T All the ETF's that are listed in my Davy Account are traded in either dollars or sterling. So take for example the ISHARES CHINA25 ETF which tracks the performance of the largest 25 companys in China. All these companies individual share prices which make up the over all ETF are quoted in Chineese Yuan. Yet the ETF is quoted in sterling only. How does this work and what is my overall exposure to the exchange rates.


The returns for a EUR investor who purchases a USD or GBP denominated ETF that tracks CNY or other  third currency -denominated equities is exposed to the market risk, i.e the increase or decrease of the CNY equities in the tracker, plus or minus the EUR/CNY currency risk, i.e. the movement of the EUR relative to the CNY.  It doesn’t make any difference if the ETFs are denominated in GBP or USD, assuming you get the EUR/USD or EUR/GBP spot price from your broker).



Nomansland said:


> Secondly I am thinking of getting a small bit of exposure to property in overall portfolio. Would investment in a construction related ETF be an appropiate way of doing this.


 Yes, but as property / construction ETFs are made up of the shares of property companies, so you will get both property and market risk, i.e. property ETFs are not a  pure property play.  Property funds are; with  a property fund you invest in bricks & mortar, which should provide a degree of diversification.


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## z109 (4 Oct 2008)

A number of Lehman Brothers retail investors lost almost everything on their funds as these funds were dependent on the solvency of Lehman Brothers. So it is probably not a good idea to have everything invested in one company, as if that company goes bust, it may take your investment with it.


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## smiley (5 Oct 2008)

yoganmahew said:


> A number of Lehman Brothers retail investors lost almost everything on their funds as these funds were dependent on the solvency of Lehman Brothers.




is this correct? I would think not.


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## smiley (5 Oct 2008)

Gunship said:


> Do not put all your money into Quinn, diversify into two other irish banks, too many stories floating around about Quinns overall liquidity structuring as a regulated insurer.



with statements like that i think you could end up in court.


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## z109 (5 Oct 2008)

smiley said:


> is this correct? I would think not.


Then you are wrong.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601010&sid=aPQXoCH.fIa0&refer=news


> A brochure pitching $1.84 million of notes sold by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in August, a month before the firm filed for bankruptcy, promised ``100 percent principal protection.''             Buyers had ``uncapped appreciation potential'' pegged to gains in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, the brochure said. In the worst case, they would get back their $1,000-per-note investment in three years. Only the last in a list of 15 risk factors mentioned the biggest danger: ``An investment in the notes will be subject to the credit risk of Lehman Brothers.''
> Lehman's Sept. 15 bankruptcy leaves holders of the notes waiting in line with other unsecured creditors for what's left of their money.


From Quinn Life :


> Your investment plan is a unit-linked policy. Each amount you pay in, less our transaction charge, where applicable, is invested in the internal Quinn Life investment fund or funds chosen by you, and units in the fund(s) are allocated to your policy.
> ...
> The assets of the Quinn-Life investment funds belong to us and we keep separate records of all investments made by the funds.


Now, it's unclear from the above whether Quinn Life funds are held in a nominee account. If they are, they are safe in the event of Quinn going bust. If they are not, then you have to stand in line like other creditors to get your money back.

Please note, I am not suggesting in any way that Quinn is in trouble. Just that it is not clear to me how investment (as opposed to pension) funds work. As can be seen from the case of Lehmans, some of the guarantees given are pretty much worthless.


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## Complainer (5 Oct 2008)

I understood that Lehman's didn't operate a retail business, and only offered investments to other investment houses.


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## z109 (5 Oct 2008)

Complainer said:


> I understood that Lehman's didn't operate a retail business, and only offered investments to other investment houses.


Who packaged them up and sold them on, is my understanding.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5ee9c120-88a5-11dd-a179-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1


> Angry Asian retail investors protested on Monday over losses tied up in complex structured products arranged by Lehman Brothers, the collapsed US investment bank.
> 
> About 800 investors, mostly retirees, gathered in a community hall in Hong Kong last night, following a protest by more than 500 people in the territory on Sunday.
> 
> They complained that local banks, which sold them the so-called minibonds, guaranteed by Lehman, had led them to believe that the products were as safe as bonds and time deposits.


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## smiley (7 Oct 2008)

yoganmahew..thanks for the post.

scary stuff this.

it would make you think very long and hard about all of these funds and nominee accounts.

Personally i hold all my investments in crest. I dont like the concept of nominee accounts.
The Mcmorrough case in Cork rings in my ears.


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## georgesoros (7 Oct 2008)

ClubMan said:


> Timing the market is a mug's game.



Investing a lump sum in a long term bear market which will be worth less the next day, week , month or year is a mugs game


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## LDFerguson (8 Oct 2008)

georgesoros said:


> Investing a lump sum in a long term bear market which will be worth less the next day, week , month or year is a mugs game


 
When your crystal ball tells you when the market is about to turn, will you post it here?


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## z103 (8 Oct 2008)

> When your crystal ball tells you when the market is about to turn, will you post it here?


Why not just wait until it has turned? - you don't have to predict the exact instant. The ISEQ has been falling for about a year. Prior to that it was rising for about five years.
Why is timing this a 'mugs game'? I would suggest blindly buying shares at any time is more of a mugs game.


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## LDFerguson (8 Oct 2008)

leghorn said:


> Why not just wait until it has turned?


 
Because you won't know for certain if it is entering into a prolonged recovery period or if you're just witnessing a "dead cat bounce".


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## z103 (8 Oct 2008)

> Because you won't know for certain if it is entering into a prolonged recovery period or if you're just witnessing a "dead cat bounce".


Surely buying shares that have been trending upwards for the last 4 or 5 months is better than randomly buying them?


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## hagler (8 Oct 2008)

Hi Folks,
2 years ago I invested €10,000 of a redundancy in the Irish Life Property Portfolio fund. It is split across Irish/British and European commercial property. Was just looking to earn a bit on it but I ended up getting blinded by figures by a very astute bank adviser who didn’t explain any risks to me whatsoever. It is a 5 year plan so I am still liable for a cash in charge if I were to cash in. As it is there is a 6 month notice period in place now anyway to try to deter investors from pulling out.
I am really worried by the way it is falling in value rapidly. Since march this year to right now the unit price has fallen 17c per unit. I am almost a grand down what I paid in and less with the cash in charge if I were to bail out now. I don’t know whether to take the hit and lose €1,000 - €1,500 and still have something or stay in for the long haul in the hope it picks up again. At this stage I would be delighted to just come out with what I paid in after the 5 years or even if it took a few more years.
Really appreciate if anybody has any advice on these funds?


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## georgesoros (8 Oct 2008)

leghorn said:


> Why not just wait until it has turned? - you don't have to predict the exact instant. The ISEQ has been falling for about a year. Prior to that it was rising for about five years.
> Why is timing this a 'mugs game'? I would suggest blindly buying shares at any time is more of a mugs game.



It's important to recognise the existance of vested interests who make their money from any and all market activity. They get commission whether the market goes up or down. They exist on this forum and will try to downplay all risk in the market, calling caution ' a mugs game' so take their advice with a pinch of salt. The only way they dont' maintain their high incomes and standards of living is if you are cautious with your money and dont' let them have it.


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## PMU (8 Oct 2008)

hagler said:


> Hi Folks,
> 2 At this stage I would be delighted to just come out with what I paid in after the 5 years or even if it took a few more years.


 You are in a better state than many investors. You’ve suffered a loss of about 10%.  On the basis that a loss foregone is the same as a profit made you haven’t done too badly, when you consider the losses in the equity markets over the past year (particularly the Iseq).  'Bricks & mortar' property funds are supposed to provide lower volatility than equities, which is what this fund is doing.   I’d guess that the fund will decline further over the next 18 months or so as a lack of activity in the general economy will probably translate into a lower demand for commercial property.  A major risk would be if a lot of investors pile out and force Irish Life to sell a property in a poorly performing market, which would cause the fund value to fall further.  Funds of this type need a long investment horizon anyway, at least 5 years - maybe more.



hagler said:


> Hi Folks,
> I ended up getting blinded by figures by a very astute bank adviser who didn’t explain any risks to me whatsoever.


  As fare as I can remember, the Irish Life brochure advertising the fund dealt with the risks in some level of detail – perhaps more than other fund providers do.


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## LDFerguson (8 Oct 2008)

georgesoros said:


> It's important to recognise the existance of vested interests who make their money from any and all market activity. They get commission whether the market goes up or down. They exist on this forum and will try to downplay all risk in the market, calling caution ' a mugs game' so take their advice with a pinch of salt. The only way they dont' maintain their high incomes and standards of living is if you are cautious with your money and dont' let them have it.


 
Wouldn't that be nice?  Sadly, I don't get paid for market activity, nor do I get paid commission based on whether the market goes up or down.  But I'm sure that there are such dastardly vested interests out there.

Any vested interest to declare yourself George?


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## MugsGame (8 Oct 2008)

georgesoros said:


> vested interests who make their money from any and all market activity. They exist on this forum and will try to downplay all risk in the market, calling caution ' a mugs game' so take their advice with a pinch of salt.


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## LDFerguson (8 Oct 2008)

Getting back to the original point, I note that georgesoros has offered no verifiable proof that he or anyone else can time equity markets.


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## z103 (8 Oct 2008)

> Getting back to the original point, I note that georgesoros has offered no verifiable proof that he or anyone else can time equity markets.


So what do stock market traders do all day then?

I guessing that gold will probably rise, and Irish banks will continue to fall.


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## zephyro (9 Oct 2008)

leghorn said:


> So what do stock market traders do all day then?


 
You call that proof? Traders trade all day, some make money, the rest lose money, on average they break even before costs. There have been hundreds of statistical studies done on market timing, there's none that I know of that works on independent samples. Some perform better than average during particular time periods, but then buying stocks starting with the letter 'A' also does better than average during some time periods. If you have any evidence of a strategy that outperforms on independent samples I'm all ears.


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## Morgan 2.0 (13 Oct 2008)

leghorn said:


> So what do stock market traders do all day then?
> 
> I guessing that gold will probably rise, and Irish banks will continue to fall.



Day traders trade for the same reason gamblers gamble. It's exactly the same. It's a game for them. It's a sport.

Nobody can predict short term price fluctuations. Everybody can predict that the stock market will produce decent returns over a sustained period of time. 

Put your money into several funds of some sort, and hold it for a few decades. That's where the smart money is, and always has been.

The market is efficient. All statistical data points to this as being a fact.


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## Marc (17 Oct 2008)

Morgan 2.0 said:


> Day traders trade for the same reason gamblers gamble. It's exactly the same. It's a game for them. It's a sport.
> 
> Nobody can predict short term price fluctuations. Everybody can predict that the stock market will produce decent returns over a sustained period of time.
> 
> ...



Well said morgan!


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## charttrader (17 Oct 2008)

Morgan 2.0 said:


> Day traders trade for the same reason gamblers gamble. It's exactly the same. It's a game for them. It's a sport.
> 
> Nobody can predict short term price fluctuations. Everybody can predict that the stock market will produce decent returns over a sustained period of time.
> 
> ...



"I’d be a bum on the street with a tin cup if the markets were always efficient.” — Warren Buffett


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## Marc (17 Oct 2008)

[FONT=&quot]From my thesis:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The law of averages says that some fund managers will beat the market from time to time. [/FONT]
  [FONT=&quot]However, there are very few managers who will systematically beat the market regularly. Academic studies show that active management or speculation in fact adds uncertainty in outcomes as the distributions are wider in the tails.[/FONT]
  [FONT=&quot]Where a manager may be able to beat the market regularly, it would be impossible for us to identify who these managers might be in advance and therefore impossible to benefit from this.[/FONT]


_So, yes I accept that sometimes markets are not efficient. My point is that it is virtually impossible to profit from it as nearly 40 years of empirical research _into the consistency of performance of fund managers shows.
[FONT=&quot][/FONT]


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## therock (20 Oct 2008)

Nomansland said:


> Hi,
> In late 2005 I invested 26K in the Celtic and Euro freeway funds with Quinn life (split 50/50). This is now worth 17K approx. I'm not too despondent about this as I had intended to leave it there for 10 years anyway so I am still hopefull that I will see a return on it.
> recently I have cashed in on sompany shares that I own. This has amounted to 20K and it is just sitting in my account.
> I am looking to put this to work for 5/6 years approx and I am again thinking of putting it into the Quinn life freeway funds (medium risk).
> ...



The way things are looking you will be lucky to get back to 26k at the end of 10 years. We are in a recession which could well be a prolonged recession because personally I don't trust the current worldwide political leadership to be able to get us out of that recession.


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## Kemo_Sabe (24 Oct 2008)

interesting

the boss man quits


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## bogle (24 Oct 2008)

Kemo_Sabe said:


> interesting
> 
> the boss man quits


 
Just heard that news on the radio!
Hmmmm velly interesting!


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## shanegl (26 Oct 2008)

Thought I'd throw this question into this thread:

How are investments with life assurance companies protected? Does a government guarantee cover life assurance policies, or is there an industry-wide fund contributed to by all market participants?


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