Well, I am not as unhappy as you seem to be. I have been talking...

Well, I am not as unhappy as you seem to be. I have been talking to a couple of brokers who have concerns about how stock pickers get sucked into indexes. They pointed out to me that both APP and APT formed part of the small Ords index up to June 2019. They pointed out that the top 10 constituents played a large part of the movements and that currently out layers like those mentioned plus Wisetech etc have an influence especially if the share price and hence the market cap grows fast until they are moved as APT was into the ASX100.

They pointed out to me that in any portfolio they would be concerned about one share becoming a very large percentage of the portfolio so often in a stock-picking environment you would sell a few off to reduce concentration whereas an ETF would just follow the index weightings.

We did not get to a solution but rather had a problem in that a small fund could miss out on an Afterpay and totally miss the index performance or could reduce the concentration and thus start to slip below the index.

I think their motivation is to persuade me to not invest in the LIC market at this end of town but rather have a broker. I don't like brokers - I think its too easy to place your money where they got the last presentation and I always feel there is a bit of unnecessary churn.

However, I am wondering if I should rather measure if my fund is making money for me and giving me a good dividend. well GC1 has made mistakes twice. Both have cost money and they are really back at IPO right now - the dividend has been good but they haven't had a good run.

The past 6 months looks okay but my view is clouded by the shocker of 2018 last quarter ( all our views probably are). I just want them to slowly grow the NTA and pay a good dividend. I can understand the issues surrounding some of these very high flying stocks - Remember BIG-Un ( Liquidated) and Get Swifts ($4 to 24c in 19 months) - well if you had them you would be horrified in the performance - GC1 had Axsess Today ( AXL) and that wiped out a lot. Had it been the flyer and kept climbing we would be applauding management. It was less than that and I know it irks the fund manager. However, I have had the same at times in my own picks - AJX (well after all the hype but I still get the bug) AHZ - I will no longer invest in Bio or medical research...

I was shocked to note how small the growth has been in NTA in a number of well known LIC's - Look at AX200 since May 2016 it's only grown 11.5%. I remember when GC1 had $1.22 NTA. So we went higher but we fell harder as well. I think that is the message for me and I hope I can convince the manager that steady Eddy is what most of us want. I don't expect LIC's to outperform the market. How can they? Their cost at this end of town is around 0.6% (Fee) and the running costs must be around 0.25%. So with compliance and the rest, they have to find an extra 1% each year just to remain with an Index. You have now seen that a few months ago any reference to comparing ARG to the index is no longer in their monthly reports. I would assume that by their very nature an APT would not be on their radar nor should it be - this stock is up from around $2.90 in 2017 to $27 today. I don't think I would want my LIC to be large into that yes maybe a small holding but really I hope they avoid it. Its $6.6billion market cap and much like a Tesla it has to travel for a very long time before it pays a dividend or makes money. Think that this company is now valued at 25% more than SOL. Sorry but there are too many of these highly promoted ideas and they climb into the sky - we are all hoping they are the next Tencent, Google or Amazon but they all took a lot of time to get to be where they are and had a huge amount of luck. Beyond Meat has a market cap of $14.1 Billion and Tesla has a market cap of $40 billion. Stock picking with those and when to sell is in my just too hard basket - this market feels like I should run to cash and if interest rates where anywhere north of 3% we would all be running. I just cannot earn less than inflation on my capital so we are all sitting waiting for normality but this isn't normal. So do I really want my money risked in APT? - actually no! That is not the place of a LIC that has a dividend-paying motive in my opinion. If its all growth maybe but really I have my doubts. There is so much rubbish being spoken out there. VISA can tap into Barclays Sub in Africa which already has linked 6 months to pay budget plan to its VISA presentation. They charge interest and its illogical to believe that lending corporations won't have to start paying for funding. APT really needs very low-interest rates how can they provide no-interest payments if the RBA rate was say 3%... The retail discount would not be enough in my opinion to service this.

So I am saying I want to invest in conservative models that look for a 4% dividend yield and growth in NTA of around 6% - 10% total return. I don't really want the high-risk high reward in my portfolio of LIC's

So I am not unhappy to be invested here as long as MG and his team do what they have done for a decade make good money but don't be a slave to the index and don't invest in high flyers unless there is a business case for the sustainability of that business. Personally, I don't think that it will be that easy in USA and I also don't see anyone paying to buy them out - are you going to pay US4 billion for something where the business model only works in a low-interest environment...

LIC's are better than brokers because they are competing against each other and need performance to get their next job. they cannot just take someone money and invest in a vacuum where measurement does not exist.