hi Mak
i go through this every couple of years.
I chose the route of buiding a self-managed portfolio of dividend stock route for retirement phase of life when I thought I could make savings compared to paying young hotshots 1++% to do it for me. In practice I find it hard to commit to schedule the time to rigorously carry out the analysis required to properly do Value Investing , particularly when valuations are historically high and massive disruption affects once blue chip companies like AMP. he style. It is essential for me to anchor myself in a written plan. I think SMSF rules require this anyway.
I arrived at this because it seemed fundamentally logical to me, and I am conservative by nature. I don't go in for charting and momentum trading is harder to do than it sounds. Inside it for about 6 months, and most of the trading profits went to my broker. 200 trades generates fair bit of commission. The data service I used to analyse the momentum was costly too at about $1500/year.
The spin attached to the sales of managed investment products is highly developed, and plays on our self-doubt and the desire to get good return without effort by having a young guy so the hard work. I suspect that over promising, under-delivering is more the norm. There are numerous ways they can cherry pick the period over which returns are calculated, and omit the buy/sell spread. On the other hand younger people may not be burdened with property maintenance, supporting children with babysitting and frankly can work harder and longer than I am able to on my mid 60's. I was a good engineer, quite successful in the eyes of my peers, but you start from scratch running an SMSF.
I used managed funds when I was much younger, and working in a job where I spun off a good portion of a high salary, though demanding oil service industry job. They always had good reasons why it didn't go great and I did better in a bond fund run by the same company.
i found that a corporate bond portfolio suited my mindset, as it is possible to create a portfolio of inflation linked bonds and shorter term high yielding corporate bonds, which àre less volatile than equities so there is less anxiety about watching an equity acquisition fall in price right after you buy it.
in a declining interest rate environment, there is uplift in value and I see no reason this cannot persist if rates go negative which seems inevitable.
i hope this helps. Good luck whatever you do.
Don't beat yourself up. Everyone has horror stories though most won't admit it readily because of pride and shame.
