Morning Everyone,
I’ve been asked a few times what tool I use to select the stocks shown in my portfolio updates. I use simply Wall St. which I highly recommend - regardless if the goal is growth/dividends.
I decided to make a video on how I review all the Freetrade Stocks on the app, using the tool and choosing my picks.
Hopefully someone finds it useful - all feedback, comments and advice from you guys are encouraged and welcome!
Peace!
You’ve just helped make my mind up to use simply wall street. Prefer the detail of stockopedia but seemingly, the price difference between the two to enable me to view UK and US stocks is heavily in simply wall streets favour at the moment.
I just downloaded this and put in most of my portfolio. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to have any data for any of the ETFs I hold, so it’s not perfects. Hopefully they’ll update as they grow. Seems uniquely visual, looking forward to playing around with it more.
Thanks for sharing.
Ah, Im glad!
Yeah I have the $110 tier - and had no reason to upgrade to the $340 one for a PDF and 9 more portfolio views… unnecessary. Its defo helped me I feel!
You’re welcome!
You’re right - ETF’s is where it falls down - I didn’t cover that as I don’t have any but also any fund is not that great - I have Man Group and there’s enough data but not complete.
There must be a logical reason but I haven’t worked it out yet.
I was using Simply Wall St before but I’ve been using Genuine Impact lately.
Genuine Impact is free to download, though it is different from the others.
These guys rank companies against one another (more stockopedia style) rather than just having a score based on how many of their checks you pass.
I’m looking forward to when they introduce the league, I am thinking about setting up a Freetrade league so we all get some extra benefits!
I like Simply Wall St as a high level screener but it was in isolation. I prefer the idea that if everyone is predicted to make a great profit next year who is going to have the biggest increase. The context basically.
I do like stockopedia but the cost puts me off.
What’s the best place to research ETF’s?
Simply wall st completely fails in this department - and ETFs are my next focus.
For ETFs I pretty much exclusively use Genuine Impact for the screening process.
Their rankings for funds look at the performance, minus fees, and how much risk you take. The ideal situation is great performance, fees that aren’t trying to take your shirt (unless the performance is super special), and they are not taking wild risks with no real upside.
For my portfolio I have my stock picks 20-40% of my assets depending on whats happening in the world, and the rest is spread across ETFs/Funds/Investment Trusts that represent my beliefs.
e.g. I believe the UK FTSE100 will carry on delivering decent returns no matter what happens with Brexit due to them having most of their revenue generated outside the UK (yes tariffs could be a pain but I am assuming we aren’t that stupid.) So I look through Genuine Impact for UK geographically focused Equity funds. From there that gives me the short list of what mandates to look into.
This is actually how I found a cloud computing ETF where they only invest in cloud related companies (from the parts to the services) which is performing very well and the risk is well managed.
As I said this is my flow. I think about my world view (in terms of allocation of my portfolio) and then I look for securities that fulfil my needs. I use the app to short list which ones to focus on and then decide what flavour I like more.
It’s kind of like deciding what you want for dinner, that is your overall view of the world. Then you go OK what goes into that meal, so I’ve picked burrito now I need to think about how much rice and what type of rice I want. This is where I use Genuine Impact to screen the types of rice available to me. Then I say yeah they think Black Beans is the best fit but actually I personally like the sound of Pino Beans right now (if this sounds like a terrible burrito that’s because I’m starting to reject my choice of metaphor.)
Short answer is, what do you need the ETF for (what purpose are you trying to fill in your portfolio, do you want generic US exposure etc.), second screen all the funds available that meet that need with Genuine Impact (same way you would use Simply Wall St for screening UK value stocks basically), then with the short list investigate each fund/ETF to see which one fits your need. e.g. how passive do you want it, how much risk do you like.
As mentioned before I use a mix of ETFs/Mutuals/Investment Trusts. ETFs have a lot of good liquidity, mutuals can cost less than ETFs if you want something passive, investment trusts can be extremely expensive but they super active and drive a lot of beta (ideally!) That’s how I like to mix my burritos anyway!
Just installed Genuine Impact, I cannot work out how I add to my portfolio. It is asking for a cash allocation?
Do you have to work out the % you have invested in for each stock?
On that view use the search box at the top to find what you want to add, e.g. type in Lloyd and then Lloyd’s Banking shows up as a suggestion, tap that and it appears below.
You can’t change the cash you just increase the sliders for the stuff you add.
It took me a while to get used to it because I think in transaction terms rather than allocation terms (generally.)
For me I look at my ISA and see the current value of each line and that is what I put in. So if my ISA was worth £10,000 and I had £1,000 in Lloyd’s I’d put it down as 10%. (Don’t worry I don’t have Lloyd’s in my portfolio, I have Bank of Scotland instead 
)
Thanks mate - doesn’t look bad but they don’t list US ETF’s like S&P etc
JustETF does list S&P 500 trackers and the like. Don’t think it includes US-listed ETFs but they are difficult to invest in from Europe anyway.
Thanks mate - when I searched before it said no results - probably my error - this is helpful - i’ll check it out properly today
Regards,
C.
No worries. It’s a useful tool. I found this article on the criteria for selecting ETFs particularly helpful.
I’m looking forward to a YouTube video on ETF investing! 
Awesome - it seems to have the main ones - i’ll check out the article.
Haha I actually need it for me to invest, but I may create one after i guess.
Thanks again
Thanks for the hookup mate! Had to create a vid… but now I know what ETFs I may choose on Freetrade.
No worries. Great vid! I’ve also been eyeing up ROBG. The 0.80% ratio makes me a little uneasy but, like you, I figure automation’s got a way to go yet.
How about doing something similar on investment trusts? Like EFTs, ITs are bit of a foreign concept to infant investors (me included:). The AIC website seems to be a good place for comparison information.
A video on investment trusts would be excellent. I personally love the investment trusts I have. They can and feel like I want an active fund to, the slight differences do give me added comfort.
Yeah… it can sound small but then the investment doesn’t pay dividends and also could go down by quite a bit in a year so it’s a triple whammy to pay for that privilege lol.
But I do believe in it the things I’m seeing in AI and I checked some of the companies in the fund… which gave me more confidence.
Thanks for the suggestion I’ll add it to the list for sure thanks for the feedback
C