Trick or treat? Five spooky investment terms explained

By Sam Slator on 26 October 2016 in Basics

Depending on whether you focus on the ‘scary’ or ‘sweets’ element of Halloween, 31 October is a date looked upon with both excitement and trepidation. And even the investment world isn’t immune to its trickery … We take a quick look at five spooky investment terms.

Ghosting

This practice is actually illegal. it is when two or more ‘market makers’ (dealers buying or selling securities or other assets) attempt to influence the price of a company share in order to make a profit. It is illegal because market makers are required by law to act in competition with each other and not collude. It is called ghosting, as it is a practice that is difficult to detect.

Halloween indicator

This is just another version of the St Ledger’s Day investment strategy. Instead of “Sell in May and go away until St Ledger’s Day” it is “Sell in May and buy on Halloween”.

Witching hour

When it comes to investing, the ‘witching hour’ refers to the last hour of stock trading in the US, between 3pm eastern standard time (EST), when the bond market closes, and 4pm EST, when the stock market closes. Volatility in this 60 minutes can be higher than at other times during the day.

Zombie funds

This is a UK-centric colloquialism and refers to with-profits life insurance funds that are closed to new investments. They are funds that are basically only being run down until the policy matures, which could be a long period of time. Child Trust Funds (CTF) are also sometimes referred to as ‘Zombie’ products, as they have been replaced by the Junior ISA and existing accounts will only be held until the child reaches the age of 18 – no new CTF products will be launched.

FANGs

This alarming acronym was coined to refer to four of the US’s top tech giants: Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google (which now trades as Alphabet).

Treat yourself to some quality funds

So this year, don’t be tricked into making the wrong investment decisions. Instead treat yourself to some quality research!

To get you started, we’ve pulled out our best performing Elite Fund in each sector since last Halloween¹, or you can just search all Elite Rated funds.

• Asia Pacific Ex Japan – Hermes Asia Ex Japan Equity, up 39%
• China/Greater China – First State Greater China Growth, up 37%
• Europe Ex UK & European Smaller Companies – Mirabaud Equities Europe Ex UK Small & Mid, up 35%
• Flexible – Jupiter Merlin Growth, up 18%
• Global – First State Global Listed Infrastructure, up 38%
• Global Emerging Market Bond – Standard Life Investments Emerging Market Debt, up 39%
• Global Emerging Markets – Lazard Emerging Markets, up 50%
• Global Equity Income – Newton Global Income, up 34%
• Japan – Baillie Gifford Japanese, up 39%
• Mixed 20-60 – Investec Cautious Managed, up 15%
• Mixed 40-85 – Jupiter Merlin Balanced, up 17%
• North America & North American Smaller Companies – Hermes US SMID Equity, up 38%
• Property – F&C Real Estate Securities, up 13%
• Specialist – BlackRock Gold & General, up 95%
• Sterling Corporate Bond – Royal London Corporate Bond, up 10%
• Sterling High Yield Bond – Baillie Gifford High Yield, up 8%
• Sterling Strategic Bond – GAM Star Credit Opportunities, up 11%
• Targeted Absolute Return – Church House Tenax Absolute Return Strategies, up 7%
• Tech & Telecoms – AXA Framlington Global Technology, up 40%
• UK All Companies – Jupiter UK Special Situations, up 20%
• UK Equity Income – Threadneedle UK Equity Income, up 13%
• UK Smaller Companies – Old Mutual UK Smaller Companies, up 15%

¹FE Analytics, all Elite Funds, TR in GBP. Sectors with only one fund excluded. 31/10/2015–25/10/2016