I am currently looking for an oiec/ut that has exposure to uk banks in particular. I have found many financial ut's but they contain a lot of insurance companies etc. and/or others have a global focus.

cheers in advance

Looking for a longer term investment eh? 'coz over the next year or so this sector is heading into the pooper !

Actually I haven't found one with the restricted UK banking exposure you want. Closest matches, but do also have insurance & global exposure are:


AXA Framlington 45% banks
http://www.h-l.co.uk/fund_research/securit...edol/0349941.hl

JPMorgan Global Financials Fund 47% banks
http://www.h-l.co.uk/fund_research/securit...edol/3087710.hl

Kindly post if you you find what you are looking for as I'd probably have a punt "Please sir, may I have some more (on red) and spin that wheel again!"

Thanks for the links Zadkiel, I had seen the JP Morgan fund but the Framlington was new to me so I will take a closer look.

With regard to the longer term investment comment, I would tend to agree at present. However, I want to do my research now and have a back-up plan in place if commodities esp. oil come off the boil and the $ starts to firm.

The contrarian side (i.e. buying banks 'near' the bottom) of my investment strategy may never come to pass, but following the herd can be equally dangerous.

btw, I have my biggest exposure to Blackrock Gold Accumulation at the mo, so will probably look to switch from this when the time is right*

*a million dollar question!

I traded Lloyds TSB for a while in April, but lost all my gains when they keeled over in May. Thank goodness I didn't hang on in there, I would have lost a lot of money!

If you want to buy bank shares, you may want to look out for rising home sales in America as this should signal the worst is over.

It will also be worth keeping an eye on iShares FTSE UK Dividend Plus ETF (IUKD) rather than the FTSE100 - it shows that if you strip out miners/oil companies we're in a pretty horrible bear market right now and there doesn't seem to be any bottoming out in sight. Look at that tasty 7% yield though!

Thanks for the reply - I like the US HP indicator you refer to.

I was playing A&L through the peaks and troughs, but the major leg-downs were rough!

There could be a couple of years yet before a clear route lies ahead - i still like HSBC's Asian exposure though