Tuesday, 15 July 2025

Are Fisher Investments worth it (plus Crypto and the Genius Act)?

Fisher Investments are a well-known, high profile independent investment advisory firm founded by Ken Fisher in 1979. They manage assets for both individual and institutional clients, offering personalized investment strategies and financial planning resources. Fisher Investments charges a fee based on a percentage of assets under management, with rates varying based on the portfolio size and account type. Typical charges are 1.5% plus an initial on-boarding fee. Overall, including fees, Fisher aim to beat the performance of the global MSCI index (e.g. SWDA).

The Purisima Global Total Return B fund is managed by Fisher and has a TER of 1.51% and we can use it to compare Fisher's investment performance with other benchmark indexes.

Recently, Purisima Global Total Return B has performed poorly compared to it's chosen benchmark standard of SWDA - a very large MSCI Global ETF consisting of 1350 stocks (67% USA stocks).

Here are the returns for Purisima vs SWDA:

We can also compare the performance of this Purisima fund against some of my other favourite index ETFs:

EQGB - GBP Hedged NASDAQ 100 (volatile but high performance)
G500   - GBP Hedged S&P 500
SWDA - MSCI World UCITS (benchmark used by Fisher) (actually I use HMWS instead of SWDA as it has a lower TER)

The charts below includes the TER charges, so Fisher's 1.5% TER is taken into account.

1 YEAR - Purisima 6%

We can see that over this last 12 month period, SWDA has outperformed the Fisher Purisima fund. However, the Purisima fund has been catching up recently (last 3 months).

The chart below is for 3 years and shows that the Fisher Purisima fund has outperformed SWDA by quite some margin (>10%).

3 YEARS - Purisima 51%

While over 5 years, it is pretty much a draw (so far).
5 YEARS - Purisima 82%

The Purisima fund is usually positioned for future growth and so I would expect the 5 year performance to be considerably better by the end of this year (2025) as Trump's tariff fiasco seems to have surprised many active investors! Fisher have skewed more toward Europe recently but are still heavily invested in USA companies. Because the dollar is weak against the pound (£), this has also brought down USA stock values by about 10% and Trump's tariffs are not going to help much either.

The NASDAQ EQGB fund however, has outperformed both the S&P 500, Purisima and SWDA, although it has been very volatile at times (especially around December 2022!).

From the charts above, I can see little performance benefit of Purisima over SWDA over 5 years, but a definite benefit over 3 years.

I have been a client of Fisher Investments and I would recommend them as a safe pair of hands for your investment money over a long period of time. I am retired and so I value the fact that a large part of my investments are in good hands and should return over 10%/yr before tax. However, I also invest some of my funds privately in more volatile, higher risk/higher return stocks and funds.

If you read my other blog articles, you will get a hint of what else I invest in.

Dollar vs. GBP

The dollar rate is expected to get even worse before it gets better, so I am looking to buy USA-rich ETFs over the next half of 2025 because the buying power of the £ is quite strong at the moment. As the dollar gets stronger next year and Trump's silliness is quashed and settles down, the tax breaks he has given in his Big Beautiful Bill should start to pay off and it will be good to hold USA stocks coming into 2026 (I hope!). Of course, the market tends to pre-price all this in anyway...

Riskier companies

Apart from higher risk company shares like FUBO, SOFI, AMD, NDVA, HIVE, PLTR, RR, NFLX, AMZN, CRWD and others, I also have larger investments in EQGB, HMWS and G500 or EQQQ.  Two other firm favourites of mine are XLKQ (or IITU) and IUCM.

I use my tax-free ISA account for shorter term trading because this avoids me having to work out Capital Gains Tax (CGT) calculations. My longer term (ETF) investments are inside my General Investment Account (as CGT calculations can get quite tedious!).

Crypto and the Genius Act

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to maintain a stable value by having their market value pegged to an external reference, typically fiat currency. The world’s two biggest stablecoins (by market capitalisation) are Tether and USD Coin – both are, like most stablecoins, pegged to the US dollar.

 The GENIUS Act concerns the issuance and exchange of stablecoins, a form of digital currency backed by another form of currency, like the U.S. dollar or a commodity like gold. The bill outlines specific requirements for entities that issue stablecoins, including licensing, reserve requirements, disclosure obligations and compliance procedures.  

I am not really into crypto (particularly at this time when the wider use of stablecoins could encourage more government regulation in future and cause a massive 'run' on Bitcoin, Eth, etc. thus collapsing the price). The day when everyone will finally see that the Emperor's new clothes don't exist and that there is nothing behind most crypto except for thin air is coming and I don't want to get caught by it! I have about £1k in Bitcoin and I am looking for an excuse to sell when the price starts to drop.

The attraction for traders to accept stablecoins is that they are charged lower transaction fees. Business are typically charged 1-4% per transaction for bank or credit card payments, but stablecoins should be transferred for a fee of a fraction of 1% (at the moment). The problem with stablecoins is that there is little consumer protection should you wish to get your money back.

In case stablecoins are a success however, I have also invested in Coinbase (COIN), PayPal (PYPL) and VISA (V), as well as the Finance ETF IUFS to hedge my bets ;-)

The next quarter (Q3 2025) is going to be interesting!



None of this is investment advice - please do your own research - I am no expert!


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