Unwrapped Vanguard ETFs and Index Funds - Best Platform?

grey_gym_sock

ah, for funds i hadn't try changing "Discounted Funds" to "UK Domiciled Funds" ... however, there is no green "TD" symbol next to the vanguard funds, which might mean they're not available.

for ETFs, i went to http://www.tddirectinvesting.co.uk/investment-choices/exchange-traded-funds-etfs/ & clicked "KIID" and then "Quick Rank" which goes to http://lt.morningstar.com/e4e1fvybwy/etfquickrank/default.aspx ...

now there are no green "TD" symbols for any ETFs at all ... however, there is a choice of "London Stock Exchange ETFs" or "Available ETFs" and 7 vanguard ETFs appear under the latter ... so perhaps that's good.

TCA

I emailed TD Direct for clarification on which Vanguard funds they hold but no reply yet. I might give serious consideration to holding only Vanguard ETFs (no trackers) plus some investment trusts with Hargreaves Lansdown. Currently no custody fees for these held unwrapped but who knows how long that'll be the case for.

premierfella

TCA wrote: »

I emailed TD Direct for clarification on which Vanguard funds they hold but no reply yet. I might give serious consideration to holding only Vanguard ETFs (no trackers) plus some investment trusts with Hargreaves Lansdown. Currently no custody fees for these held unwrapped but who knows how long that'll be the case for.

I did the same a few weeks back about Vanguard ETFs through TD, although I was specifically asking about the Regular Investment service and Vanguard ETFs. Their response was that all UK-listed ETFs in GBP were available through them under that service, with the following proviso:
"...there can be cases of an ETF being UK listed and also being traded in £GBP, but if it has an underlying ISIN code that is the same as another line listed in another currency, it means that the primary listing isn't in £GBP, and this would also exclude the investment from availability within Regular Investment."

I haven't yet followed it up interms of opening an account and seeing if this is indeed the case in practice.

skeggis

I had the same question but for wrapped Vanguard ETSs, where to go? Most of the websites are awful in finding the information if they are available or not.

afwone

For what it is worth, having checked with iii, they do have some Vanguard funds and say they plan to add some more at some unsprecified time in the future. They didn't deal in one I was interested in transferring in.

Things seem to be in a state of flux with platforms at the moment. Impossible to know what the fee structure is going to be for most of them, or what sort of service they will provide.

And if you choose one that isnt suitable, you get stung by exit fees on the way to the next one.

TCA

Reply in from TD Direct:

"Vanguard unit trusts are not part of the funds offering available through TD Direct Investing/Co-funds Fund Supermarket so we cannot trade them for you. Vanguard ETFs are available to purchase through us. The TD icon is only used to indicate units trusts available through the fund supermarket.

To avoid the quarterly account management fee your account needs to have a value of £7,500 (cash and/or shares) or more on the charging day. To determine if the fee is applicable the value of the account is calculated on the weekend of the third full week in March, June, September & December. If this is below £7,500 a fee of £12.50+VAT is charged to the account. You can also avoid the fee if your account value is below £7,500 by trading once per quarter."

grey_gym_sock

so it looks like TD Direct are providing funds via Cofunds.

as do iii.

as do selftrade.

the illusion of choice!

makes it a bit easier to see what's going on.

JohnRo

Is there anything wrong with Saxo Bank MWM service that I'm not aware of, they look a good platform option. In terms of fund and ETF investment and trading within an ISA wrapper they look a strong contender?

...Vanguard offerings are pitiful, should have done the search before posting.

http://www.modernwealthmanagement.co.uk/investment-products/funds/view-all-funds

ETFs look to have a much stronger presence

http://www.modernwealthmanagement.co.uk/investment-products/etfs/view-all-etfs

TCA

JohnRo wrote: »

ETFs look to have a much stronger presence

http://www.modernwealthmanagement.co.uk/investment-products/etfs/view-all-etfs

All in USD though and none listed on the LSE, which may matter to some investors.

koru

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

so it looks like TD Direct are providing funds via Cofunds.

as do iii.

as do selftrade.

the illusion of choice!

makes it a bit easier to see what's going on.

I had not realised that Interactive Investor is just a rebranded Cofunds. Very interesting.

Strangely, there does not seem to be uniformity of funds available through the various platforms with Cofunds underlying them. I have an account with Cofunds through Cavendish through which I held a fund called Insynergy Odey. This is a fund set up to be a mirror of the Odey Opus fund, which was not previously available to retail investors. Odey has recently started giving access to the Opus fund through certain retail platforms, so the Insynergy fund was recently closed because there was no longer any need for it to exist and its AMC was higher than the Opus fund. Some platforms simply converted units in the Insynergy fund into Opus, but Cofunds wrote to me saying this was not possible because they do not carry the Opus fund.

I therefore had a look to see which other platforms do carry the Opus fund, and I see that Interactive Investor is one of them.
https://www.iii.co.uk/investing/factsheet/K786

So, Cofunds does carry this fund when it is fronted by Interactive Investor, but does not carry this fund when you invest direct in Cofunds via an IFA (in this case Cavendish).