Vanguard Life Strategy

TCA

SnowMan wrote: »

Vanguard to lower charges on lifestrategy funds

https://www.vanguard.co.uk/documents/portal/press_releases/vanguard-to-lower-charges-on-lifestrategy-funds.pdf

Good news. But I wonder what "In addition, Vanguard plans to adjust the Funds’ asset allocation policy to reflect the firm’s global investment philosophy,enabling investors to achieve greater diversification across countries, sectors and securities" means?

block10

I guess the VLS has a heavy UK bias. Would like to get increased exposure to the US.

pip895

takesyourchances wrote: »

I was looking at the Marlborough Multi Cap fund as a replacement, I was thinking this gives a range of micro cap, small cap and medium cap with some large which is covered in the VLS, but mainly this idea is for mirco, small, medium coverage within the UK. The dividend so far is pretty good as well.

http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/m/marlborough-multi-cap-income-accumulation

I was thinking to transfer the Cazenove UK Smaller Companies to this as a replacement and carry on my drip feed that way.

Any opinions, maybe others are in a similar position?

Thanks.

I have just started investing in the Marlborough fund - looks good - If you wanted a more purely small/microcap (to plug the gap in VLS) - you might also look at Unicorn SC.

Marazan

block10 wrote: »

I guess the VLS has a heavy UK bias. Would like to get increased exposure to the US.

They already have a huge US exposure, the 80% fund has almost an equal split between UK and US assets.

pip895

block10 wrote: »

I guess the VLS has a heavy UK bias. Would like to get increased exposure to the US.

There are plenty of US trackers - why not invest in one of them? personally I have just reduced my US exposure - its about the only market that makes the UK look like a value play.:)

bigadaj

Marazan wrote: »

They already have a huge US exposure, the 80% fund has almost an equal split between UK and US assets.

Yes but that's still a massive over weight allocation to the uk. If it's a global fund I'd expect it to be made up of default amounts and in that case the us allocation would be four to five times the uk amount.

JohnRo

I know it's nothing profound and been said before but can you honestly have much certainty in any quoted regional allocation percentages given that many large cap companies perhaps classified as being UK, for example, are probably not exclusively so. Maybe not even predominantly so?

Likewise for the US especially, or Asia, in an age of mega corps and globalisation.

ruperts

Does anyone know if the lifestrategy fund gets charged the fees of the component funds, thus meaning holders of LS are effectively paying twice?

Linton

JohnRo wrote: »

I know it's nothing profound and been said before but can you honestly have much certainty in any quoted regional allocation percentages given that many large cap companies perhaps classified as being UK, for example, are probably not exclusively so. Maybe not even predominantly so?

Likewise for the US especially, or Asia, in an age of mega corps and globalisation.

Its not question of certainty, the % in terms of quoted markets must be correct. Many of the megacaps will be global companies The main problem I see with a high UK % is that the megacaps quoted on the LSE are a pretty arbitrary lot and dont represent a balanced selection of sectors.

JohnRo

Why must it be correct, can you actually demonstrate that or point to literature that does?

I'm not arguing for the sake of it, I'd be genuinely interested in understanding how the regional aspect of companies and collectives is actually deciphered given that the geographic exchange they're listed on has little to do with their geographic & economic activities in some and perhaps many cases.