Vanguard Life Strategy

bigadaj

blizeH wrote: »

Both my girlfriend and I have ISAs exclusively with the Vanguard Lifestrategy fund now (me at 80% equity, her at 60%) - I'm a little worried about putting all of our eggs into one basket so to speak, so am considering splitting my money between two funds... can anyone recommend something good to complement the LS accounts?

Or are they really that good and it's okay for us both to exclusively put our S&S ISA money into this fund? Thanks

All your eggs are in one basket but its the largest basket you can get. These funds aim to follow the world market and so you get a large chunk of America and Europe, so what you miss out on is diversification and variety. Many people might see real growth in emerging markets, or like a punt on commodities or smaller companies. All of these aren't really covered by the ls fund, so whilst it is excellent as a core holding, you might want to add funds in the areas I've noted, and elsewhere, as these would be higher risk. But higher reward and so might give you more growth.

gadgetmind

As BestInvest's £60 pa for the ISA (£120 in a SIPP) allows any number of Vanguard trackers and equities such as ITs and REITs, I've built my own passive portfolio with "tilts" in directions that have show long-term out performace.These are mainly value, EM, AsiaPac and small/mid caps, but I do dabble with other things.

I'm not a shining example of the passive approach!

thesaver79

thesaver79 wrote: »

Hi All,

I've just opened a S&S ISA with HL to invest £5640 for this year in a Vanguard Lifestyle fund. [cut]

Shall I invest the lump sum in one go or shall I try to split it across various deals in the next few weeks or months to reduce risk?

Sorry to ask again, there have been so many posts since I wrote this and maybe it got lost

P.S. I'm also planning to open a visa for the new year and invest monthly.

takesyourchances

I see a few people are asking about side funds etc which is interesting with the VLS as I have done this.

Now the new tax year is close I can start investing in my new limit soon and my drip feeds will be taken on the 7th of this month which is good.

As I have a number of side funds now I am interested in what order and percentage others would run them at if they had these and thoughts on this, I think I have plenty to be getting on with now so I will be mainly drip feeding now to raise and balance percentages out.

I would like to raise the Vanguard Life Strat to around 65% to 70% of the core portfolio allowing 30% to 35% for the side funds.

This is what I have opened and I will be opening the First State Asian Pacific leaders with £100 on the 7th as well with the view to raising this up to a similar level to the other side funds in the coming months.

Interested to hear what way any of you would run with this as this is my portfolio set up so far.

Vanguard LifeStrat 60% -core aiming 65% to 70%
First State Emerging Markets
First State Asian Pacific Leaders - will be new opening on 7th
Standard Life Global Small Companies
Aberdeen Global Asian Small Companies
Aberdeen Japanese Small Companies

Anyone any suggestions how they would run these with the VLS as the core, example split evenly between the 5 funds at 35% etc between them.

Or two funds say at 10% each and 3 at 5% each.

A small shift here and there in a percentage is nothing to major I would think but I can re-balance here and there adjusting the monthly drip feeds between them to keep them in a kind of percentage holding.

Look forward to any opinions on this.

Thank you.

Linton

In general terms seems reasonable to me. I would put all the minor funds at the same % simply to make analysis easier and relative performance more obvious.

I think you may be a little too focused on the Far East and underweight on small companies in Europe, US and UK. Also, although I like Small Companies I would like to see a bit of something different - perhaps some more industry as opposed to geographic sectors. Examples such as Natural Resources, Technology, Biotech/Health, Finance (it must recover sometime!) However this is really a detail. Probably more important to get started on your strategy than analyse too deeply for too long.

takesyourchances

Linton wrote: »

In general terms seems reasonable to me. I would put all the minor funds at the same % simply to make analysis easier and relative performance more obvious.

I think you may be a little too focused on the Far East and underweight on small companies in Europe, US and UK. Also, although I like Small Companies I would like to see a bit of something different - perhaps some more industry as opposed to geographic sectors. Examples such as Natural Resources, Technology, Biotech/Health, Finance (it must recover sometime!) However this is really a detail. Probably more important to get started on your strategy than analyse too deeply for too long.

Thank you Linton for taking the time to reply, it is much appreciated and good to hear in general terms the set up seems reasonable.

I was thinking towards running the minor funds at the same percentage as I was not sure which funds I would run higher than the other if I was to run them at various percentages.

I agree it would make analysis easier and relative performance more obvious at the same level, I can easily bring these to the same amount invested over the coming months, I guess the percentage would change slightly as they perform in time between them but I can start to bring them to the same level and raise the core up which is at around 60% at the moment.

Although I like the Far East, there is starting be a relative focus there I can see, I opened the Standard Life Global Smaller Companies fund as it gave a bit of focus back towards the US and UK, 41% US and 17% UK in that fund but can see that some more UK, US or Europe could bring some balance back. I like the Smaller Companies also for the long term growth potential, was also thinking UK and USA mid size companies could give a bit of different exposure.

I could look into some industries as well down the line, good point and worth looking at the various options as I would not know a lot on these at the moment. Another asset diversification I considered was the BlackRock Global property tracker, I can look to learn at some of the industries as well in the coming months as ideas.

At the moment I am trying to get my strategy right and going, as I have these more minor holdings as the side funds I am looking to get these into a holding strategy level with the core and I feel also that splitting them evenly would be easier.

Over the coming months with the drip feed adjustments I feel I can get these levels towards these percentage holdings.

Thank you for your thoughts Linton, I feel I have a strategy to move towards and once the levels are more adjusted I can look at maybe more UK or Europe, USA Small or Mid Cap if this would complement the portfolio and diversification maybe with industry like suggested.

Thanks again

takesyourchances

Linton wrote: »

Also, although I like Small Companies I would like to see a bit of something different - perhaps some more industry as opposed to geographic sectors. Examples such as Natural Resources, Technology, Biotech/Health, Finance (it must recover sometime!) However this is really a detail.

Been doing a bit of looking here from your post, the industry I would be most familiar with at the moment would be Technology, I had a look at a couple of funds and these could be some food for thought.

I am at least familiar with the companies and sector more than say Natural Resources and Health etc.

Any thoughts on either of these adding into my mix?

http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/a/aberdeen-global-technology-d2-gbp-accumulation

http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/h/henderson-global-technology-class-a-accumulation

The Henderson Technology Fund looks very interesting to me, it has more of a spread in holdings at 79 and top holdings of Google, Samsung, Apple and Microsoft would be of interest together, actually the top 10 features some big names with Visa and Mastercard along with the rest. I see there is 70% US holding, I guess these are global target companies as well.

Could be a complimentary holding maybe, I can see your suggestion alright in looking at an industry with my present holdings.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks.

abulkasam

What is the cheapest platform you can get this on now? It's quite confusing reading up on platform fees, RDR, old style charges, new style charges!
What is the cost compared to other trackers, even that is confusing.
Thanks for whoever has the time and patience to answer these.

mark55man

takesyourchances wrote: »

Been doing a bit of looking here from your post, the industry I would be most familiar with at the moment would be Technology, I had a look at a couple of funds and these could be some food for thought.

I am at least familiar with the companies and sector more than say Natural Resources and Health etc.

Any thoughts on either of these adding into my mix?

http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/a/aberdeen-global-technology-d2-gbp-accumulation

http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/h/henderson-global-technology-class-a-accumulation

The Henderson Technology Fund looks very interesting to me, it has more of a spread in holdings at 79 and top holdings of Google, Samsung, Apple and Microsoft would be of interest together, actually the top 10 features some big names with Visa and Mastercard along with the rest. I see there is 70% US holding, I guess these are global target companies as well.

Could be a complimentary holding maybe, I can see your suggestion alright in looking at an industry with my present holdings.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks.

Avoid technology funds like the plague - I speak as a technologist.

takesyourchances

mark88man wrote: »

Avoid technology funds like the plague - I speak as a technologist.

Thanks for the advice, I have plenty of balancing out with drip feeds to do with my present set up, I can look at other industries as a possibility no hurry as I have balancing to do, after I posted that I read about Apple dropping a lot etc recently, maybe a lot of these tech companies can go with trends.

Thanks for the warning on these.