Vanguard Life strategy post brexit

bowlhead99

Chickereeeee wrote: »

Malthusian wrote: »

That said, if my portfolio consisted entirely of a chunk of money in LifeStrategy, I would be aiming to diversify away from that in order to not have almost half my money in the US.

Actually, VGLS (well the 80 one anyway) is only 35% USA.

It has a heavy UK bias (19%) compared to a true representation of the global market.

You are right it has a UK tilt. However, it is 36% US equities out of 80% total equities. That is 45% of the equities, which still sounds like "almost half in the US", for the portion of the fund which is designed to deliver most of the growth over your investing timeline.

The US allocations, together with other countries' allocations, have been lowered from the natural global free float equity split to make room for 25% of the equities (20% of the fund) being UK listed to cater for the target of their marketing: UK investors who like home bias to their investing.

On the bond side, only 33% of the 'global bond' component is US.

So overall if you are looking specifically at the 80% equity version, it would perhaps be more accurate to say that "over 40%", rather than "almost half" of the fund is US, because there's an even larger weighting to UK in the bond component.

But even with the inbuilt UK bias, the equity component of all the VLS funds is still up close to half, at 45% USA - whether you're looking at VLS20 and saying it's 9% US equities, or VLS80 and saying it's 36% US equities, or VLS100 and saying it's 45% equities.

roxy28

I think its just us newish investors who are hesitant, i have £2000 ( not a lot for some) which i was planning to put in my VLS60 on monday, then i see this thread again and i start to think should i drip feed £500 at a time, and so it goes on back and forth.
But as of this minute i will put £2000 in at once, until i sleep on it and change my mind... lol.

dunstonh

Just curious, but how does an IFA assess a client's risk profile other than just asking them some questions from a questionaire on how they tolerate loss of capital etc?? Is that any valid tool to assess that or is it more of an art??

It is part art and experience as different people could ask the same question and get different answers depending on how it was presented. Discussion is the best way. Finding out about knowledge and experience, giving examples in money terms (as many dont understand percentages) and capacity for loss. Questionnaires are a starting point to which the rest is added.