Vanguard life strategy

bowlhead99

Carmk2008 wrote: »

@ duntosh maybe I worded that wrong I am aware of the risks and perfectly prepared to lose half the the value. This may change the more I have in it but as I have said before I am in this for 20 plus years.

Sorry if it sounds like everyone is being overly critical or judgemental or treating you like someone who doesn't know what they are doing and needs some nannying.

But if you are fully aware of what the portfolio does, how it achieves it, and the range of outcomes you might get, and the fact that performance over five days or five months or five years is not representative of its likely long term performance, and you are going to buy and hold for two decades, why would you need to 'check how it is performing at a quick glance' before deciding whether to commit to doubling your monthly investment, as you were outlining in your first post?

That's why people have jumped on your comments and suggested that maybe you're not understanding what might happen to your holdings and highlighting the fact that short term is irrelevent. If you're OK with it, great.

The price is published daily on the Vanguard site as well as your own broker / platform's site. If you just wanted to know how it's performed since you got it, you could look on your online statement from your funds platform, which shows what you paid for your holding and what it's now worth. But looking at a flattering graph which just shows general upwards movements for the five or six years since the fund launched - and doesn't have any nasty drops because there haven't been any major or sustained market crashes and all the major foreign currencies are all worth more in sterling than they were a few years ago - doesn't really help you make any decisions, as it can't be extrapolated to the future like that.

Carmk2008

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Your started off by saying that you wanted to look at last months performance to decide if you should double your investment for the next 20 years.

Then you said you were reassured by the fact it went up for 5 years but if course it did because the markets did.

You still don't seem to understand that the performance of this fund is a direct reflection of the stock markets it's invested in. It's performance is not affected by management decisions in contrast to a fund managed by Smith or Woodward.

You may have some reassurance because it's gone up over 5 years but that's nothing to do with Vanguards management and it's false reassurance based on a llack of understanding. . It's all amd oniy to do with the markets. When the markets fall (which they will) so will this fund.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing but you seem to think that because the markets went up 5 years In a row they will continue to do so.

I have never once thought that it will continue to rise after 5 years in a row of growth. I may not know much but I know that's not the case.

Carmk2008

Carmk2008 wrote: »

I have never once thought that it will continue to rise after 5 years in a row of growth. I may not know much but I know that's not the case.

bowlhead99 wrote: »

Sorry if it sounds like everyone is being overly critical or judgemental or treating you like someone who doesn't know what they are doing and needs some nannying.

But if you are fully aware of what the portfolio does, how it achieves it, and the range of outcomes you might get, and the fact that performance over five days or five months or five years is not representative of its likely long term performance, and you are going to buy and hold for two decades, why would you need to 'check how it is performing at a quick glance' before deciding whether to commit to doubling your monthly investment, as you were outlining in your first post?

That's why people have jumped on your comments and suggested that maybe you're not understanding what might happen to your holdings and highlighting the fact that short term is irrelevent. If you're OK with it, great.

The price is published daily on the Vanguard site as well as your own broker / platform's site. If you just wanted to know how it's performed since you got it, you could look on your online statement from your funds platform, which shows what you paid for your holding and what it's now worth. But looking at a flattering graph which just shows general upwards movements for the five or six years since the fund launched - and doesn't have any nasty drops because there haven't been any major or sustained market crashes and all the major foreign currencies are all worth more in sterling than they were a few years ago - doesn't really help you make any decisions, as it can't be extrapolated to the future like that.

Thanks firstly for not jumping on the bandwagon.

I will be the first to admit I know very little about investing hence the reason I choose VLS. I do know that what happened in the past doesn't mean it will happen in the future. I realize I used the wrong choice of words but as I said I am still green to this but hopefully over the next 20 plus years I will have learned what I need to know.

I was always going to double the amount going into it regardless of what past performances was since I don't hold a great deal at the moment a drop would be in my favour as I would be buying cheaper. But at the same time its always nice to see your money getting a return whether it be short term or not.