Good Investment Decision? S&P 500 with Vanguard?

Audaxer

Alexland wrote: »

The bonds in VLS60 are mostly hedged or in sterling to reduce the currency risk. It is well suited to the shorter end of medium term investing such as 7 years.

That's good to know although I intend to leave my VLS60 for the long term, selling some units when necessary. I also have some VLS40 which I bought first but now think it may be too heavy in bonds for me. I will probably keep it until there is a crash and assuming it drops less in value than the VLS60, I might then change it for VLS60.

lpgm

FDa65rdk wrote: »

Warren Buffett is a strong advocate of the S&P500 and he said he would arrange for 90% of his wealth to be invested in an S&P500 index fund after his death.

It's very difficult to argue with someone with his track record.

"Don’t Take Asset Allocation Advice From Billionaires": https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2018/09/dont-take-asset-allocation-advice-from-billionaires/

A_T

neildt wrote: »

Would you say 60% is to heavily weighted to the US ?

USA is currently 62.5% of the MSCI World Index

masonic

A_T wrote: »

USA is currently 62.5% of the MSCI World Index

It's worth noting that MSCI World excludes emerging markets and small caps.

AnotherJoe

FDa65rdk wrote: »

Warren Buffett is a strong advocate of the S&P500 and he said he would arrange for 90% of his wealth to be invested in an S&P500 index fund after his death.

It's very difficult to argue with someone with his track record.

But it's very easy to argue with someone's misunderstanding of what he said.

He's speaking from a US perspective of someone in the US earning and spending dollars, buying a fund denominated and priced in dollars. It's also from the POV of there's so much money in the fund compared to what his wife would spend that differences in performance would be irrelevant to her it would be the difference between would she die leaving umpty billion or umpty umpty billion.

For someone earning and spending in a different country with a different currency with an amount that isn't , practically, unlimited, the advice would be very different.

A_T

masonic wrote: »

It's worth noting that MSCI World excludes emerging markets and small caps.

This is true.

For an accurate measure of the total global market USA is currently 54.85% of the FTSE Global All Cap Index.

ESonic

Thanks for the advice all.

This is what I have bought so far:

£500.00 - Global Momentum Factor UCITS ETF (VMOM)
£500.00 - Global Small-Cap Index Fund - Accumulation
£500.00 - S&P 500 UCITS ETF (VUSA)

I have £8,500.00 left, I am thinking about investing them after Brexit. I've read an article that after PPI ends, the banks will be able to save a lot of money and pay more dividends. Do you think I should buy some shares in UK banks?

Alexland

No I don't particularly think you should buy shares in UK banks but as you seem to be ignoring the sensible feedback you might well do it anyway.

A_T

ESonic wrote: »

Thanks for the advice all.

This is what I have bought so far:

£500.00 - Global Momentum Factor UCITS ETF (VMOM)
£500.00 - Global Small-Cap Index Fund - Accumulation
£500.00 - S&P 500 UCITS ETF (VUSA)

I have £8,500.00 left, I am thinking about investing them after Brexit. I've read an article that after PPI ends, the banks will be able to save a lot of money and pay more dividends. Do you think I should buy some shares in UK banks?

Are you are convinced you know better than the market? Presumably the rest of the investment world has this information about UK banks but their share price isn't soaring in relation to other shares as far as I know.

masonic

A_T wrote: »

This is true.

For an accurate measure of the total global market USA is currently 54.85% of the FTSE Global All Cap Index.

Not sure if the country weightings of the index are published anywhere, but going by the Vanguard tracker of the same index, it holds 50% in the USA and 3% in Canada, so I wonder if North America has been lumped together in your figure.

I tend to go by the weightings at https://www.starcapital.de/en/research/stock-market-valuation/ which seems to have slightly higher weightings for Germany and other European countries, also Japan and Asian countries. UK is marginally lower and the USA is down at 45%. Not sure which more correctly reflects reality.