Ftse 100 or 250 Tracker - through Who though?

AnotherJoe

Tom99 wrote: »

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]You could combine:[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Vanguard FTSE Developed World ex UK [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]FTSE100 Tracker[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]FTSE250 Tracker[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Using you own proportions you can choose the UK/Non UK blend you want.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]For the UK part, splitting between FTSE100/250 is a good way of diluting the dominance of the top UK companies. Better than FTSE All Share or FTSE350.[/FONT]

In the above, the proportions of FTSE100 and 250 OP should use would be zero and zero, respectively.

Alexland

Again we have jumped ahead talking about UK bias, currency risk, fund managers, etc before understanding the OP's tolerance to volatility and risk. We know it's only 5-10 years but how big a loss is the OP willing to see on the journey?

Poorlyone - would seeing losses of 25%, 40%, 50% cause distresses and you to cut your losses?

Alex

Tom99

AnotherJoe wrote: »

In the above, the proportions of FTSE100 and 250 OP should use would be zero and zero, respectively.

So exclude the UK entirely and put 60% of your investments in the US, very odd!

MK62

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Because its artificial (its an arbitrary number, its not the UK GDP % which woudl be about 7%) and due to the way the indexes work, it means effectively you are only invested in 10-20 (at most) companies, everything else is noise. And that means a handful of sectors. If banking, finance or mining take a bath, so do you.

A global tracker fund doesn't have to follow GDPs or market caps - as long as that's understood from the outset (as all investments should be really).
The US is 25% of global GDP, yet the global trackers you mentioned hold up to 55-60% or more in US stocks. Even if you switch to market caps, the US is about 40% of the global market cap.
All indexes suffer from concentration to some degree.....the US may be less due to it's sheer size and number of large companies.....but even then the FAANG stocks plus Microsoft still dominate.
The only fund you mentioned which has any UK exposure is the Vanguard SRI Global Stock fund......it invests more money into it's top 3 stocks - Apple, Microsoft and Amazon - than it does into the entire UK stock market.....

yep thats what i mean, and I refer the honorable gentleman to my comments above re sector concentration.And if you do want to get more than just the FTSE100 heavyweights, VLS100 is absolutely not the way to do it.

Well, I didn't actually specify VLS100, but in terms of a single global tracker type fund with 100% equities to invest in today, I would rather buy into that than the ones you mentioned - but opinions differ, and that's fair enough.

Yes but you cant usefully hedge investments for currency long term, its just like adding a whacking big anchor to your performance

I wasn't really suggesting individual investors at our level should try to hedge their investments themselves......too risky......
I think the best "hedge" is to hold some UK investments.......you disagree, but as I mentioned earlier, it's all about opinions at the end of the day.

System

Alexland wrote: »

Again we have jumped ahead talking about UK bias, currency risk, fund managers, etc before understanding the OP's tolerance to volatility and risk. We know it's only 5-10 years but how big a loss is the OP willing to see on the journey?

Poorlyone - would seeing losses of 25%, 40%, 50% cause distresses and you to cut your losses?

Alex

Hi there. Loss of 25pc is acceptable..... more than that , not. In respect of buying gold that someone else mentioned, is that really a thing? Re life expectancy, not easy to say, but est 10 yr but more if solutions are found.

System

Id like a new house instead

Alexland

Poorlyone wrote: »

Hi there. Loss of 25pc is acceptable..... more than that , not.

In which case with a moderate tolerance to loss and a short to medium term investment period then its worth considering a good mixed asset fund such as Vanguard LifeStrategy 60 on a low cost platform such as Vanguard Investor. This type of fund contains both global shares (equities) and bonds (fixed income) to control volatility and the risk of you ending the period with a loss. Over the medium term you should expect it to roughly keep up with inflation.

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/what-we-offer/life-strategy-products

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investing-explained/stocks-shares-isa

An alternative option would be the HSBC Global Strategy Balanced fund which is available in an ISA wrapper from Cavendish or (at a slightly higher cost) direct from the HSBC Investment Center

https://www.assetmanagement.hsbc.co.uk/en/intermediary/investment-expertise/multi-asset/hsbc-global-strategy-portfolios

https://www.cavendishonline.co.uk/investments/buy/
https://investments.hsbc.co.uk/

Or just buy a bungalow if that's what you really want.

Alex

System

Alexland wrote: »

In which case with a moderate tolerance to loss and a short to medium term investment period then its worth considering a good mixed asset fund such as Vanguard LifeStrategy 60 on a low cost platform such as Vanguard Investor. This type of fund contains both global shares (equities) and bonds (fixed income) to control volatility and the risk of you ending the period with a loss. Over the medium term you should expect it to roughly keep up with inflation.

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/what-we-offer/life-strategy-products

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investing-explained/stocks-shares-isa

An alternative option would be the HSBC Global Strategy Balanced fund which is available in an ISA wrapper from Cavendish or (at a slightly higher cost) direct from the HSBC Investment Center

https://www.assetmanagement.hsbc.co.uk/en/intermediary/investment-expertise/multi-asset/hsbc-global-strategy-portfolios

https://www.cavendishonline.co.uk/investments/buy/
https://investments.hsbc.co.uk/

Or just buy a bungalow if that's what you really want.

Alex

Oh Alex, thankyou so much, and to all the other lovely people on here, for sharing your knowledge and showing me where to go. The vanguard proposition sounds just the ticket to me.
Thanks for your trouble.