S & P 500 - what platform?

compound

Hi All,
I was looking at investing £1000 as a lump sum into an S&P 500 index fund and then pay £100 a month as a monthly amount into it. I'm struggling to find a platform to do this through that would have low charges/fees through a stocks and shares ISA? Could anyone help?

I was looking to invest in other funds in the future but to a lesser extent but not necessarily an index fund and so was hoping for help on what platform is best? I'm new to this so any help would be much appreciated.

Alistair31

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investments/vanguard-s-and-p-500-ucits-etf-usd-distributing/overview

compound

Alistair31 said:

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investments/vanguard-s-and-p-500-ucits-etf-usd-distributing/overview

Thank you. Would i also be able to invest in other funds such as fundsmith equity fund, Baillie Gifford American,  legg mason japan fund, etc? Or those are not available under vanguard and therefore have to look elsewhere?


 

masonic

compound said:

Alistair31 said:

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investments/vanguard-s-and-p-500-ucits-etf-usd-distributing/overview

Thank you. Would i also be able to invest in other funds such as fundsmith equity fund, Baillie Gifford American,  legg mason japan fund, etc? Or those are not available under vanguard and therefore have to look elsewhere?

Vanguard only does Vanguard. Sounds like you want a platform with a percentage fee and free investing into funds, for example, Close Brothers, Charles Stanley Direct, otherwise trading charges will mount up. This also means picking a S&P tracker that is not an ETF, for example Fidelity Index US.

Another_Saver

For those amounts I think Charles Stanley works out cheapest, but firstly I'd ask why the S&P 500 and why those funds? Sounds like you're going for what's popular and has strong recent performance - these are the worst indicators of future returns.

compound

masonic said:

compound said:

Alistair31 said:

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investments/vanguard-s-and-p-500-ucits-etf-usd-distributing/overview

Thank you. Would i also be able to invest in other funds such as fundsmith equity fund, Baillie Gifford American,  legg mason japan fund, etc? Or those are not available under vanguard and therefore have to look elsewhere?

Vanguard only does Vanguard. Sounds like you want a platform with a percentage fee and free investing into funds, for example, Close Brothers, Charles Stanley Direct, otherwise trading charges will mount up. This also means picking a S&P tracker that is not an ETF, for example Fidelity Index US.

Thanks I'll have a look into that.

Another_Saver said:

For those amounts I think Charles Stanley works out cheapest, but firstly I'd ask why the S&P 500 and why those funds? Sounds like you're going for what's popular and has strong recent performance - these are the worst indicators of future returns.

Thanks for the reply. My thoughts were to go the index fund route as its simple and wouldn't require me to review it regularly and let it build over the long term. With the s & p 500 i did think as its a large overall representation of the US market that it would do well or at least increase over the long term.

The other funds i haven't given any serious thought to but had noted they have performed well over the last 5 years.

I know its said not to look at past performance but other then that what other factors should i consider?

I think maybe i will stick to an index fund or maybe a vanguard lifestrategy fund for now and consider othet funds with more financial advice?

grumiofoundation

compound said:

Another_Saver said:

For those amounts I think Charles Stanley works out cheapest, but firstly I'd ask why the S&P 500 and why those funds? Sounds like you're going for what's popular and has strong recent performance - these are the worst indicators of future returns.

Thanks for the reply. My thoughts were to go the index fund route as its simple and wouldn't require me to review it regularly and let it build over the long term. With the s & p 500 i did think as its a large overall representation of the US market that it would do well or at least increase over the long term. 

Why are you going for US only, not a global fund?

El_Torro

Investing in a US tracker is fine. However if you’re doing that you should really also invest in all the geographical locations that your US tracker doesn’t invest in. 

Then you need to decide what percentage to invest in each of these geographical regions. You can take the view that you want to invest in the global weightings as they are, or over invest or under invest in certain regions if you think one or more regions are going to overperform in the coming years

If you take the view that you can’t tell the future of stock markets any better than the average investor (probably true) then by that point you might as well forget about localised tracker funds and stick all your investments in a global tracker fund, or a multi asset fund like Vanguard Life Strategy. This isn’t a bad way to invest and in the long run will probably give you a similar return to investing in a much more complicated way.

compound

From what I've seen the global funds have not performed as well as the US ones over the last 5 years or so. Although there maybe but I've not come across yet?

Thrugelmir

compound said:

From what I've seen the global funds have not performed as well as the US ones over the last 5 years or so. 

For the simple reason that the majority of the companies that have performed exceptionally well more recently are at the top of the S&P 500. By adding another 3,000 plus stocks to the fund tracked , the performance has been diluted. That's simply mathematics and the weighted assignment to the US within the indexes. 

Another_Saver

OP @compound, I think you're in what I call "the little bit of knowledge" stage. kroijer.com is a good resource for developing understanding of why a global portfolio is generally sensible.
I differ from that general wisdom for my own reasons, which are probably a bit academic for this thread. I present my opinion in other threads, but other people have their own opinions and their portfolios reflect that. Most on this forum would agree that if you're starting out, and an amateur retail investor, a global index fund is probably sensible as opposed to picking a country. To get a bit technical, the US market is very highly priced compared to the rest of the world, which can indicate that you should expect the rest of the world to do better over the next decade or so. Also the $ is very strong. I don't like to speculate about currencies but if you're going to invest in a different currency anyway, I'd feel safer spreading it round a whole bunch of em.
So stick with a global fund, it'll be ~55% US anyway so it's not like you're missing out.

Your posts indicate you are thinking about selecting investments in terms of chasing the highest returns - this does not work.
Fundsmith Equity is fine, it has done spectacularly well to date, so perhaps don't expect that good run to continue. But looking at the holdings - quality, diversified global companies - doesn't worry me.
BG American and LM Japan are more specific and higher conviction so who knows.