Best Vanguard long term holding fund please.

talexuser

I agree there is not much disagreement, just picking a point to make a point. The US could just as well run cool for the next ten years, or take longer to recover from a big crash than other areas. It doesn't change the fact that returns since the referendum have been much better elsewhere.

MK62

TBH though, with hindsight that's always going to be an easy take........5-6 years ago, we didn't know that.....we each had our opinions then and were invested accordingly. I, for one at least, was taken by surprise with the Brexit vote.....I hadn't expected that result....if I had I might have adjusted the portfolio a bit in anticipation of Sterling's fall, if nothing else.......but that's water under the bridge now.

Despite having lower returns (in Sterling) than many other regions, a UK investor who was fully invested in eg the FTSE All Share (though I suspect relatively few are these days), would still have returned c38% since the referendum, way in front of RPI - so in that sense, it's still met many people's objective of staying ahead of inflation. Those with a more regionally diversified portfolio (as seems more generally the case, at least on here) may have hardly noticed the UK's relative drag, even if things like eg VLS100 have a heavier UK bias than some other global equity funds, especially index funds.

Of course, if the objective is simply to always to get the highest returns, unfortunately that objective is doomed to failure anyway, as it's almost impossible to get that year on year, unless you are the luckiest investor alive, or else have some "magic sauce"......and it's completely impossible with a diversified portfolio......but if you have more realistic objectives, then any investment that meets them should, imho, be viewed as a success, regardless of whether investing in this or that would have resulted in higher returns....that's almost always the case anyway.

Thrugelmir

talexuser said:

I agree there is not much disagreement, just picking a point to make a point. The US could just as well run cool for the next ten years, or take longer to recover from a big crash than other areas. It doesn't change the fact that returns since the referendum have been much better elsewhere.

The US is a broad generalisation. Just 5 companies out of 500 have generated 30% out of the total S&P 500 return.  Then there's the one off boost from the lower exchange rate. Hindsight needs to be used wisely. 

talexuser

It's not hindsight to have made a decision at the time (maybe even posted about it) for specific reasons which turned out to be a good one. Whether luck or not it turns out to be foresight if the reasoning was sound.

MK62

This is where it all gets a bit interesting.......if you adjusted your portfolio before the referendum by reducing/removing your portfolio's UK equity exposure, in anticipation of a leave vote, it could also be said that you took a punt against the odds and won...

On the other hand, if you made the adjustments after the referendum, it could be said you were just following the herd.....and after reading all the reports of doom, it wouldn't have taken much in the way of foresight tbh.....I did a bit of the same "adjustments" myself......though I lacked the "foresight" to move everything into US stocks, where the best returns, overall, have been......I would have viewed that as something of a gamble at the time.......with hindsight it would have paid off handsomely, but does that then turn the gamble into foresight.....or good luck?

talexuser

It was just after the referendum but was not aware of much following of the herd at the time. Personally. I started off 100% UK equity income 35 years ago when the only info available was the "White list", broker mailshots and the Times and Telegraph money pages. Now we have the net the info world has changed and I've learnt a lot from this forum. I probably had a UK bias for too long in the early years since did not like the idea of currency fluctuations on top of everything else, as well as following the advice of having bonds when I didn't really need them - riding the crashes is a lesson it's not easy for a beginner to learn, though I've never sold anything unless rebalancing or GCT indexing. Now I've 10 funds/ITs/ETFs in the ISA, 15 in the GIA, and one (Fundsmith) in the SIPP (because can only put in 3k6 a year). I reckon it was around 15% UK before, and according to Trustnet now around 10% which is a lot higher now since moving more into capital preservation funds recently (including all of dividends the past year) and selling large gains in Monks, Vanguard North America, JPM Global etc. The only pure UK fund left is Evenload Income which has done very well but is going off the boil a bit. Non equity is taken care of by whatever the capital preservation funds are holding. And of course it goes without saying that luck plays a part in everything.

Thrugelmir

MK62 said:

This is where it all gets a bit interesting.......if you adjusted your portfolio before the referendum by reducing/removing your portfolio's UK equity exposure, in anticipation of a leave vote, it could also be said that you took a punt against the odds and won...

On the other hand, if you made the adjustments after the referendum, it could be said you were just following the herd.....and after reading all the reports of doom, it wouldn't have taken much in the way of foresight tbh.....I did a bit of the same "adjustments" myself......though I lacked the "foresight" to move everything into US stocks, where the best returns, overall, have been......I would have viewed that as something of a gamble at the time.......with hindsight it would have paid off handsomely, but does that then turn the gamble into foresight.....or good luck?

Did you foresee the pandemic as well ?  

MK62

Thrugelmir said:

MK62 said:

This is where it all gets a bit interesting.......if you adjusted your portfolio before the referendum by reducing/removing your portfolio's UK equity exposure, in anticipation of a leave vote, it could also be said that you took a punt against the odds and won...

On the other hand, if you made the adjustments after the referendum, it could be said you were just following the herd.....and after reading all the reports of doom, it wouldn't have taken much in the way of foresight tbh.....I did a bit of the same "adjustments" myself......though I lacked the "foresight" to move everything into US stocks, where the best returns, overall, have been......I would have viewed that as something of a gamble at the time.......with hindsight it would have paid off handsomely, but does that then turn the gamble into foresight.....or good luck?

Did you foresee the pandemic as well ?  

Nope.....nor the leave vote.....in fact I'm saying that it's very difficult to foresee anything beforehand unless you already know something about what's going to happen, but then everyone else will know it too, so it probably wouldn't do you much good anway, from an investing perspective.....

talexuser

Thrugelmir said:

Did you foresee the pandemic as well ?  

No, but we seem to have done worse than most in economic terms (let alone deaths) too.

Thrugelmir

talexuser said:

Thrugelmir said:

Did you foresee the pandemic as well ?  

No, but we seem to have done worse than most in economic terms (let alone deaths) too.

Going to take sone time for the fog to lift and the true extent of the damage to be ascertained.