Thinking about Digital/Technolgy funds - Good idea?

jimjames

Tokyo_8 said:

I want to start getting more educated and managing my account with HL.

Currently, my portfolio looks like this...

Fundsmith Equity

ASI Global Smaller Companies

Vanguard FTSE Developed World ex-UK Equity Index

Jupiter Asian Income

Vanguard LifeStrategy 60% Equity

BlackRock Gold & General

IFSL Marlborough Multi Cap Income

Troy Trojan

LF Equity Income

Without knowing % allocations of each it's hard to comment but normally something like VLS would be the core portfolio holding and you wouldn't need others except for perhaps adjusting the geographic allocations. If those are all held in equal amounts then the VLS option is a bit pointless in my view.

For many people the VLS60 would be sufficient as the only fund if you are happy with the risk. This would appear to be the case with the other holdings and you could even have VLS80 or VLS100 if the above are all equal %.

Tokyo_8

Thank jimjames - apologies for the delayed reply.

As mentioned earlier in the post, I need to make better steps with regard to research.

But transferring funds out of the more poorly performing funds and putting them

into the Vanguard Life Strategy and making Vanguard the core holding seems a sensible thing to do.

But I want to still have other funds running as to spread any risk to my savings - does that seem a sensible thing?

eskbanker

Tokyo_8 said:

making Vanguard the core holding seems a sensible thing to do.

But I want to still have other funds running as to spread any risk to my savings - does that seem a sensible thing?

Seems unlikely, but what specific risks do you believe you'd be addressing by doing so?

Malthusian

Tokyo_8 said:

Thank jimjames - apologies for the delayed reply.

As mentioned earlier in the post, I need to make better steps with regard to research.

But transferring funds out of the more poorly performing funds and putting them

into the Vanguard Life Strategy and making Vanguard the core holding seems a sensible thing to do.

But I want to still have other funds running as to spread any risk to my savings - does that seem a sensible thing?

VLS is a one-stop shop - if it is your "core holding" you have already ticked the "spread risk" box. It is diversified across thousands of shares and bonds worldwide and you can't get more spread than that. Your other funds will be mostly invested in shares that you already hold via Vanguard, just in different proportions.

If you hold VLS the main reason to hold other funds would be to increase or decrease risk, e.g. by increasing allocation to smaller companies or bonds.

The other reason would be if you disagreed with Vanguard's asset allocation (e.g. wanted less in the US or UK), but if you had your own views on such things it makes little sense to use Vanguard LifeStrategy at all. It would be simpler to build your own portfolio.

At the moment you have a mishmash of funds with no clear objective. If you switch out of some of the funds and into Vanguard, you will have one fund that you do have a reason for holding, plus a mishmash of funds with no clear objective. This would be an improvement, but only a partial one.

Tokyo_8

Malthusian said:

At the moment you have a mishmash of funds with no clear objective. If you switch out of some of the funds and into Vanguard, you will have one fund that you do have a reason for holding, plus a mishmash of funds with no clear objective. This would be an improvement, but only a partial one.

Yes, this is how I look at it.

Initially, I'm looking to transfer some of the less well-performing ones into the Vanguard.

At the minute I'm deciding whether to hold some smaller % of my portfolio into more risk funds, but wondering how I could start to research and find these funds. That's where my initial question was in terms of finding possible funds.

jimjames

Tokyo_8 said:

Malthusian said:

At the moment you have a mishmash of funds with no clear objective. If you switch out of some of the funds and into Vanguard, you will have one fund that you do have a reason for holding, plus a mishmash of funds with no clear objective. This would be an improvement, but only a partial one.

Initially, I'm looking to transfer some of the less well-performing ones into the Vanguard.

How are you defining "less well performing"? I've got funds in certain sectors that have not done as well as other sectors but they are still performing well within their sector. Just because some have gone up more than others isn't automatically a reason to ditch the funds that have gone up least. If anything you may want to rebalance and buy more of those ones. Troy Trojan for example isn't designed as a fund that would grow or drop like the FTSE ex UK index fund.