Vanguard Life Strategy 100

Crazy_Diamond

I have around £200k sitting in an AJ Bell ISA account getting no interest which I withdraw out of investment trusts last year as I was getting a bit worried about the market.

I don't think I have the right temperament for actively investing as I get too emotionally involved and make bad decisions and would like to put it in something where I can just leave it and forget about it for the next 10+ years.  I was thinking about vanguard life strategy 100 however I am wondering if it needs to be more diversified?  If so what would be a good complement to this?  Any advice would be appreciated.

dunstonh

 was thinking about vanguard life strategy 100 however I am wondering if it needs to be more diversified

VLS100 is the odd one out in the VLS range. All the others are multi-asset funds.  VLS100 is a global managed fund.   Yes the underlying funds are passive but the allocations are managed and it has a home bias.   That said, it is diversified.

If so what would be a good complement to this? 

None. It is designed to be a single held fund for high risk investors.  It doesn't sound like you have the risk profile for it though.

El_Torro

A global tracker might be better than VLS100. It doesn’t have any bonds so you’re paying a premium for a global tracker. It is overweight in the UK though, which global trackers aren’t, so you might be willing to pay the premium for this.

This fund is already well diversified, you don’t really need anything else if you’re happy to be 100% in equities. A global smaller companies fund will give you different exposure so you could stick say 10% of your money in that. Further than that you might want to look at commodities or gold. Something I tend to steer away from but it’s an option. 

ColdIron

The VLS100 is probably the weakest of the range. It's well diversified (though maybe not in terms of geographic allocation) so adding more equities probably wouldn't help much. You could look at diversifying into other asset classes (bonds?) with the VLS80 or one in the list below. If you are sure you want 100% equities maybe look at a global tracker

https://monevator.com/passive-fund-of-funds-the-rivals/

Crazy_Diamond

Thanks both. 

Apologies Dunston but I don't understand why you say it is more managed than the other vanguard LS funds? It appears to have the same management fee of 0.22% https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/what-we-offer/all-products

El-Torro do you recommend any particular global trackers?  I thought the fee of 0.22% was pretty low.  Is there anything you would recommend which would beat this?

Albermarle

I don't think I have the right temperament for actively investing as I get too emotionally involved and make bad decisions

Well you probably made a good decision by going into cash last year ( although it depends exactly when last year)

However there is always an element of luck in doing that, and then the big decision of when to go back in again.

Most investors on this forum are buy and hold types, but that does not necessarily mean investing in just one fund. 

If you wanted to invest in just one 100% equity index tracker, most would not go for VLS 100 and have something more global and slightly cheaper. However as Dunstonh says these are relatively high risk/volatile investments, so you might be better with something a bit less racier.

El_Torro

Regarding global funds: HSBC FTSE All World Index is a popular one. The charge is 0.13%

I wouldn’t get too hung up about a 0.09% difference in fund charges. It will make some difference to your long term returns though. I’m also not a fan of investing in just VLS because in my opinion VLS invests too much of its equities in the UK.

hallmark

Crazy_Diamond said:

Thanks both. 

Apologies Dunston but I don't understand why you say it is more managed than the other vanguard LS funds? It appears to have the same management fee of 0.22% https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/what-we-offer/all-products

I don't think Dustonh is saying that.  He's saying two things:  One is that VLS100 is 100% shares whereas all the other LS funds are a shares/bonds mix.   Two is that VLS100 isn't a fund that mechanically follows an index, it's a bunch of funds that Vanguard select and they decide what weighting each gets.

InvesterJones

VLS100 follows the same sort of geographical weighting as the rest of the VLS range, but with 100% equities, so as mentioned, it's well diversified but with a deliberate bias towards UK (more than their capital values warrant in the world table). An alternative 100% equities fund with more normal weightings, and inclusion of smaller companies than VLS, is the Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap index.

adindas

Crazy_Diamond said:

I have around £200k sitting in an AJ Bell ISA account getting no interest which I withdraw out of investment trusts last year as I was getting a bit worried about the market.

I don't think I have the right temperament for actively investing as I get too emotionally involved and make bad decisions and would like to put it in something where I can just leave it and forget about it for the next 10+ years.  I was thinking about vanguard life strategy 100 however I am wondering if it needs to be more diversified?  If so what would be a good complement to this?  Any advice would be appreciated.

VLS100 is reasonably well diversified but it is just that it does not have bond. Which does not mean necessarily a bad thing.

Too much diversification is not necessary a good things. This is expert's opinion, opinions come from proven multi billionaires investors, not from random people on the internet. I have posted many quotations, links about this in the past.

If the aim is to create wealth rather than to preserve wealth, history has proven that Bonds have never been a good investment vehicles.

I personally never have interest in investing in Bonds. For bond I already have RSAs, High interest Easy access saving account or short term high interest saving that could be easily be deployed regularity into equity. But this is my personal strategy, other people might have other strategy that might work for them