Alternatives to the Vanguard platform and Life Startegy 100 fund

masonic

GeoffTF said:

VLS 100 does little more than duplicate VEVE and VFEM at a higher cost.

I'd argue the most significant 'feature' of VLS 100 is the home bias, which over the long term has been a drag on performance.

GeoffTF

masonic said:

GeoffTF said:

VLS 100 does little more than duplicate VEVE and VFEM at a higher cost.

I'd argue the most significant 'feature' of VLS 100 is the home bias, which over the long term has been a drag on performance.

A UK bias has done well over some time periods and may do well in the future. There are arguments for and against home bias, but I do not believe that they are particularly compelling one way or the other. I do have a modest home bias and it has done well for me. If the OP wants some home bias, he can add some VUKE or the corresponding unit trust (which is cheaper).

masonic

GeoffTF said:

masonic said:

GeoffTF said:

VLS 100 does little more than duplicate VEVE and VFEM at a higher cost.

I'd argue the most significant 'feature' of VLS 100 is the home bias, which over the long term has been a drag on performance.

A UK bias has done well over some time periods and may do well in the future. There are arguments for and against home bias, but I do not believe that they are particularly compelling one way or the other. I do have a modest home bias and it has done well for me.

Whatever your opinion on home bias, replacing VLS 100 with VEVE and VFEM will lead to a significant change in UK weighting. VEVE and VUKE might get you closer to VLS 100 (just ~8% different rather than ~20%).

GeoffTF

masonic said:

GeoffTF said:

masonic said:

GeoffTF said:

VLS 100 does little more than duplicate VEVE and VFEM at a higher cost.

I'd argue the most significant 'feature' of VLS 100 is the home bias, which over the long term has been a drag on performance.

A UK bias has done well over some time periods and may do well in the future. There are arguments for and against home bias, but I do not believe that they are particularly compelling one way or the other. I do have a modest home bias and it has done well for me.

Whatever your opinion on home bias, replacing VLS 100 with VEVE and VFEM will lead to a significant change in UK weighting. VEVE and VUKE might get you closer to VLS 100 (just ~8% different rather than ~20%).

I was suggesting something like 25% VUKE + 68.4% VEVE + 7.6% VFEM as a VLS 100 look alike. He can adjust the weightings to get closer to VLS 100 if he wants. (I do not have as much home bias as VLS 100.) I am not saying that the OP should have a home bias. It is up to him.

masonic

GeoffTF said:

masonic said:

GeoffTF said:

masonic said:

GeoffTF said:

VLS 100 does little more than duplicate VEVE and VFEM at a higher cost.

I'd argue the most significant 'feature' of VLS 100 is the home bias, which over the long term has been a drag on performance.

A UK bias has done well over some time periods and may do well in the future. There are arguments for and against home bias, but I do not believe that they are particularly compelling one way or the other. I do have a modest home bias and it has done well for me.

Whatever your opinion on home bias, replacing VLS 100 with VEVE and VFEM will lead to a significant change in UK weighting. VEVE and VUKE might get you closer to VLS 100 (just ~8% different rather than ~20%).

I was suggesting something like 25% VUKE + 68.4% VEVE + 7.6% VFEM as a VLS 100 look alike. He can adjust the weightings to get closer to VLS 100 if he wants. (I do not have as much home bias as VLS 100.) I am not saying that the OP should have a home bias. It is up to him.

Interesting. I didn't see any mention of VUKE in the thread before my post above. I got a very different impression of what you were suggesting as a cheaper VLS 100 equivalent. It seems we were in agreement all along.

JohnWinder

 Im just uneasy holding all my investments in Vanguard funds. I know they are massive and are very unlikely to fail, but I still feel I should invest in other funds.

Good to be cautious, but I think you need to spell out to yourself what ‘fail’ means, then you can go looking for methods to protect against that before you weigh up which risks to accept or not.
Fail could mean the markets in the underlying securities crash forever, or it could mean a rogue employee goes fraudulent. There is probably some protection you’ve not considered by way of which institutions are the custodians of your assets; I think depositary or trustee are UK terms. For example, if you spread into Blackrock and they’re using the same custodian as Vanguard, you might not have achieved what you want.
Have a look at: https://www.ie.vanguard/content/dam/intl/europe/documents/ucits/investor-protection-uk-domiciled.pdf

dunstonh

Thanks @es@eskbanker , Ill read the link tomorrow (when Im more awake!). Id assumed (perhaps wrongly) VLS100 was passive.

Correct.  You assumed wrongly.

VLS100 is a global managed fund. Or technically, it is a global equity fettered fund of funds.   There is management decisions made in the asset allocations and areas to include or not include and which fund houses to use (fettered means in-house).      The use of underlying passive funds doesn't make it a tracker or passive.

VLS100 is the odd one out in the range.   The rest of the VLS range is multi-asset. VLS100 isnt.    VLS100 only exists for completeness but it does quite well for Vanguard as there is a lot of money in there and its around double the cost of a tracker..   Good marketing by them.

22225

Hi sorry to jump on this post... due to my relative giving me a small amount of money each month for my kids, I set up a junior sipp via fidelity for my kids. I put it in vanguard VLS 100 as I thought well it has a long time to grow. Looking at the criticisms of VLS 100 should I change it to a different product? I know people cant give advice but I'm looking for a cheap diversified product that I can just add to regularly and forget about. Given the timescale I thought 100% equities in a fund of funds like vanguard. I've heard good things about HSBC Global strategy adventurous.  Would that be an appropriate alternative? Basically the criticism of VLS 100 is making me concerned. I just want to pay in a little bit each month and forget about it. Please can I have ur thoughts. Thanks.

JohnWinder

‘Looking at the criticisms of VLS 100 should I change it to a different product?’

Possibly, but not this year, perhaps next year. Why? As I read it you’re not sufficiently clued up on your investing, thus exposing your choices to be tossed around, one to another, by the latest set of ideas to come your way; unaware of relevant issues not coming your way, or how to evaluate the issues.

One needs to be careful of chopping and changing one’s investments for reasons other than changes in personal circumstances or important new knowledge coming your way. The ‘mind the gap’ research easily found at Morningstar points to substantial losses compared with what’s otherwise achievable by folk getting in and out of one investment fund for another. 

The second reason you can wait till next year is that there’s not a huge gap between how good/bad VLS100 is compared with the alternative(s) we might reasonably suggest. Thus you can delay any change from VLS100 until next year, or 2024, without much potential hazard, the more so because your children don’t have much invested there so far.

The third reason to wait until next year is to give yourself time to bone up on the asset allocation aspect of personal investing. It might not be worth it for someone who’s passed retirement, but you’re looking after assets for your  children with 50 years ahead of them. Get either of these books from your local library to make a start: How to fund the life you want. Robin Powell; Smarter investing. Tim Hale.

Fourthly, you might find the VLS100 investing strategy suits your thinking. We’re all different, and VLS100 is far from being crazy bad.

MK62

VLS 100 is fine for a global equity fund with a c25% UK content........if that's what you want.....and nobody can tell you today if that 25% UK allocation (as well as the other allocations) will be a good thing or not over the next X years.
You can pretty much replicate VLS100 slightly cheaper by investing directly in the underlying funds it's made up from, but this may not be practical if investing relatively small sums every month, and would require some effort on your part to rebalance these funds occasionally......this is basically what you pay the little extra for with VLS100.....only you can decide if any savings would be worthwhile.
Don't get too hung up on the rather technical distinction of whether VLS100 is a passive or tracker fund or not......most investors can view it as such even if, technically, it's not (well not fully at least).

That said, there's a large selection of perfectly adequate alternatives too, some even cheaper, and some not.......but my view is that you are already in the right ballpark in choosing a diversified global equity fund.....its just a case of picking the flavour to suit now., and in many cases the taste is very similar anyway.......
Speaking for myself, if selecting a single fund to invest in today I'd be a little wary of choosing a global equity fund, passive or otherwise, with a c70% weighting in US equities (as with many global equity tracker funds), mainly on diversification grounds.....although, to be fair, that view is obviously not held universally.