Alternatives to the Vanguard platform and Life Startegy 100 fund

MK62

The same could also be said of the FTSE100........

Alexland

MK62 said:

The same could also be said of the FTSE100........

Yup that's why investors need to think deeper than geographic weightings and consider the types of international companies that might choose to list in each country as the value/growth factor is going to be the main driver of performance depending on economic conditions. A developed world tracker might have a valuation bias to US listed growth shares but it will also own the more value focused shares which tend to be cheaper for the same proportion of ownership so you kinda end up owning both factors in similar proportions.

Linton

Alexland said:

GeoffTF said:
A developed world tracker has a huge US weighting and not everyone is happy with that. You pays your money and you takes your pick.

True but then a lot of those US companies are actually International businesses who choose to list there which makes it easier to accept the weightings.

A geographic weighting can be a proxy for other things.  In particular the US is unlike other geographies in its large tech sector and its tendency to pay high prices for speculative growth.   Similarly the FTSE100 differs from other markets because of its high % in mining and drilling despite comparatively little such business taking place  in the UK.

So when constructing a highly diversified portfolio from individual funds one does need to pay close attention to geographic allocations as geographic funds are more readily available than those based on other categorisation.

VXman

Alexland said:

VXman said:

So would there be a cheaper platform for me in this situation...?

What frequency of trades are you doing in these accounts?

 Very little. Buy and forget until I need it or it has made a reasonable amount of money

Alexland

VXman said:

Alexland said:

VXman said:

So would there be a cheaper platform for me in this situation...?

What frequency of trades are you doing in these accounts?

 Very little. Buy and forget until I need it or it has made a reasonable amount of money

In which case for the £13k VLS60 ISA then I would use iWeb as the transfer would be over £5k so you would get the £100 cashback to cover the £100 opening fee and there would be no ongoing charges (but £5 if you ever did trade). The same would apply for your wife's £7.5k account. Hard to beat free.

Then for the wife's £105k SIPP then I would use II's £12.99 pm pension builder plan and claim no fees for the first 6 months and claim £300 transfer cashback to cover the fees for the next circa 2 years.

https://www.ii.co.uk/ii-accounts/sipp/sipp-special-offers

Of course others may know of more suitable options you are a bit limited using funds as the cheapest fee structures seem to be reserved for those holding exchange traded assets (eg Fidelity £90 pa cap, Jarvis X-O, InvestEngine, etc).

Rt90

dunstonh said:

I hold VLS100 in my sipp as does my wife so I’ve read this thread with great interest. Some really good points have been made with some food for thought so thank you to the contributors.

If you have a real SIPP, you will have access to the whole of market and can pick a global tracker to replace it.  If its a pretend SIPP, then you may not have that choice (i.e.SIPP in marketing but not actually a SIPP)

No idea if the heavier U.K. weighting will be good, bad or indifferent!

in 2022 it was a good thing.  For most of the previous 15 years it was not.

I have considered switching to a global tracker but I wouldn’t be sure if I’d really gain anything by doing so. It would probably be fairly marginal in comparison to VLS100. Always interested to hear experienced views on this though as I don’t even pretend to know it all!
 The reason I’ve left it in VLS100 is I want a set and forget strategy where I can achieve roughly what the markets are gaining/losing and concentrate on putting money in. I’m 43 so the money will be in there a while to ride out the dips and hopefully bring the gains. I don’t want to tinker with it too much. I’d be just as likely to do harm than good.
VLS100 has seemed to reflect what the markets are doing pretty closely and that’s been good enough for me.
 I hold it in a Vanguard sipp. I’ve always felt the charges are pretty low but I will take another look from reading some of the posts in this thread.

masonic

Rt90 said:

I have considered switching to a global tracker but I wouldn’t be sure if I’d really gain anything by doing so. It would probably be fairly marginal in comparison to VLS100. Always interested to hear experienced views on this though as I don’t even pretend to know it all!

All other things being equal, if you were to invest in VLS100 vs a global tracker with a 0.1% lower fund fee and average growth of 7%, then the cost impact over 10 years on a £100k portfolio would be a little under £2,000. Of course all other things aren't equal, and the performance of those two funds would differ. It is a coin toss whether that would work in your favour or against you.

Rt90

£2000 is not to be sniffed at but I agree with you that it’s probably a coin toss which is why I’ve just left it alone.
Thanks for your input. Much appreciated.

sanch3z_77

Nebulous2 said:

I started with a lump sum two years ago - agonised about 'putting it all on black' and the weighting towards the states. It is one thing reading and understanding some of the theory behind investing, but the emotional investment in a lump sum which will be well-nigh impossible to replace at this point in my life was strong.

We refer to attitude to risk here, but that phrase doesn't really cover the nuances of the situation for me. I am by nature a risk-taker. At times in my early life I've driven far too fast. I love descending fast on a bike. My management style at work is relaxed, collaborative and one which delegates a lot, but I come to life during a crisis and enjoy making the big calls. I've actively avoided gambling, as I am concerned I could become too attracted to it. You could say I'm an adrenaline junkie.  

 Despite all that I felt a huge weight of responsibility for that money and picked some actively managed funds - Europe, Japan, FTSE 250 etc to move away from the 60% weighting in the US of A.

The trackers have outperformed my own choices, with one I picked losing over 50% at one time, now 42% down. It takes a particular skill to pick the worst performing fund in a sector of 250+ funds. 

I was advised against what I did here, but I guess I need to make my own mistakes, rather than learn from other people's. 

I found this article useful:- Best global tracker funds – how to choose - Monevator

We have money in the HSBC tracker and the Fidelity one referred to there, but all new money now is going into VWRP - the Vanguard FTSE - accumulation ETF. 

apprecaite your honesty, must have been hard to write that but helps people like me out a lot.