Bonds to add to my Portfolio

Neversurrender

Hi I have an AJ Bell SIPP Portfolio with

HSBC Pacific Index

L&G US Index

FTSE Developed World Ex UK

Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap index

Vanguard Lifestrategy 80

I'm 64 years old & retired, I will be taking my final drawdown for living expenses in January 2025, and from then on will be living off my small company pension. And then state pension 1 year later.

I plan to use this SIPP Portfolio as a nest egg throughout my retirement, as I won't NEED any essential funds to be drawn from it.

I do realise I may need to introduce an element of Bonds to the portfolio, so I have these questions please.

Which Bond fund would you recommend to introduce to this portfolio?

Due to my age, short bonds I presume would be best?

Is now the right time to be looking at Bonds?

Is there another way of introducing something to my portfolio instead of bonds?

Many thanks

Mark_d

Personally I'd be buying shares rather than bonds at the moment but with managed funds, timing is less of an issue.

You want to introduce "something" to your portfolio?  Why?

Personally I wouldn't be investing in more than three funds.  Funds are already diversified so why make things more complex to monitor and manage?

Neversurrender

Mark_d said:

Personally I'd be buying shares rather than bonds at the moment but with managed funds, timing is less of an issue.

You want to introduce "something" to your portfolio?  Why?

Personally I wouldn't be investing in more than three funds.  Funds are already diversified so why make things more complex to monitor and manage?

 Thanks for your reply, and in answer to that,

I keep reading that there should be a bond allocation in a portfolio as a way of safeguarding the portfolio, such as 60/40 etc..

Regarding the number of funds. You should have seen it a few years ago when my IFA presented me with 19 Funds!! He was sacked and I got ombudsman decision awarding compensation from the IFA, for other more serious matters.

I wanted to introduce more U.S. allocations to my VLS 80

tacpot12

Vanguard LifeStrategy 60 is often held out as the ideal accummulation fund, with its 60% Global Equity and 40% Bond split, that is automatically rebalanced for you. So you could sell all of your LifeStrategy 80 and some of your other funds and by LifeStrategy 60. 

Another option, albeit without the automated rebalancing, would be to buy the same Vanguard Bond funds that make up the Bond portion of LifeStrategy 60 - these are all published on the Vanguard website under the Portfolio Holdings section. You would then become responsible for rebalancing the portfolio.  

Neversurrender

tacpot12 said:

Vanguard LifeStrategy 60 is often held out as the ideal accummulation fund, with its 60% Global Equity and 40% Bond split, that is automatically rebalanced for you. So you could sell all of your LifeStrategy 80 and some of your other funds and by LifeStrategy 60. 

Another option, albeit without the automated rebalancing, would be to buy the same Vanguard Bond funds that make up the Bond portion of LifeStrategy 60 - these are all published on the Vanguard website under the Portfolio Holdings section. You would then become responsible for rebalancing the portfolio.  

Thanks, that's a good suggestion, regarding buying the bonds listed in the LFS 80, or LFS 60, this way I could avoid the rebalancing, I had considered doing this, but great to hear someone else mentioning it.

Cheers

dunstonh

Which Bond fund would you recommend to introduce to this portfolio?

I think you need to explain your existing fund choices as its unclear what sort of structure you are looking for.  It looks a bit random at the moment.    

Plus, I wouldn't use just one bond fund as there are not many good catchalls for fixed interest securities.

Due to my age, short bonds I presume would be best?

You are 64.  Not 84.

Is now the right time to be looking at Bonds?

We will  tell you in the next 10 years.

Is there another way of introducing something to my portfolio instead of bonds?

property and money markets.

Personally I wouldn't be investing in more than three funds.  Funds are already diversified so why make things more complex to monitor and manage?

The OP has chosen to use single sector funds (as well as a multi-asset fund).  So, only investing in 3 or less funds would not be a good idea.

Regarding the number of funds. You should have seen it a few years ago when my IFA presented me with 19 Funds!! He was sacked and I got ombudsman decision awarding compensation from the IFA, for other more serious matters.

Nothing wrong with 19 funds.   

Indeed, you hold more than 19 funds at the moment with your current structure.   So, if you find it incredulous, why are you doing it yourself?

I wanted to introduce more U.S. allocations to my VLS 80

Why not use a multi-asset fund that doesn't have home bias?