Tim Hale based plan- comments please?

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  • bigadaj
    bigadaj Posts: 11,531
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    A strange portfolio; too little in domestic equity, too many funds, too much cash. Here's what I might do working within your fund selection.

    40% Vanguard FTSE UK All Share Index Unit Trust
    20% Vanguard FTSE Dvlpd World ex-UK Equity Index Acc
    20 Vanguard UK Government Bond Index Fund GBP Acc ???
    15 Vanguard UK inflation linked gilt Index Fund GBP Acc ???
    5 Cash isas paying 2- 2.4% until 2020

    Substitute some of the equities or bonds with maybe 10% emerging markets if you must and want a bit more risk/excitement. If you worry about the UK economy then maybe have a bit less. If you are worried about interest rates going up then maybe lose some of UK bonds and increase the cash ISA and set up a savings bond ladder. Corporate bonds are conspicuous by their absence.

    Can't agree with that, it may be your years in the us that have biased you to a home market, but the us is obviously very different to teh uk.

    40% in a us fund would be fine for a uk national as that reflects world market ratings, any more than 10% in the uk is odd unless you are particularly after income may be.

    Bonds are difficult, you are pretty much guaranteed no or negative returns on any reasonable quality bonds. I've got some money in infrastructure funds which might be a proxy but given the yield they are looking expensive.

    P2p is something I'm expanding currently, and the ifisa options are now increasing, potential 12% returns gross, with maybe 9% after capital losses.
  • msallen
    msallen Posts: 1,494
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    TheTracker wrote: »
    The crowd on this forum are largely active-management and financial-advice aficionados, so doubt you'll get much love. You can try to educate them, but old dogs, new tricks, and all that.

    You are obviously reading one forum and commenting on another!
  • bostonerimus
    bostonerimus Posts: 5,617
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    edited 21 May 2017 at 12:28PM
    bigadaj wrote: »
    Can't agree with that, it may be your years in the us that have biased you to a home market, but the us is obviously very different to teh uk.

    40% in a us fund would be fine for a uk national as that reflects world market ratings, any more than 10% in the uk is odd unless you are particularly after income may be.

    Excellent point ......you are correct. I'm transferring my US bias to the far smaller UK economy and over weighting it. But I still maintain that the OP has too little UK equity and the home market is important. Taking a purely market cap approach results in an allocation that is greatly influenced by currency fluctuations. So maybe

    20% Vanguard FTSE UK All Share Index Unit Trust
    20% Vanguard FTSE Dvlpd World ex-UK Equity Index Acc
    20% Emerging markets
    20 Vanguard UK Government Bond Index Fund GBP Acc ???
    15 Vanguard UK inflation linked gilt Index Fund GBP Acc ???
    5 Cash isas paying 2- 2.4% until 2020
    “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
  • Linton
    Linton Posts: 17,062
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    edited 21 May 2017 at 12:15PM
    bigadaj wrote: »
    A strange portfolio; too little in domestic equity, too many funds, too much cash. Here's what I might do working within your fund selection.

    40% Vanguard FTSE UK All Share Index Unit Trust
    20% Vanguard FTSE Dvlpd World ex-UK Equity Index Acc
    20 Vanguard UK Government Bond Index Fund GBP Acc ???
    15 Vanguard UK inflation linked gilt Index Fund GBP Acc ???
    5 Cash isas paying 2- 2.4% until 2020

    Substitute some of the equities or bonds with maybe 10% emerging markets if you must and want a bit more risk/excitement. If you worry about the UK economy then maybe have a bit less. If you are worried about interest rates going up then maybe lose some of UK bonds and increase the cash ISA and set up a savings bond ladder. Corporate bonds are conspicuous by their absence.

    I agree with bigadj. 67% UK in one's equity holding is far too high. Unlike in the US, the UK market is too small to sustain a well diversified range of investment opportunities. Much of our major industry is foreign owned. UK investors looking for reasonable returns from a diversified potfolio have no choice but to invest globally. By investing in a UK tracker you are mainly investing in global companies (from a restricted number of sectors) anyway and so much of the benefit of a home market is lost.

    35% in government bonds may be the textbook method of counterbalancing equity volatility as they are meant to provide a steady if moderate return and a stable capital value. However under current circumstances UK government bonds are failing to provide these benefits. So investors needs to look elsewhere for significant diversified returns.

    PS looking at your latest post, 1/3 UK is still too high in my view.
  • bostonerimus
    bostonerimus Posts: 5,617
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    edited 21 May 2017 at 12:43PM
    Linton wrote: »
    bigadaj wrote: »

    I agree with bigadj. 67% UK in one's equity holding is far too high. Unlike in the US, the UK market is too small to sustain a well diversified range of investment opportunities. Much of our major industry is foreign owned. UK investors looking for reasonable returns from a diversified potfolio have no choice but to invest globally. By investing in a UK tracker you are mainly investing in global companies (from a restricted number of sectors) anyway and so much of the benefit of a home market is lost.

    35% in government bonds may be the textbook method of counterbalancing equity volatility as they are meant to provide a steady if moderate return and a stable capital value. However under current circumstances UK government bonds are failing to provide these benefits. So investors needs to look elsewhere for significant diversified returns.

    PS looking at your latest post, 1/3 UK is still too high in my view.

    I agree. I had not thought enough about this. However, by taking a purely market cap approach I worry about the extra volatility from currency fluctuations that might result. 6% or 10% on domestic equities looks really weird to someone from the US.....But stepping back 5% or 10% differences in allocations are a little like navel gazing. Endless hours can be spent in sector/country allocation and people can get really worried that they are off a bit or missing out on the potential of Indonesia. That level of detail simply isn't worth it IMHO....that's why I like the multi-asset funds, even with their extra fees, as they remove some of the worry. If I was in the UK I'd probably just use VLS80 or 60 or produce the asset allocation as closely as possible with 4 or 5 trackers.

    The bonds are an issue too....lack of corporates and global which I mentioned as a bit of a hole.
    “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
  • Linton
    Linton Posts: 17,062
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    I agree. I had not thought enough about this. However, by taking a purely market cap approach I worry about the extra volatility from currency fluctuations that might result. 6% or 10% on domestic equities looks really weird to someone from the US.....

    The bonds are an issue too....lack of corporates and global which I mentioned as a bit of a hole.

    You are going to get the currency fluctuations anyway. The major FTSE companies are priced according to the global market. A major global investor will buy Shell or BP shares for example wherever they are cheapest. Conversely small companies of little interest to a major global investor are priced more on local factors. That is why the FTSE100 rose so much after the BREXIT vote. It's one reason I am a fan of small companies - they provide more diversification.
  • jamesd
    jamesd Posts: 26,103
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    edited 21 May 2017 at 2:41PM
    baj25 wrote: »
    Any comments on the following portfolio I’m considering? (The left hand figure is % of total)
    2 Vanguard FTSE UK All Share Index Unit Trust
    20.5 Vanguard FTSE Dvlpd World ex-UK Equity Index Acc
    7.5 Legal & General Global 100 Index I Trust Acc
    7.5 Vanguard Global Small-Cap Index Fund GBP Acc
    7.5 Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index Acc Hedged
    5 BlackRock Global Property Securities Equity Tracker D (Inc)

    15 Vanguard UK Government Bond Index Fund GBP Acc ???
    15 Vanguard UK inflation linked gilt Index Fund GBP Acc ???
    20 Cash isas paying 2- 2.4% until 2020

    Context: mid 50s, all in ISAs, enough other income now/ future pensions to cover basics, this pot c.240K and aim to start taking income from it in a year or two at earliest.
    I’m basically aiming to follow Tim Hale, I’ve long been a believer in passives. I’m not sure about L&G global 100, which tracks S&P global 100- Morningstar classify it as large cap value, which is what I want it for, it maybe feels a bit ‘narrow’ with only 100 stocks and it isn't clear how the $/£ conversion is done. I don’t feel great about gilt prospects with interest rates only going one way, but just don’t know of alternative. Am I correct in going for (mostly) Acc units, with plan to shift to Inc when I start drawing? TIA, Brian
    Since the money is in an ISA accumulation units are OK, same in pension. Outside it's cleaner to go for income units so you control when you buy instead of having the fund do it and without such a good paper trail when it comes to sell and work out the CGT effects. Inside a tax wrapper, taking the income and buying when you choose can be a convenient way to do a bit of rebalancing so you could do that now and avoid swapping later.

    Fairly low UK equity isn't unreasonable, doesn't bother me. Not so sure about the currency risk aspect, the pound is pretty low and I think that rising is more likely and could hurt your returns a lot.

    50% in gilts and cash ISAs looks very poor at the moment. Not because equities are better but because I'm getting more than 10% before inflation from P2P and that's way more than you can expect from your fixed interest allocation choices.

    It's good that you're not using the relatively expensive Vanguard LifeStrategy funds but take a look around for better deals on the ones you are using. It's not usually a problem to get a lower price than Vanguard offers for the same thing.

    I recently sold most of my Vanguard Developed World and switched into the IGWD iShares V plc MSCI World Monthly GBP Hedged ETF instead. Wanted to take the currency risk out. Not quite the same index but close enough for my purpose and I'll take the higher fund cost to get the hedge.
  • QTC
    QTC Posts: 56
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    Hi baj25,

    I've also read Tim Hale, and started off in pretty much the same direction as yourself, albeit with slightly different allocations. As context, I'm also mid 50s, but have been drip feeding into a S&S ISA for just over 3 years. My horizon is 7-8 years, when I'm hoping to use the investment to buy a house.

    I have made a few changes to my fund allocations over time:

    I'm a big fan of Vanguard, but I am also conscious that only £50,000 invested with any one institution would be protected under FSCS rules. As a way of diversifying institutions, I'm increasingly using the Fidelity Index World Fund as part of my equity allocation. Any new contributions into equity funds will go into this fund, and I will be gradually selling off units in Vanguard equity funds (I don't expect Vanguard to keel over in the near future, but just in case...). I want to avoid investing more than £50,000 with any one institution.

    I had about 10 % of my holdings in the BlackRock Property tracker at one point. The idea was that this would be a good diversifier, but on reflection, I felt that this was actually doing the opposite of diversification. The fund still represented equity risk, but concentrated into a few companies in one particular sector. I sold out of that fund and reinvested in the Fidelity fund above.

    Although I invested in it initially, the Vanguard emerging markets fund you mention has turned out to be a bit too volatile for me, given the returns. Over the last 3 years, it's returned average 6.6% for over 16% volatility (ie. standard deviation), whereas the Fidelity fund returned 13.1% for around 12% volatility - a much better reward:risk ratio.

    I have held 25 % each of the Vanguard UK Gilt and UK Index linked Gilt funds, but have moved away from those. The main reason is average duration: with 11.2 and 21.7 years respectively, I felt that this did not fit in with my time horizon of 7-8 years. Instead, I have a mix of funds covering global bonds ( hedged back to GBP ) and UK Investment grade bonds, and these have average durations of less than 7 years. I'll be increasing the weighting of the shorter duration funds as time goes on.

    If it is of any interest, my current allocations are:

    13% Vanguard FTSE Devt World ex UK
    31% Fidelity Index World Fund W
    7% Vanguard Global Small Cap Index
    15% Vanguard Short Term Investment Grade Bond Indx Fund
    4% Vanguard UK Investment Grade Bond Indx Fund
    19% Vanguard Global Bond Indx Fund (GBP)

    also 10% Cash ISA fixed rate 1.8%.

    It works out at about 52% Equities, and I'm planning to dial that down over the next 7 years.

    As well as Tim Hale, I've found that some of the articles from Lars Kroijer, as seen on http://monevator.com , have been useful. They're aimed at anyone who can accept that they do not have an "edge" over the markets, fund managers, etc.
  • dunstonh
    dunstonh Posts: 116,033
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    They're aimed at anyone who can accept that they do not have an "edge" over the markets, fund managers, etc.

    Yet the sector allocations used are management decisions. By making your own management decisions, you must be believing that you can do better and have that edge?
    I am an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA). The comments I make are just my opinion and are for discussion purposes only. They are not financial advice and you should not treat them as such. If you feel an area discussed may be relevant to you, then please seek advice from an Independent Financial Adviser local to you.
  • bostonerimus
    bostonerimus Posts: 5,617
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    Linton wrote: »
    You are going to get the currency fluctuations anyway. The major FTSE companies are priced according to the global market. A major global investor will buy Shell or BP shares for example wherever they are cheapest. Conversely small companies of little interest to a major global investor are priced more on local factors. That is why the FTSE100 rose so much after the BREXIT vote. It's one reason I am a fan of small companies - they provide more diversification.

    Yes, whatever the recent political trends large indexes and companies are "global". Small cap overweighting is something Dimensional Fund Advisers does, but I've always stuck with the big indexes and kept the number of funds small to keep rebalancing simple. I'm not sure slicing and dicing at the 10% level is worth the trouble......I'm a "Couch Potato"., but if we must why not just get close to the VLS allocation with individual funds , so if you want a 60/40 allocation do

    Vanguard Global Bond Index Hedged 20%
    Vanguard FTSE Developed World ex-U.K Equity Index 35%
    Vanguard FTSE U.K. All Share Index Unit Trust 15%
    Vanguard U.K Government Bond Index 10%
    Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index 10%
    Vanguard U.K Investment Grade Bond Index 10 %

    Although I might not bother with emerging markets at all
    “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
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