Vanguard Life Strategy

takesyourchances wrote: »

I am looking at global healthcare funds maybe for the side to my VLS and other side funds. Any ideas anyone?

If you fancy a tracker, I have this:

http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/l/legal-and-general-gbl-health-and-pharma-index-r-accumulation

(Also comes in Income form)

The fees are 1% so not as low as an ordinary tracker but about 0.5% lower than most actively managed healthcare funds.

Carpi09 wrote: »

Still going strong, shame I couldn't add any more within the tax wrapper.

Just bumping should any new comers come along with questions about VLS.

Still watching (and researching). Not invested yet......

bowlhead99 wrote: »

Personally I don't really buy in to the idea of using trackers for highly specialist areas such as emerging markets or smaller companies or sector specialisms, as I've mentioned elsewhere on this thread. They have their uses for getting broad access to well developed markets (eg US and Europe and Japan and UK largecaps) but once you pick a specialist area I'd expect intimate industry knowledge to play a valuable part in stock selection and not just grab the 130 largest companies in the area in which you're looking.

After all, you are adopting an active approach in singling out healthcare as a good area to be invested in as part of a thematicly driven portfolio; therefore you are saying that a more 'passive' approach isn't doing it for you so you want to pick themes; if you believe in making such active decisions, and are only an amateur newbie investor, why would you not then trust a professional fund manager to pick a company or type of company within that remit? It can't be because you want to just "buy everything" - because clearly you have avoided buying everything, in your choice to single out a niche like heathcare.

If you're going to go the tracker route for healthcare / pharma there are a number of ETFs which will track highly specialist global, US or EM indices at half a percent or so management fee- if you don't want active management you don't need to be paying a whole percent.

FYI, I hold BIOG which is an investment trust in the sector which has done extremely well over the last few years (past performance is not guarantee of future etc etc). It is very specialist and a tracker would be more diverse and more mainstream, but I wasn't looking for a diverse mainstream investment when I decided that biotech/ pharma/ healthcare should get a healthy (excuse the pun) allocation in one of my Sipp pots.

BIOG and some other ITs and ETFs are mentioned on this Investors Chronicle article "Big profits from global healthcare" which is a year old now. There will be lots of commentaries on the industry via google et al, and it goes without saying you should look at all the recent reports and factsheets and prospectuses for all the relevant funds / ITs / ETFs in detail before making your own choices.

Thank you again Bowlhead for your informative reply, you have answered some of my thinking and questions earlier this year and it is appreciated your thoughts.

Very valid point regarding a highly specialist area with a tracker vs fund and active management with funds in these niche sectors.



Around the edges of the VLS core I have picked areas of interest and thought about them and looked into them for each of the funds I have taken with a couple of niche selections and a focus on small companies as well. I am new and a novice so try to understand what I am taking out etc before I do so.

I am not the buy everything type and kind of like some niche areas around the edges, like the Asian Small Cap funds etc I have. I was looking also to maybe balance out the small caps I have with a UK Small Cap fund and balance Asia a bit.

I looked at Healthcare as a long term sector for a bit of niche exposure into a global industry that is actively needed and used, as I have a selection of Small Companies and Asian and Emerging Markets funds.



Also I will look to raise my VLS core to around 65%/70%. If I ran it at 70% and had 6 side funds with even allocation that would give them 5% each in the portfolio over all, that was my thinking. I guess with the VLS portion as the core I am passive, but looking partly for selections and coverage elsewhere outside of it which is the active part.


I am happy with what I have so far and running the VLS as the core with those percentages I don’t think I would add to much more, so that was why it was quite a selective choice healthcare and the other idea was rounding the small companies off with a UK fund.

I was looking at funds at first for Healthcare and think they would be more suited with my amounts for rotating on my monthly drip feeds. If I am right an ETF or IT might not be as low cost to drip feed with smaller regular amounts. The tracker was of interest to look at, but can see that an active fund in my mind also now would be a better for a niche sector.

Thank you for the link to the article. I have been reading also through google as well and looking funds up etc and details on them. I don’t have to jump at Healthcare or anything so can look more.

I do want to raise my VLS core up more from the present 60% so I will look at £1000 into it early September when my bond clears. My First State Asian Pacific Leaders I will most likely put £400 into to bring it to the same level as the rest of my side funds and then my allocations will be more in line with my idea.

Thank you as always for your input it is appreciated.

If buying satellite funds to go with a VLS core then I agree that you should use an active fund or perhaps an IT, whilst a passive may beat the specialist sector as an average, it is unlikely to beat a well researched choice from the sector. For example, Biotech Trust, Worldwide Healthcare IT, Axa Framlington Biotech fund etc.

For me the basis of a core and satellite approach fits perfectly to a VLS 60 or 80 @ 65% with 35% in active satellites. Another use is to go defensive with your sats and hold a lot of safer stuff when worried about the markets.