stevio
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Post by stevio on Feb 23, 2018 17:46:36 GMT
I have had a H&L S&S ISA and SIPP and have dabbled with some funds with my gains cancelling out my losses and breaking even
I would like something that is quite passive and doesn't take much maintenance for a reasonable gain (capital preferred, but income would be ok)
I like the look of the Vanguard LifeStrategy Fund and generally would be interested in trackers
I have heard ETFs mentioned, but I am not sure what they are and how they differ from funds?
Any help welcome!
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r00lish67
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Post by r00lish67 on Feb 23, 2018 17:51:05 GMT
I have had a H&L S&S ISA and SIPP and have dabbled with some funds with my gains cancelling out my losses and breaking even I would like something that is quite passive and doesn't take much maintenance for a reasonable gain (capital preferred, but income would be ok) I like the look of the Vanguard LifeStrategy Fund and generally would be interested in trackers I have heard ETFs mentioned, but I am not sure what they are and how they differ from funds? Any help welcome! Let monevator be your friend: monevator.com/etfs-vs-index-funds-differences/
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stevio
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Post by stevio on Feb 23, 2018 17:59:36 GMT
I have had a H&L S&S ISA and SIPP and have dabbled with some funds with my gains cancelling out my losses and breaking even I would like something that is quite passive and doesn't take much maintenance for a reasonable gain (capital preferred, but income would be ok) I like the look of the Vanguard LifeStrategy Fund and generally would be interested in trackers I have heard ETFs mentioned, but I am not sure what they are and how they differ from funds? Any help welcome! Let monevator be your friend: monevator.com/etfs-vs-index-funds-differences/I had actually read quite a few of the passive investing articles there but must have missed this one!
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hazellend
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Post by hazellend on Feb 24, 2018 9:08:57 GMT
kroijer.comThis guy is a friend of monevator. His short vids on the linked site explain it perfectly. I would recommend either VWRL (vanguard all world ETF) or one of the vanguard life strategy funds. If you’re investing > 50k ETFs are usually cheaper. Hargreaves Lansdown charged capped fee of 45/year for holding ETFs so very cheap.
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stevio
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Post by stevio on Feb 24, 2018 18:27:09 GMT
I have been trying to understand the differences and benefits of ETFs compared to funds? I have read a couple of articles and I am still confused, it seems ETFs might cover more market areas then some Index Fund Trackers, but ETFs might incur higher trading costs on some platforms than funds.
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hazellend
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Post by hazellend on Feb 25, 2018 9:28:39 GMT
monevator.com/etfs-vs-index-funds-differences/Basically ETFs are like funds that can be traded like shares on the stock market. Buying and selling funds is not instant whereas ETFs are. For buy and hold ETFs are usually cheaper because most brokers charge a lot for holding funds.
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Steerpike
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Post by Steerpike on Feb 28, 2018 19:01:32 GMT
I use Vanguard LifeStrategy Accumulation 80 for my family's pensions with HL, I considered ETFs to reduce costs, but as far as I know there is no direct equivalent and I like the convenience and zero trading cost of the funds.
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Steerpike
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Post by Steerpike on Feb 28, 2018 19:39:15 GMT
I use Vanguard LifeStrategy Accumulation 80 for my family's pensions with HL, I considered ETFs to reduce costs, but as far as I know there is no direct equivalent and I like the convenience and zero trading cost of the funds. I’m sorry, but you’re quite possibly paying charges to vanguard of 0.15% for the LSA80 plus another 0.15% for the vanguard funds it is invested in itself plus 0.45% to HL making 0.75%. Add on the hidden costs of funds and it’s probably close to 1%. That’s probably too high for me. Especially for passive.  It seemed to me that buying a collection of ETFs, reinvesting dividends, and rebalancing the portfolio periodically would be much less convenient and probably not that much cheaper.
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Post by dan1 on Feb 28, 2018 19:44:34 GMT
I use Vanguard LifeStrategy Accumulation 80 for my family's pensions with HL, I considered ETFs to reduce costs, but as far as I know there is no direct equivalent and I like the convenience and zero trading cost of the funds. I’m sorry, but you’re quite possibly paying charges to vanguard of 0.15% for the LSA80 plus another 0.15% for the vanguard funds it is invested in itself plus 0.45% to HL making 0.75%. Add on the hidden costs of funds and it’s probably close to 1%. That’s probably too high for me A favoured topic of mine and a nice diversion from the COL board. Ever read Monkey With a Pin by any chance? Anyway, Vanguard are perhaps one of the most transparent of fund managers but let's be honest there isn't exactly much competition. MiFID II sets out the disclosure of not only ongoing costs (OCF) but perhaps as important the transaction costs (portfolio turnover ratio, PTR). Vanguard disclose these for all of their funds here in which it states for VLS80 the ongoing cost is 0.22% and transactions cost is 0.10%. Although VLS is a fund of funds I don't believe you are double charged, i.e. the fees quoted include the fees of the underlying funds. The 0.15% quoted above is if you hold VLS with Vanguard directly, if you hold with HL you're charge 0.45%. So, to my knowledge your total cost of investing for VLS80 is 0.22+0.10+0.45%, i.e. 0.77%. There is no direct equivalent for the VLS range but note that VLS is home biased, 25% is held in UK investments. For example, you may hear comparisons of the ETF VWRL with the fund VLS100 but beware that VWRL is not home biased and contains ~7-8% UK compared to ~25% (iirc) for VLS. Whether you want home bias or not is another discussion/decision. For comparison, the OCF of VWRL is 0.25% and transactions cost is 0.01%. You can hold it in a SIPP with x-o.co.uk and pay only dealing charges of £5.95 per trade with no annual charges. If held this way, and make 1 trade per year a £100k holding of VWRL will cost you £5.95 trading fee + £260 fund charges + £0 platform fee. Compare that to holding VLS80 with HL and you'll pay £0 trading fee + £320 fund charges + £450 platform fee. If the return of both funds is 5% over the course of year then to hold VWRL you're giving away 5.3% of your return, but if holding VLS80 on HL you're giving away 15.4% of your return. I'll get back in my box 
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Post by eascogo on Feb 28, 2018 19:47:35 GMT
I use Vanguard LifeStrategy Accumulation 80 for my family's pensions with HL, I considered ETFs to reduce costs, but as far as I know there is no direct equivalent and I like the convenience and zero trading cost of the funds. I’m sorry, but you’re quite possibly paying charges to vanguard of 0.15% for the LSA80 plus another 0.15% for the vanguard funds it is invested in itself plus 0.45% to HL making 0.75%. Add on the hidden costs of funds and it’s probably close to 1%. That’s probably too high for me. Especially for passive. I would expect going directly to Vanguard (UK) would cut some of the costs: OCR=0.22% + transaction fees.
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stevio
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Post by stevio on Feb 28, 2018 19:56:34 GMT
I have been trying to understand the differences and benefits of ETFs compared to funds? I have read a couple of articles and I am still confused, it seems ETFs might cover more market areas then some Index Fund Trackers, but ETFs might incur higher trading costs on some platforms than funds. It’s not about trading costs, it’s about holding costs. HL will take 0.45% of the value of your investment in fees every year if you hold funds with no upper cap. ETFs will attract the same charge but with an upper cap of £45 per year in an ISA (it’s capped at £200 in an SIPP). So if your ISA is more than £10k it’ll be cheaper to buy an ETF. This is in addition to any charges that the fund manager applies. There’s very few reasons to buy a passive fund given this charging structure. I suppose it depends on if you choose to invest via H&L, you could hold through IWeb and the holding cost would be nil, but then it is the trading cost that matters
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Steerpike
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Post by Steerpike on Feb 28, 2018 19:57:31 GMT
I’m sorry, but you’re quite possibly paying charges to vanguard of 0.15% for the LSA80 plus another 0.15% for the vanguard funds it is invested in itself plus 0.45% to HL making 0.75%. Add on the hidden costs of funds and it’s probably close to 1%. That’s probably too high for me A favoured topic of mine and a nice diversion from the COL board. Ever read Monkey With a Pin by any chance? Anyway, Vanguard are perhaps one of the most transparent of fund managers but let's be honest there isn't exactly much competition. MiFID II sets out the disclosure of not only ongoing costs (OCF) but perhaps as important the transaction costs (portfolio turnover ratio, PTR). Vanguard disclose these for all of their funds here in which it states for VLS80 the ongoing cost is 0.22% and transactions cost is 0.10%. Although VLS is a fund of funds I don't believe you are double charged, i.e. the fees quoted include the fees of the underlying funds. The 0.15% quoted above is if you hold VLS with Vanguard directly, if you hold with HL you're charge 0.45%. So, to my knowledge your total cost of investing for VLS80 is 0.22+0.10+0.45%, i.e. 0.77%. There is no direct equivalent for the VLS range but note that VLS is home biased, 25% is held in UK investments. For example, you may hear comparisons of the ETF VWRL with the fund VLS100 but beware that VWRL is not home biased and contains ~7-8% UK compared to ~25% (iirc) for VLS. Whether you want home bias or not is another discussion/decision. For comparison, the OCF of VWRL is 0.25% and transactions cost is 0.01%. You can hold it in a SIPP with x-o.co.uk and pay only dealing charges of £5.95 per trade with no annual charges. If held this way, and make 1 trade per year a £100k holding of VWRL will cost you £5.95 trading fee + £260 fund charges + £0 platform fee. Compare that to holding VLS80 with HL and you'll pay £0 trading fee + £320 fund charges + £450 platform fee. If the return of both funds is 5% over the course of year then to hold VWRL you're giving away 5.3% of your return, but if holding VLS80 on HL you're giving away 15.4% of your return. I'll get back in my box Unfortunately, my son's pension hasn't got to anywhere near £100k yet, so the percentages change somewhat, and you have not included trading costs for the quarterly dividends. Nevertheless, you are probably right and a bit of money could be saved, however, I like HL, their site is easy to use, I can see all my family's investments in one place, they answer the phone immediately, you speak to people who know what they are doing, and they execute efficiently on everything that they are asked to do. I know nothing of the performance of x-o.co.uk but might give them a look the next time I review costs.
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Post by dan1 on Feb 28, 2018 20:04:16 GMT
Unfortunately, my son's pension hasn't got to anywhere near £100k yet, so the percentages change somewhat, and you have not included trading costs for the quarterly dividends. Nevertheless, you are probably right and a bit of money could be saved, however, I like HL, their site is easy to use, I can see all my family's investments in one place, they answer the phone immediately, you speak to people who know what they are doing, and they execute efficiently on everything that they are asked to do. I know nothing of the performance of x-o.co.uk but might give them a look the next time I review costs. I understand your point of view and desire to keep things straightforward, quick to manage, and with the comfort of a FTSE 100 company with an excellent reputation for customer service. I will repeat one incident that happened to a colleague of mine when using HL. They called to place a trade of £10,000 but instead the trade was made for 10,000 units, I kind you not. They were compensated after the recording of the telephone conversation was replayed, so fair play to HL.
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stevio
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Post by stevio on Feb 28, 2018 20:10:13 GMT
A favoured topic of mine and a nice diversion from the COL board. Ever read Monkey With a Pin by any chance? Anyway, Vanguard are perhaps one of the most transparent of fund managers but let's be honest there isn't exactly much competition. MiFID II sets out the disclosure of not only ongoing costs (OCF) but perhaps as important the transaction costs (portfolio turnover ratio, PTR). Vanguard disclose these for all of their funds here in which it states for VLS80 the ongoing cost is 0.22% and transactions cost is 0.10%. Although VLS is a fund of funds I don't believe you are double charged, i.e. the fees quoted include the fees of the underlying funds. The 0.15% quoted above is if you hold VLS with Vanguard directly, if you hold with HL you're charge 0.45%. So, to my knowledge your total cost of investing for VLS80 is 0.22+0.10+0.45%, i.e. 0.77%. There is no direct equivalent for the VLS range but note that VLS is home biased, 25% is held in UK investments. For example, you may hear comparisons of the ETF VWRL with the fund VLS100 but beware that VWRL is not home biased and contains ~7-8% UK compared to ~25% (iirc) for VLS. Whether you want home bias or not is another discussion/decision. For comparison, the OCF of VWRL is 0.25% and transactions cost is 0.01%. You can hold it in a SIPP with x-o.co.uk and pay only dealing charges of £5.95 per trade with no annual charges. If held this way, and make 1 trade per year a £100k holding of VWRL will cost you £5.95 trading fee + £260 fund charges + £0 platform fee. Compare that to holding VLS80 with HL and you'll pay £0 trading fee + £320 fund charges + £450 platform fee. If the return of both funds is 5% over the course of year then to hold VWRL you're giving away 5.3% of your return, but if holding VLS80 on HL you're giving away 15.4% of your return. I'll get back in my box Unfortunately, my son's pension hasn't got to anywhere near £100k yet, so the percentages change somewhat, and you have not included trading costs for the quarterly dividends. Nevertheless, you are probably right and a bit of money could be saved, however, I like HL, their site is easy to use, I can see all my family's investments in one place, they answer the phone immediately, you speak to people who know what they are doing, and they execute efficiently on everything that they are asked to do. I know nothing of the performance of x-o.co.uk but might give them a look the next time I review costs. I still have minimal accounts with H&L and still phone them for pension and share process queries and their website research and charts are free to anyone to use I am coming round to using a fixed cost trader to actually transact and hold investments, whilst still having access to H&L support and website information
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mary
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Post by mary on Mar 2, 2018 19:33:59 GMT
I'm moving, slowly, from X-O to iWeb.
Simply put, I trade infrequently, want lowest costs and widest options.
iWeb have far more choice with funds and EFTs over X-O (which have been good, with customer service very responsive) and zero platform charge for funds, which is hard to beat. Even Vanguard direct add 0.15% platform charge, which I avoid if I use iWeb!
Edit - they are owned by Lloyds Bank, so not small.
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