Note on 8/8/2016: The “catch” in this article is no longer true – there is no longer a special additional charge when investing in Vanguard funds, following changes following the RDR legislation. But Vanguard is still really cheap! See our most recent list of cheap trackers.
Not many fund firms have a fanbase but Vanguard does. Its cheerleaders are the Bogleheads, disciples of Vanguard’s visionary founder John Bogle – the man who brought index investing to the masses.
Passive investors are passionate about Vanguard for two main reasons:
1. It offers index funds at rock bottom prices.
2. The company has a hard-won reputation for serving investors’ interests.
Cheap index funds are the most important weapon in the armoury of a passive investor. An influential study by Morningstar concluded:
If there’s anything in the whole world of mutual funds that you can take to the bank, it’s that expense ratios help you make a better decision.
And since US-giant Vanguard entered the UK market in 2009, it has blazed a trail with a low cost range of index funds that rivals struggle to match.
If you’re investing for the long-term and you want a:
- Diversified fund-of-funds portfolio – Vanguard is the cheapest.1
- Emerging markets index fund – Vanguard is the cheapest.2
- UK Government bonds index fund – Vanguard is the cheapest.3
The only problem is that you can’t just roll up to any online broker and start ordering Vanguard…
The Catch
Buying index funds used to be straightforward. You pick a fund from the investment platform of your choice and – if you choose wisely – you won’t get stung for dealing fees or annual administration charges.
Not so with Vanguard.
Vanguard funds are not yet freely available among UK brokers/platforms. Many initially refused to stock the funds because Vanguard wouldn’t pay them nice, cosy commissions just to play the game.
But Vanguard’s view of the world is gradually prevailing, as the UK financial industry is weened off commission by the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) shake-up.
That means Vanguard funds are turning up on more and more platforms.
Before you slap your money down though, you need to ensure two things:
- That you choose a platform that minimises the extra charges often levied on Vanguard (and increasingly on other funds) to claw back the loss of commission.
- That the platform stocks the Vanguard funds you want. Vanguard has the best range of index funds in the UK but many platforms only stock a limited selection.
Easy life
The simplest solution is to choose Vanguard’s LifeStrategy funds. These are fund-of-funds: a bumper pack of investments that offer a diversified, automatically rebalanced portfolio in a single wrapper.
It’s like buying a multi-pack of crisps except the Salt ‘N’ Vinegar option is flavoured FTSE All-Share, Cheese ‘N’ Onion is the rest of the Developed World, and Prawn Cocktail is the Emerging Markets.
If you follow this route then TD Direct currently offers the LifeStrategy funds without platform fees, management charges, dealing costs, or any other slippery trip hazard beyond the Total Expense Ratio / Ongoing Charge Figure, as long as your account is worth over £5,100 (ISA) or £7,500 (standard dealing account).
TD Direct also stocks a few of the other Vanguard funds – but far from all. If you want to choose from the full range then take a look at the likes of:
If your broker imposes dealing charges to trade Vanguard then look for a regular investment option that squeezes fees. A one-off trade costs £12.50 at Alliance Trust, but you can slash this to £1.50 by drip-feeding in via Direct Debit using its Monthly Dealing account.
Monthly Dealing doesn’t commit you to buying the same fund month-in, month-out. You can switch funds any time you like or even stop buying after just one trade.
If you want the full Vanguard range and you make more than eight monthly purchases a year (or sell even once) then Bestinvest trumps Alliance Trust (if you hold your funds in an ISA or standard dealing account).
Sippdeal comes into play for SIPPs. You can see a more detailed comparison of the three broker’s offerings here.
Complications
Hargreaves Lansdown carries the same (limited) fund range as TD Direct but there’s no way to duck its platform charges.
You’re only better off with Hargreaves Lansdown if you can’t make TD Direct’s no-charge minimums and you only hold one fund (in your ISA) or two funds (standard dealing account) or less than six funds (SIPP).
Capiche?
In fact, if your strategy is to hold one or two Vanguard LifeStrategy funds in a SIPP then go with Hargreaves Lansdown.
What about rival tracker providers? HSBC come closest to matching Vanguard’s range, especially with its new C Class index funds. Like Vanguard, these funds strip out trail commission payments and have dirt cheap TERs. If you can find them unencumbered by platform fees then they can match or beat some Vanguard funds.
Again, TD Direct is the place to look, and if you want a tie-breaker to decide between the rival ranges then compare tracking error.
Some Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) can also give Vanguard’s funds a close run for their money, none more so than its own in-house range.
ETFs are subject to dealing fees and bid-offer spreads that make their bald TERs less advantageous than they first appear. But at the very least, it’s worth comparing Vanguard’s ETFs with their index funds, where they overlap, to make sure you get the best deal.
You’ll be able to buy Vanguard ETFs at virtually all brokers who offer London Stock Exchange ETFs. You should be able to pick them up for £1.50 a throw via a regular investment scheme.
Compare your options using a fund cost comparison calculator and insert the cost of dealing fees into the initial charge section.
The Red Herrings
You may get a fright if you read somewhere that the minimum investment in a Vanguard index fund is £100,000, according to some news reports and even the official prospectuses.
But happily that’s only true if you buy direct from the firm. There’s no minimum if you invest through an intermediary like a discount broker or online platform.
The other thing that can smell a bit fishy is Vanguard’s cost structure:
- A number of its funds charge upfront fees.
- Received wisdom says you shouldn’t pay upfront fees on index funds.
- Vanguard claims these fees are levied in the interests of transparency.
- It says its rivals bundle up these fees in inflated Total Expense Ratios (TERs).
The upfront fees cover fact-of-life items like trading costs and stamp duty. Vanguard’s point is that investors are left none the wiser about these charges if they are buried in the TER.
The bottom line is that, in most cases, Vanguard’s index funds still work out to be cheaper than rival offerings, over the long term, when you compare fund costs directly. What you lose upfront, you gain in pygmy-sized TERs. And the effect becomes more pronounced over time.
Though upfront fund costs should be taken into account, ultimately it’s the dealing fees that are make or break. Use the fund cost comparison calculator to help you decide whether Vanguard works best for you.
There’s no doubt that UK passive investors are faced with slim pickings compared to US coach potatoes when it comes to low cost index funds. But we were practically on prison food before Vanguard arrived.
Vanguard has given the market a shot in the arm, and if trackers are part of your mix, you owe it to yourself to take a look at its range.
Take it steady,
The Accumulator
Update note: This article was updated in mid-December 2012 to take account of the many developments since Vanguard first arrived in the UK. Comments below may refer to out-of-date information, so check the date of commenting!
Comments on this entry are closed.
From what you say about Investor Profile’s annual charges I assume you are referring to their “Transact Wealth Management Portfolio”. They have a free option for investing in unit trusts or ISAs but that doesn’t seem to include Vanguard on its list of funds.
Thanks for the detective work on Alliance Trust’s charges – I hadn’t noticed them! Good thing I’m not investing yet…
I’m most likely to invest via my existing SIPP, rather than open an account with Alliance Trust, and have previously invested in Ishares ETFs (TER = 0.4%). My SIPP has no annual charge, but it charges £9.95 per deal (buying and selling) plus any stamp duty. However, for Vanguard funds I’ve checked and seen that it charges 0.5% “initial commission”. Based on your articles, I input all charges (including the TERs) into a spreadsheet and found that it would still be worth buying Vanguard funds, simply because their TER is so much less than anyone else. (I assumed that I would keep the investment for 5 years and there would be no growth. In practice I’d hope to keep the funds for longer and expect my investment to increase in value, which would make Vanguard even more attractive!)
I think that investors who don’t want to open a new account with Alliance Trust do their own comparisons and take full account of the very low ongoing running costs of Vanguard funds that The Accumulator has drawn our attention to.
Thanks for highlighting this!
Have you covered in other posts why there are these costs and restrictions on index fund offers in the UK? As you know in the US where I’m based you can buy inexpensively directly from Vanguard — in fact they recently lowered some costs — and don’t face the high minimum investment you talk about.
I ask about the reason for the restrictions, because I wonder if those are likely to fall away in time or seem set in stone?
@Niklas – That’s right you buy Vanguard through the Transact option.
@ Tony – If you don’t mind me asking, who’s your SIPP with?
@ Nanette – Vanguard have only been active in the UK market for a year. Publicly they’ve talked about taking a softly softly approach, so I expect the situation will improve over time. They’ve already made an impact. Within a week of Vanguard’s initial launch, HSBC knocked 50% and more off the price of their index funds. It just goes to show what firms were getting away with in the UK.
Why are Vanguard restricted to two platforms over here? They say it’s because they don’t pay distribution fees to the fund supermarkets. So I guess they couldn’t do a deal with platforms that took exception to that strategy. Investor Profile and Alliance Trust apparently make up the difference through management charges and dealing fees respectively.
Transparency is important to Vanguard. They would rather you knew what you were paying to the platform than bump up the TER to pay for a distribution fee that, as an investor, you’d be none the wiser about.
Hi TA
I’m one of the big fans of Vanguard. I currently hold Vanguard funds from the Australia arm of the organisation.
As mentioned previously I’m looking to transfer a large Stakeholder fund to a SIPP. Alliance Trust with Vanguard as you mention is one option but close on its heels is SippDeal using iShares and db-xtrackers ETF’s. By my calculations for my fund pot (which will also hold some Gilts and Property) I see a 0.08% difference per annum.
Cheers
RIT
.-= RetirementInvestingToday on: No nonsense FTSE 100 cyclically adjusted PE ratio update – October 2010 =-.
@Nanette and @Accumulator – I think it’s partly a scale thing, as well as the woeful state in general of British financial services that have led some firms to dub the UK ‘Treasure Island’.
It is a lot easier to bring TERs down when you have a potential audience of 240 million people, a reasonable percentage of whom are engaged investors, as opposed to just 60 million people, the majority of which are engaged telly addicts who at best grew comfortable letting our formerly enviable final salary pension scheme culture look after their old age interests…
@Accumulator
My SIPP is with Sippdeal (I wasn’t sure it was appropriate to mention their name).
I pay ~£38 a year at Selftrade – this includes several free trades per year (normal cost £12.50 – I use these to purchase with lump sums several times per year) plus a fee on “regular investment” (once/monthly) purchases of only £1.50, through which I dripfeed into an index fund. I thought this was a good deal but Selftrade doesn’t seem to be mentioned!
Should I be looking elsewhere? Is that annual charge really a killer when I use the free trades the reg investment is so cheap?
Thanks!
Mark.
@Mark – With any kind of fixed fee you have to calculate the cost relative to the size of your portfolio, especially when comparing to other kinds of fees structures.
To state the obvious, £38 has a very different cost impact on a £1000 portfolio compared to a £100,000 one, whereas a 0.5% pa charge would have the same relative impact.
It also depends if you can get a better deal anywhere else. That Selftrade deal may well be the best fit for you, and they’re regularly praised on the forums. They don’t sell UK Vanguard funds though.
Your 3 free trades essentially wipe out the annual charge, it’s true. But if you’re drip-feeding @ £1.50 a throw anyway, you could occasionally make a lump sum purchase via the regular trading scheme. You would then cancel the purchase before the next month’s trade. So with a no-annual charge broker like iii or TD Waterhouse, you could make every trade at £1.50 and save yourself the annual charge.
It’s a bit fiddly, I admit.
Thanks for the feedback – I’ve only got around ~10k portfolio (I’m 28!) but I do enjoy Selftrade’s service and online platform, so I guess that has to factor into the price.
I’ll just have to grow my portfolio to make it ever more economic with those fixed costs!
@Mark – You’re welcome. I’m slightly less maniacal about costs than The Accumulator (which is exactly why I asked him to write for us! 😉 ) and I use all sorts of brokers and rack up trading fees, too. But importantly I’m not following a pure passive approach, and I expect (against the academic evidence) to generate superior gains to pay for my excess costs. (Like everyone does, but few private investors do – so beware you’ll probably lose money if you’re active both on under-performance and on higher fees).
If you’re following a passive approach then it makes sense to squeeze out every last penny in costs, because that’s the main place where where your performance is going to suffer versus the market. (Aside from tracking error, poor asset allocation decisions, etc).
Thanks for another very good article.
From your analysis it strikes me a combination of Vanguard and the HSBC fund may be the way to go to cover the FTSE All Share element of my intended portfolio.
I can see myself having a ‘rump’ holding in Vanguard which I won’t intend to sell and top it up with HSBC.
I say this on the basis I expect to do some occasional (e.g. yearly) rebalancing of the asset allocation – if I was rebalancing UK FTSE I would then sell the HSBC rather than Vanguard tracker.
Just a thought.
I’ve also been looking a couple of L&G funds for fixed interest – charge appears to be .20%
L&G All Stocks Idx Linked Gilt Index
L&G All Stocks Gilt Index
Rgds
R
Rhinestone, that sounds like a pretty smart idea as Alliance Trust whack you for a £12.50 sales charge into the bargain.
I’ve been nosing around that L&G Linker fund too. It’s not ISA compatible and I found a newly minted factsheet last night that showed a TER of 0.25%.
http://lt.morningstar.com/t4859pbp8n/snapshotpdf/default.aspx?SecurityToken=F0GBR054A2%5D2%5D1%5DFOGBR$$ONS_163
I’m a customer of Sippdeal, one of the companies mentioned in the comments above. Although Vanguard aren’t on their funds list I’ve been able to purchase them. They don’t have an annual charge, and dealing costs me £9.95.
Thanks for the info, Sipp Investor. Weird that Vanguard aren’t on the funds list. I wonder why that is. Did Sippdeal tip you off about them?
Interesting you mention that as most of my funds within my SIPP are Vanguard Funds via Alliance Trust and a few ETF. I am now overhauling my ISA which I have had for about 8 years on the Fidelity platform (Via Cavendish Online), given my recent enlightment about indexing and ETFs I now thinking of moving the ISA to a platform that offers more ETFs and Index Funds and I believe Sippdeal would be a good option, although I would wellcome other comments.
Yep your right I had this email from Sippdeal today offering the following vanguard funds:
Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund
Vanguard Exchange Traded Funds
Vanguard FTSE Developed Europe ex-UK Equity Index
Vanguard FTSE Developed World ex-UK Equity Index Fund
Vanguard FTSE UK Equity Income Index Acc
Vanguard FTSE UK Equity Index
Vanguard Investment Series plc
Yours sincerely
Sippdeal Enquiry | Client Management Team
Fascinating that they’re offering Vanguard ETFs. Vanguard don’t offer ETFs in Europe at the moment, though there has been talk about it. I guess those must be US domiciled ETFs?
According to the Best Invest website the HSBC FTSE All-Share Index fund has a 0.25% AMC giving a 0.39% TER so the above comparison moves more in Vanguard’s favour. SIPPdeal confirmed to me that they do sell Vamguardd funds on line but you have to pay a dealing fee as presumably you would do for other funds with them. I have used Vanguard in the US and they are great. I considered moving part of my pension to Alliance Trust to access Vanguard but the annual and other charges put me off so I now I can do this through my SIPPdeal account instead. Still looking for the best dealing site for my son to start regular saving that allows cost efficient monthly contributions and access to low cost tracker funds like Vanguard without high account or high dealing fees. I am with Barclays on-line stockbrokers for regular non ISA investment but not being able to buy funds on-line (you have to call and pay more) is a real bind. I wish they would get their act together.
Martin, this article may help your son. Index funds without dealing fees in a no-cost account: http://monevator.com/2011/01/06/passive-investing-model-portfolio/
The Accumulator – Thanks for pointing me to the article – very useful
Hi,
I have a Fidelity All share tracker ISA (through Fidelity) and my wife the HSBC All share tracker. Both have TER’s <0.3% without any other charges.
I'm fairly new to the investment market (so likely naive comment) but are these not the cheapest trackers taking into account all of the Vanguard charges……or are we talking about something else…?
Help…..my brain is going to explode
Steve W.
Hi Steve, if you invest enough each time to reduce the trading charges down to, say, 0.5%, then Vanguard comes out ahead after several years. I wouldn’t worry too much about it though, the difference is marginal.
Does anyone know of the cheapest platform currently for ‘Vanguard US Equity Index Fund’, I’ve been doing lot’s of research but It’s a minefield out there.
Would appreciate any advice.
Thanks
Does anyone think there is currently a better American Index than this for price?
http://services.assetmanagement.hsbc.co.uk/site/media/pdf/Factsheets/OEIC/oaiGBP.pdf
Looking to invest a 15k lump in it.
Thanks Daniel
The Vanguard US Equity index fund has a TER of 0.2%, but you’d want to look into annual management charges or platform fees levied by the broker for your funds.
Re: best platform for Vanguard, usually it’s Alliance Trust but check out this article http://monevator.com/2011/12/13/hargreaves-lansdown-vanguard-funds/
Some of the more recent Vanguard funds seem to have low market caps and volume. Does this affect liquidity or spreads at all?
Liquidity and spreads are generally dictated by the underlying assets rather than the size and trading volume of the fund. Canadian Couch Potato has just written an excellent article on this very subject: http://canadiancouchpotato.com/2012/09/10/etf-liquidity-and-trading-volume/
What is the perceived wisdom in the following scenario: You start passive investing via an ISA with a major provider (ATS) and after a few years your holding is worth more than the £85,000 covered by the FSCS. If ATS goes under I assume you would loose all but £85k or do you actually own the shares of the funds you are actually invested in (eg various Vanguard funds) and can then transfer these elsewhere? Or is it a matter of opening another sequence of ISA’s with another provider and building up your pot under the protection of a 2nd FSCS £85k and so on? Ideally it would be simplest just to keep all with one platform, so as an alternative do you accept the risk that you have more than you are covered for under the FSCS threshold and carry on? Thanks
@ EP – theoretically if ATS goes under, your investments are ring-fenced and you don’t lose anything. Hopefully the official scheme isn’t required except in the case of fraud.
But of course, it is wise to diversify fund firms in the same way it’s wise to diversify your assets. Especially as you could wait a long time for any corporate car crash to unravel and for your money to be returned.
Most people, especially those with big pots don’t divide their holdings into 85K chunks. It’s too much hassle and the risks are perceived to be small.
As always you need to set that against the risk of being exposed, how much you need the money, how much time you’re prepared to devote to this and so on.
I diversified from the onset across a few different providers, and I think it may be easier to start out this way than to rouse yourself later after years of sticking with one platform.
I was trying to calculate some Vanguard index funds for my investment… is it only on my computer, but the fund comparison calculator link doesnt seem to be working.
Hi Trevor, that link has died for some reason. Try this one: http://www.candidmoney.com/calculators/
Hi Accu,
thanks very much. This one
http://www.candidmoney.com/calculators/investment-fund-cost-comparison-calculator
helped me very, VERY much.
Cheers
Trev
@EP – the £85,000 FSCS ceiling is for cash. For stocks and funds etc the ceiling if your platform provider goes bust is £50,000, not £85,000.
@Sipp investor and Steve. I am with Sippdeal but my understanding was that they levy a custody charge for funds that are not on their funds list – one reason I’ve not bought Vanguard funds from them.
Am I mistaken?
Care needs to taken comparing TERs between a fund that charges a dilution levy to cover stamp duty and one that doesn’t. A fund that doesn’t charge a dilution levy may appear to have a higher TER but if that includes the stamp duty it is not as bad as it might first seem.
If you are prepared to forego tax shelters like SIPPs and ISAs there are funds that allow you to invest directly in modest amounts and avoid platform fees altogether.
Are you sure there is no platform fee for Vanguard Lifestrategy funds with TD direct?
I have been in touch with them about the 60% Equity (Acc) and 80% Equity (Acc) funds. First they said there was no platform charge at all (i.e. the only fees were the TER) for those two funds. However, yesterday I got an email from them saying the platform fee would be .35% in addition to the TER for these two funds.
Based on that I was just about to open an acct with Hargreaves Lansdown. However I would much prefer to go with TD Direct if I can be sure that there is no charge.
PS great site Accumulator – love your work.
@ Vanguard fan – you’re right about the custody charge.
@ Newbie – TD Direct’s published charges say the 0.35% platform fee applies to funds that pay 0.5% or more in trail commission. The Vanguard funds don’t pay trail commission and so shouldn’t incur the fee. Often I find brokerage frontline staff are poorly informed about index funds, especially relatively new ones on their platform. Here’s a link to TD’s charges:
http://www.tddirectinvesting.co.uk/choose-an-account/rates-and-charges/isas/~/media/uk/pdf/rates-charges-current.pdf
Worth remembering that if you going to hold Vanguard funds outside of a SIPP/ISA you may occasionally want to sell and then repurchase later to use your annual CGT allowance. If the fund has a purchase fee to cover stamp duty it’s going to eat into your gains, effectively reducing your CGT saving. For those cases it may be worth accepting a fund with slightly higher annual charges but no round trip costs beyond the spread. Not an issue in SIPP or ISA wrappers.
What’s the catch with TD Direct? Their charging structure seems completely back-to-front, waiving the platform fee on funds they get the least commission on. Are they just trying to hoover up the disenchanted iii and HL customers before whacking up the charges? Surely it can’t last…
What’s so bad about iii for Vanguard?
They now have the 80% and 20% Vanguard LifeStrategy funds available. Those are probably enough if you want to “Lifestyle” your funds and they’ll *hopefully* add the full range soon.
Yes, they charge the £80 annual fee but if you have a reasonably sized portfolio and/or you rebalance say every quarter it really isn’t at all comparatively. This doesn’t even take into account if you do a bit of sinful active investing on the side.
Why would I pay £80 annually plus dealing fees when I can pay no AMC and no dealing fees?
The annual fee alone still costs me 0.25% on a £32K portfolio.
iii – and another thing.
If you and your spouse and child open/transfer ISA’s to them you can link them and thus only occur one £80 annual change across all of them. http://www.iii.co.uk/landing/new-pricing. IN fact family at different addresses can be linked – phone for that option.
Unfortunately you cannot link SIPP accounts
They are planning on adding JISA product. Given that all other providers treat them as adult ISA or offer a paltry discount iii should be a winner.
This just in from TD Investing on charges (I’ve edited the full spiel so you get it fat free):
Updates to our Rates and Charges that will come into effect from 1st February 2013.
Our Trading Account Management Fee remains £12.50 plus VAT per quarter. The fee will not be charged if you:
Have a funds (Unit Trusts/OEICs) valuation of £10,000 or more in your portfolio or
Have a SIPP or ISA linked to your Trading Account.
We will continue to waive this fee if you trade once or more per quarter. We will also continue to waive the fee based on your individual portfolio valuation but the minimum required is increasing from £7,500 to £15,000.
No changes to our ISA and SIPP fees
Our ISA Administration Fee remains unchanged and continues to be waived if you:
Have a balance in your ISA of £5,100 or more or
Have a regular investing facility set up on the ISA.
Our TD SIPP Administration Fee remains unchanged at 0.25% of the value of the SIPP every 6 months (subject to a maximum of £100).
Online funds trades (Unit Trusts/OEICs) remain free of trading commission however funds trades by telephone will now be charged at £40 per trade.
New funds with no trail commission
Our fund pricing has not changed and we are pleased to introduce a new class of funds with no trail commission included in the Annual Management Charge.
The TD deal really is excellent. How do they make money?
One neat thing for me is them waiving the fee on a normal trading account when you also have an ISA with them. I have my eye on a few dollar denominated ETFs but don’t want to pay the 2% fee for currency conversion. I assume I’m allowed to keep money in $ in the normal trading account (unlike ISAs) so if I keep a dollar pot, I’ll only get stung twice, rather than every trade!
Note that the annual fee is still waived if you have regular dealing set up. (The TD regular dealing is also excellent). I’m not certain that the regular trading minimum for VLS is £50 as it is just “-” in their fund details page, (it is £500 for one-offs) but it probably is. I’ve checked and it is certainly possible to add it to the regular trading page.
Perhaps you should amend the title to “…but there’s a catch unless you use TD”
@ Greg – I had a conversation with TD last week. They told me that the £500 minimum was the first time you bought a fund. Once you’ve bought it then you can top-up at £50 a throw. They also said that the regular trading minimum was £50.
The price of 1 unit of a LifeStrategy fund is > £100. Does this mean that regular investors on a budget (investing less than £100 a month) are excluded since they cannot make a monthly purchase? Or is it possible to buy in fractional sizes? I guess a possibility would be to buy funds in a HSBC tracker monthly and then switch to a LifeStrategy fund when there are sufficient funds to buy 1 unit. Any thoughts appreciated.
@Lookahead – You can buy fractional sizes with OEICs / UTs.
@Greg – Thanks for letting me know that it should be possible.
Unfortunately with TD’s regular investment setup page I get a ‘System error has occurred’ message asking me to try again later if I enter an amount less than the price of 1 unit of a LifeStrategy fund (~£110).
@ Lookahead – Hmm. Send them a support request e-mail. They are pretty good at responding to them.
I’ve just noticed that TD are now offering a number of ‘unbundled’ (i.e. with the kickback stripped out) active funds too, e.g. from IP and Fidelity. This confuses me more! How can they make any money?
TD do seem the cheapest for vanguard with ISA – however they charge a £50 + admin fee for closure / transfer. Still if held for 2+ years one would expect bets HL platform fees. And guess they have to make money somehow.
If you’re with TD then you will beat HL from day 1 in a regular investment ISA. That transfer rate isn’t uncompetitive, btw. HL, for example, charge £24 per holding to exit.
TD charges an exit fee of £35 per holding, if you don’t transfer your whole ISA or if you are transferring from a Trading account (ie, unwrapped). It will be pretty costly to exit, if (when?) they start charging realistic fees for funds that pay them no commission.
Hi guys,
thanks for the fund infos and this website.
I`ve now purchased my first 3 funds (basically cheap HSBC, gilts and trackers) and I`m now planning a move on the Lifestrategy funds. Quick question… is there any update on the TD platform fee for Vanguard Lifestrategy funds?
Cheers
@Greg some providers seem to be charging nothing on these funds for now, whilst waiting for the FSA to clarify their rules on commission for online-only providers. Saxo is another example.
Of course, it’s unlikely they’ll offer funds for free forever, because as you say they won’t make any money. So the kicker here is the exit charges. When they do start charging, how much will it be and how much will it cost you to go to a cheaper alternative? That’s the difficulty for people looking at providers who currently charge nothing for these funds.
The alternative is to go to providers who offer the funds but currently charge a realistic price for them. iii and AT have RDR-ready pricing structures (meaning they won’t have to change if/when the FSA bans commission for online providers.) TD, HL and Saxo (and many others) do not.
Currently it will cost me £50 to get my funds out of a TD ISA. Or I can pay AT £48 for the year (plus dealing fees) or iii £80 for the year (plus dealing fees). So the exit charges pay for themselves if I have to move in 12 months time. That’s assuming I have to move at all. If TD put their prices up in 6 – 8 months time then there’s every chance their charges are no worse than anyone else’s. In which case, I can stay put. So for now I think it’s reasonable to plump for TD and enjoy paying no fees for as long as it lasts.
@The Accumulator yup, that works.
I agree that the exit charge for an ISA is pretty low. Seems worth the risk.
But for a Trading Account, £35 per fund is pretty steep. My kids both have small Trading Accounts with ATS, so I would like to switch to TDD to save the £48 pa fees. But if I switch to TDD and they bring in unacceptably high annual fees, it will cost £140 to exit, so there will be an overall loss unless TDD keep their fees low for more than 2 years.
Are there trading costs involved at TDD. I’m looking to set up a Vanguard LifeStrategy with an initial amount of 5.1k and drip feed via d/d of £50-100 a month. Would I be better off trading quarterly if there is a trading fee?
Hi John, there are no trading fees at TD for the LifeStrategy funds.
Hi Accy,
TD got back to me and said ‘if you were purchasing one of the UK Vanguard life strategy funds then there would be no initial trading commission. The fund is subject to a annual platform fee but all or part of this is usually refunded if we receive a trail commission from the fund manager.’ I thought there was no annual platform fee? I also thought that Vanguard didn’t give trail commission to brokers?
John, you are right, Vanguard don’t pay trail commission. See TD’s published charges: there is no platform fee payable on funds that pay trail commission of less than 0.5%. Sounds like you’re being given a generic line. See this link:
http://www.tddirectinvesting.co.uk/investment-choices/funds-unit-trusts-and-oeics/funds-pricing/
Hi all,
woke up Christmas morning having a look at my first portfolio on TD Direct and discovering… I`ve already made £2.39 on my HSBC FTSE 250 Index Accumulation C, UK Mid-Cap Equity within 3 days!! Hahaha. But then I was like… WHAT??? I spent weeks researching, reading filings and fund reports and what not… thats what I get in return????? Anyway, just joking 🙂
1. Quick question… I`m currently looking at Vanguard US Equity Index Acc, Price: GBP 173.50 vs HSBC American Index Acc C, – Price: GBP 2.11. Does anyone know why there is such a wide spread of unit prizes for such a similar (tracking S&P 500) Fund?
I couldnt really get my head round this…
2. Question seems like BlackRock are neither offering an ISA-option, nor a discount of the 5% initial charge for the BlackRock Emerging Markets Eq Tkr A Acc (ISIN: GB00B65W2626). Does anyone know of an alternative (without having to go to L&G)?
cheers and merry Christmas and happy new year to all of you
thank you for this page (a treasure trove for passive investors) and the knowledgeable comments… :-))
Trev
What a Xmas morning treat. All I got was socks 😉 I believe the unit price difference is explained by the number of units in circulation for each fund.
Alternative emerging market trackers are Vanguard’s index fund (VIEMKT) or you could try an ETF, e.g. VFEM.
Were you able to purchase your Royal London tracker in the end?
Yeah. I`ve gonne on to buy an emerging market ETF (they`re quite difficult to find on the TD website).
And also the Royal London FTSE…
Cheers. have a successful 2013
Trevor
(looks like 2013 is the first year with 4 different digits since I was born (1987).
Hi,
Do you know if there is a way for a non-UK resident to buy the Vanguard funds? I’m quite interested in the Vanguard Global small cap fund, but buying it is complicated from Finland ….
Cheers,
Joonatan
I’m sorry Joonatan, I don’t know the procedure for doing that. It would be great to hear from any readers who have experience of this.
Hi Joon,
its not complicated. open a British bank account and then do Onlinebanking from your internet in Finland.
Trevor
Great!
I’m mostly interested in the Vanguard Global Small Cap index fund, as it’s impossible to find a Global Developed markets small cap etf.
I’m planning to buy four times per year, with a sum below 300£ (or twice a year with a larger sum). Time of investment is 20 to 30 years, so all costs should be minimal…
Could you recommend a bank? 🙂
By banks, do you mean platforms such as Interactive investors, etc. ?
Would be happy if you could recommend a cost-efficient bank in the UK or give a clue how to find one.
I’m currently trying to figure out if it’s better to handle small-cap investments with ETFs or with index funds (no small cap index funds are available in Finland). To be able to make a decision, I should find out what the banking costs in the UK would be.
Cheers! Hyvää viikonloppua!
Joonatan
Joonatan, if Trevor means a regular bank then there really isn’t much to choose between them, at least from the perspective of a British resident. Banking is generally free in the UK, by which I mean you don’t have to pay to run a basic current account / savings account. Costs are generally recouped by opaque methods like charging high fees for overdrafts. I suppose certain banks may well be more competitive in the costs they charge overseas customers but then you’d be best placed to judge that.
First Direct (a spin-off from HSBC) have the best customer service in my experience.
Well I was about to set up a new ISA for my wife following on from some of the positive comments about TD Direct. However it would seem that the process of “Confirmation of Verification of Identity” is somewhat cumbersome. The options are either to go to their offices in London with passport etc or have an FSA Regulated firm verify the ID, which could involve the bank / solicitor completing one of their forms and no doubt charging me accordingly. Both my wife I have accounts with H&L and AT and previously just had to send utility bills and our NI numbers. Has the process changed for all platforms or is this just particular to TD Direct.
ps. Just love your blog
Steve,
Providers normally ask for this kind of verification if the electronic tests fail (most providers have linked with companies like Experian to carry out identity verification electronically, and only ask for paper documentation if Experian can’t verify someone’s identity electronically.) It sounds like perhaps whoever TD use to provide identity verification weren’t able to verify your identity electronically.
Some firms accept verified copies which have been signed e.g. by your bank manager, which might be easier than visiting their offices. Worth checking perhaps.
PS. as posted on another thread here, TD have announced that from August, they will charge a 0.35% platform fee. http://www.tddirectinvesting.co.uk/investment-choices/funds-unit-trusts-and-oeics/funds-pricing/
Thanks for info Nick although guess I will be staying where I am now that they have issued the o.35% platform fee.
Ok, thanks! Trevor, could you precise if you ment a regular bank?
Good point, Nick. Breakevens on the 0.35% platform fee:
Alliance Trust @ £48 annual charge = £13,714
iii @ £80 annual charge = £22,857
HL @ £24 annual charge (1 fund portfolio) = £6857
Portfolio values below these breakeven rates are better off at TD (in a regular trading ISA).
There are dealing fees to account for at iii and Alliance Trust too. Estimate your likely annual dealing fees and add them to the annual charge / platform fee.
Then the calculation is: Total costs / 0.0035 = £break-even
The breakeven figures are for a portfolio holding clean-priced index funds in a single account. If you hold two accounts (e.g. you and a partner), the breakeven point for ATS and HL doubles.
If you hold more than one tracker in HL, multiply the breakeven point by the number of funds.
I was wondering about the TER on LifeStrategy funds: these being funds-of-funds, is the TER of the underlying funds taken into account in the quoted TER? Or should we expect to pay ~.3% to the LifeStrategy manager, and another .3% to the managers of the funds held?
Hello,
Firstly, I’d like to say that, The Accumulator, you are doing a fantastic job educating individuals on the virtue of passive investing and indexing, and in particular, what you do that is unique is that you apply this method of investing to the UK public. I have read a few books and all the information I realised, as it applies to the US, is in many cases not very relevant to UK investors (for example, having super low Vanguard expense ratios and investing in a large choice of mutual funds / OEICS). I think you should consider writing a book because I would buy such a book!
I want to get your opinion Accumulator – or anyone else who is has is happy to share their ideas. After reading some of the articles on this brilliant website, I’m not certain what strategy would be apply to me. I would want to take the approach of regularly investing any left over cash in a fund (thus small and frequent contributions) in an ISA shares account and I would want to rebalance whenever an asset would become relatively over-represented.
Thus —> which broker / online platform would be cheapest (as that’s what good old Bogle has taught us to look for) for an individual looks with the following criteria:
– regular investing of small amounts (thus I’m ETF’s might not be convenient)
– regular rebalancing
– many funds held – maybe 10 or more
From the article entitled “hargreaves lansdown introduces platform fee” (although somewhat dated), I would hazard a guess that TD might be a good choice or Interative Investor. I would appreciate help on this.
Many thanks
YC, it’s all in. Vanguard don’t play that game. It’s just the initial fee and the TER that you’ll see on their website. You will pay some kind of platform fee to your broker too.
@ Trevor – thanks very much for your kinds words. The best book I’ve found on passive investing with a UK focus is Tim Hale’s Smarter Investing. It’s well worth reading for a thorough grounding in the principles even though some years out of date in terms of fund choices.
This piece is still reasonably up to date for broker choices: http://monevator.com/no-fee-discount-broker-options/
Make sure you read the comments though for the latest developments. TD is a good choice if you’re likely to stay under the £13K breakeven (mentioned in the comments above) versus Alliance Trust for some years. If you’re not bothered about Vanguard funds then Cavendish Online is also worth looking out.
I have maxed out my 3% Halifax cash ISA for the last two years but the rate drops to a ‘not even keeping up with inflation’ level at the beginning of March. I am considering putting some/all of the cash into a Vanguard 60 Life Strategy fund. Mathematically, which is the best way to put the money in? Should I dump as much in as soon as possible – so that’s half now and the rest in April? Or should I pay it in monthly to spread the up and down effect of the market?
Thanks
Hi Daniel, studies suggest that going all in is most profitable. However, many people find drip-feeding psychologically more comfortable. I certainly fall into this camp. Sadly, all the studies in the world can’t actually predict the market conditions that will prevail when you do invest.
@The Acc.: thanks, yes, I get it now. At first I didn’t really trust the documentation Vanguard provide, because they use AMC/TER interchangeably, so I thought they were trying to confuse the reader. But now I realise they actually equate AMC=TER, which is of course very commendable.
As for going all in, would you have any pointers to the literature? I’d be quite interested, because it makes life very simple if one can get it all sorted in a single yearly transaction. Thanks!
@YC: for all (mutual) fund-of-funds (active and passive), the TER should include the cost of the underlying funds.
This applies to (mutual) funds, but I’m not sure whether it holds for ETFs.
@ YC – spot on about the Vanguard nomenclature. Re: drip-feeding vs all in, here’s a good piece by Larry Swedroe: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-37843026/dollar-cost-averaging-does-it-produce-better-results/?tag=mwuser#ixzz1bARC5p2X
He links out to academic papers that have studied the problem in more depth.
In case this might help anyone else.. (I’m new to all this but enjoying the Monevator education!) I recently tried to transfer a Vanguard Life Strategy fund in a stocks and shares ISA from Hargreaves Lansdowne to TD Direct in order to save on the HL platform fee (before TD introduced their new fee). My ISA is worth under 5.1k but I was setting up a regular investment and thought that information on their website (and the person I spoke to on the phone to double check) had said there was no charge for holding a regular investment ISA with TD, even under 5.1K. I found out by chance when I rang to query something just before sending off the transfer form that there is a £30 +VAT charge for holding the ISA, even with regular investment, and so I closed the account in time. Just posting this in case anyone else gets caught out although I may be more muddle-prone than the average reader 🙂 Thanks for all the amazingly useful advice here.
Hi Newtothis, the exemption from the £30 charge does exist but only after Feb 1. Your ISA must be valued at £5100 or above to avoid the charge before this date.
You are quite right in thinking you’re better off with HL, however, given TD’s announcement about their platform fee.
Thanks for the Swedroe link, very worthwile!
As for comparing between HL and TDD, note that HL have a .5% annual management charge (capped at 45gbp) which only applies to their ISA and SIPP offerings, so there may be a small bracket just upwards of 5100gbp where TDD are cheaper… nothing worth switching platforms for though!
I think the academic study on which Swedroe bases his article has a major flaw, which is that it disregards the fact that if you spread your investment over the next 12 months, you have part of your cash still available and so it can be used to earn income. For instance, you could have the money on instant access deposit or short-term deposit. The cash balance gradually declines over the 12 month period, so on average this is virtually the same as having an extra six months of interest on the cash.
On the basis of the figures here: http://swanlowpark.co.uk/bank0604.jsp
the average savings interest rate over the last 52 years is 6%. But the figures on that website are just the average for each year, and if you are only getting the average rate, you’re a bit stupid or lazy. We all know that if you bother to look, you can find rates that are significantly higher than the average high street bank or building society is offering. So let’s assume that if you were operating a drip feed strategy you could on average have earned interest of 8% per year, so six months of interest would be 4%. On the starting $1 million, that would mean the dollar cost averaging option would earn an extra $40,000. That would wipe out most of the supposed outperformance of the lump sum investment option.
Nevertheless, it is difficult to conclude that pound cost averaging or dollar cost averaging is a better strategy than investing the money as soon as you have it, contrary to the advice you see peddled extremely widely by “experts” all over the place.
Interesting discussion. 🙂
Nevertheless, it is difficult to conclude that pound cost averaging or dollar cost averaging is a better strategy than investing the money as soon as you have it, contrary to the advice you see peddled extremely widely by “experts” all over the place.
In my view it’s better to invest it as soon as you have it provided you can take the emotional risk that the market might be 5/10/30% cheaper in 2/3/6 months time (or worse). Averaging in a big lump sum is about psychology, not about getting a better return, in my view.
In my experience, most people get extremely upset if their investment loses 20-30% and it represents most of their wealth / a meaningful sum to them — perhaps more than they thought they would. (I don’t particularly, as long as it’s the whole market moving not some stupid thing I’ve done, but I seem to be pretty unusual in that regard, and maybe I will too when I’m older…)
If I was an IFA (which I’m not!) I’d probably suggest they average into the market for that reason, too. It’s an insurance policy.
As I see it, pound cost averaging turns volatility into an advantage if you’re a regular saver and the market goes up over the time you’re averaging in. To my mind it’s really more of a nice thing to remember when you’re a new investor facing market volatility and you’re saving regularly and are a bit worried, rather than a strategy to get an edge.
I think you are right. If an adviser suggests investing everything right away, and then the market falls, the client can easily see the “loss” they have made and they get very upset with the adviser. However, if the adviser suggests spreading the investment over 12 months and the market steadily rises, it isn’t quite so obvious to the client that they have made a loss in comparison to what would have happened if they had invested right away.
However, that’s just faulty thinking. I can understand why advisers and many investors prefer pound cost averaging, but that’s not the same thing as saying it is the smart strategy. For decades now I have been reading that PCA is a better approach because it will increase your returns. Turns out it is completely wrong.
Hi again 🙂
However, that’s just faulty thinking.
Hmm, well, it’s not only faulty thinking is it?
What if (for example) by averaging in a lump sum my maximum return over some period is 20% and my largest possible minimum return (i.e. drawdown) is minus 10%. Whereas investing all in at the start could deliver (for example) a maximum return of 30% but the potential for minus 20%, over some arbitrary period?
Many people — perhaps most — would rather take the smaller maximum return as the price of not risking getting whacked with the larger potential drawdown of 20%. They would rather not risk losing more money, at the cost of the chance of earning more. I think that’s rational for some/most.
Of course I’ve just made those numbers up — the whole snag about the future is we don’t know what’s going to happen! But swapping maximum reward to reduce risk *is* I think a worthwhile trade for many.
I have been reading that PCA is a better approach because it will increase your returns. Turns out it is completely wrong.
As a definitive statement like that, I agree with you.
It *might* increase them or it *might* reduce them. You cannot know in advance. If my aim is to maximise my *chance* of the biggest possible gain, I think it’s best to go in ASAP. This is almost entirely because markets tend to rise over time, I think.
We don’t know what will happen, but we do know the odds, based on long-term historical trends. The research referred to by Swedoe used back testing to look at every possible period of 12 months dollar cost averaging since the beginning of 1926. That’s just over 1000 different scenarios. And they found that simply investing a lump sum at the beginning of the 12 month period gave a better outcome in 71% of cases. What’s more, in the 71% of cases where the lump sum outperformed DCA, the outperformance was, on average, higher than the underperformance in the other 29% of cases.
So lump sum gives more than double the chance of a bigger reward. Swapping maximum reward to reduce risk might indeed be a worthwhile trade, but the evidence shows that that’s not what pound cost averaging does.
I didn’t mean literally that the fans of PCA/DCA have ever suggested it is guaranteed to give the best returns. But they have suggested that it improves your chances of a better outcome. They are wrong. It does the exact opposite.
Swapping maximum reward to reduce risk might indeed be a worthwhile trade, but the evidence shows that that’s not what pound cost averaging does.
I may be misreading you, but I think you’re misunderstanding me. 🙂 You seem to be saying that because the potential higher return is greater than the potential underperformance, it hasn’t reduced risk on balance. In aggregate that might well be right. But an individual investor only goes through life once, he doesn’t get the average of all outcomes but rather takes the hand s/he’s dealt. And you will certainly do worse investing all in at the start if markets are falling.
Sometimes markets go down. If you invest over a period when they are going down, you’d do better not to invest all at once, but rather invest periodically. The maths cannot be otherwise.
E.g. Imagine the market starts the year at index level 10,000 and ends at 4,000, falling by 500 every month. We’ll ignore both dividends and interest on un-invested capital for simplicity, assuming they net out.
Scenario A: You invest £10,000 at the start of the year. At the end you have £4,000.
Scenario B: You invest £833.33 at the start of every month throughout the year. According to my quick spreadsheet you have £5,869.98 at the end of the year.
Clearly, the last £833.33 was only exposed to one month of falls, the second to last only two, etc. Whereas the 12x£833.33 invested at the start with strategy A got all 12 months of falls.
You can’t know what *will* happen over any given period, but there will be times when a market falls over your contribution period, and if you could know one of those times were approaching, it would be better to invest monthly.
In fact, if you could know it would be better not to invest until the falls were over! 🙂
Again, this is different from saying you’d rather a strategy that optimises your chances of superior returns. Markets tend to go up, so a strategy that capitalises on that will likely do better.
But if you’re more risk averse than returns orientated, it might well make sense to average in to reduce the risk of taking greater losses, as shown above.
p.s. It’s late and I had a couple of pints earlier, but I think the maths is good. 🙂
p.p.s. I also just realized that I haven’t read the start of this thread, so we may be discussing slightly different things. I am discussing the classic: “I have £100,000 (say), should I invest it all at once?”
Everyone else has no choice really but to invest regularly and cost-average in, because we must save out of spare income, surely?
Well the thread started as a discussion of Vanguard, but it has developed a very interesting sub-topic which is, as you say, about whether you should you invest a lump sum at once or spread it. I always thought the rationally smart thing to do was spread it, but this academic paper proves the opposite. [However, if instead the question is whether someone who has regular surpluses of income should invest them regularly or save them up and then invest later as a lump sum, I agree that regular investment is better. The principle should be that you should always invest as soon as you can (assuming the amounts are big enough that trading costs don’t distort the decision).]
We both agree that if you know the market is going to fall you should not invest all at once, but I’m pretty sure you would also agree that there is no way to know this. So in the real world, you have to take a risk. Whether you choose upfront or spread, there is a risk that it might turn out that the other choice would have performed better. The extent of the risk is indicated by long-term historical experience.
You appear to be suggesting that pound cost averaging is, somehow, a lower risk option than upfront lump sum, but as far as I can see the academic study says it is higher risk.
Your example figures, under which PCA leaves you £1869 better off, are something that might happen, but they are unlikely. There’s only a 29% chance that PCA will leave you better off than lump sum and the amount by which you are better off is likely to be relatively small. There is a 71% chance that PCA will leave you worse off than if you had chosen lump sum. And what’s more, on those times when it does leave you worse off, the amount by which you are worse off is likely to be bigger.
So PCA does not reduce the risk of taking greater losses; it increases this risk.
@ivanopinion — What we agree on: For most people trying to amass a larger capital sum, invest whatever you are going to invest as soon as you can invest it. 🙂
My example figures aren’t unlikely. From memory, the market goes down something like one year out of every three. So quite often you’d have done better to wait. But we are agreed — it’s a hobbled strategy, since we don’t know which year it will go down. 🙂
My main point is that PCA is of psychological benefit. I wouldn’t argue that anyone saving over the long term should do it for financial reasons, because of all the things we’ve discussed.
Off to get some sun now! 😉
p.s. I just realised you’re right they are ‘unlikely’ in that 1/3 is less than 50/50. From the point of view of emotions and investing, though, an event that happens roughly one in every three years is not unlikely, I’d say — it’s of consequence *emotionally* speaking.
You are right, I meant unlikely in the sense of less than half as likely as the alternative, which is that the upfront lump sum outperforms PCA.
I really don’t want to argue, but I don’t understand why you only seem to be concerned about the emotional impact of the one third chance that upfront lump sum might underperform PCA. Isn’t there also an emotional impact of the (roughly) two thirds chance that if you choose PCA it will turn out that you would have been better off choosing upfront lump sum?
Choosing PCA would only make sense if you ascribe a greater weight to avoided losses than to forgone profits. That is, if you prefer to forgo a 71% chance of extra profit of, say, 100, because you don’t want to take a 29% chance of extra loss of, say, 80 (I don’t know the exact figure, but I know it would be less than 100).
However, if you are so risk averse, you really shouldn’t be making investments at all; you should stick to government guaranteed savings accounts and fixed interest bonds.
@ivanopinion — We’re not arguing, we’re discussing, right? 🙂 I have seen from experience people hate losses much more than they like gains. There’s stacks of research to that end, too.
Personally, I’ve been up to 100% invested in equities, so I’m not talking about me here.
I don’t think your last paragraph holds at all, it’s a false choice. If someone can cut the risk of losing X by forgoing Y, that might be rational. It’s the whole appeal of Guaranteed Equity Bonds, for good or ill (which you may have seen I’ve in the past unwrapped in a DIY version for risk averse investors who don’t want to buy opaque products from banks with high fees).
Sure, discussing. I was really struggling to follow what you were saying until it clicked that you were talking about people who place greater weight on avoiding losses than on potential gains, even if the odds are in favour of the gains. I agree that there is lots of evidence that many people hate losses more than they like gains. Arguably, it is irrational to do so. However, I suppose that if you define your investment objective as aiming to minimise losses, you could then say that it is rational to choose PCA over upfront lump sum.
The way I look at it, it is axiomatic that if you are investing in equities you have accepted the considerable downside risks in return for the likelihood that in the long run equities will perform better than your alternatives (savings, bonds, etc). History suggests that as long as you are prepared to be patient, equities will always outperform in the long run. However, if you invest at what turns out to be the wrong time, you might need to be very patient indeed. To choose an extreme example, the total return on the Nikkei is still down 70% on its peak in 1989, after at least 22 years. I think there are periods of more than a decade when the UK and US markets have also delivered negative total returns.
If you have accepted that considerable downside risk in return for the considerable upside risk, it would seem inconsistent to favour PCA over upfront lump sum.
However, if you are the kind of equity investor who uses guaranteed equity bonds to limit your downside (sacrificing a lot of the upside) then I could see that PCA would be a consistent choice.
@ivanopinion: “The way I look at it, it is axiomatic that if you are investing in equities you have accepted the considerable downside risks in return for the likelihood that in the long run equities will perform better than your alternatives”
One could counter that in the end, you will not gain the ensemble average, but rather you will gain an individual realisation of one possible outcome. And even if you think in terms of time averages… I think a famous quote has it that “in the long run we are all dead” 🙂
Given that, and if most of the volatility in the markets is in fact captured by only a few days in history (note I’ve never really checked this myself, so I’m just parrotting Nassim Taleb here), then it could make sense to perform PCA: at relatively small cost, you’d reduce risk significantly.
I am lucky enough to have control of a fund that is larger than the minimum £100,000 needed to invest direct with Vanguard.
I’m currently with Bestinvest, who seem to do a reasonable job for a relatively small fee.
If I went with Vanguard direct then obviously I’d be able to bypass the fee and the middle man. However, given that the fees are small in proportion and that Vanguard showed a spectacular lack of interest when I emailed them I’m not quite sure of the motivation to move.
Anyone got any thoughts or done it themselves? If Vaguard’s email to me is an indicator of customer service then I’d definitely stick where I am!
How about Charles Stanley? They seem cheaper (0.25% – and if you decide to trade, it’s GBP 10 vs GBP 12.5 at TD Direct)
I want to invest in FTSE with Vanguard. Their OEIC fund, VVUKEQ, charges 0.5% initial and 0.08% pa.
Their FTSE 100 ETF, VUKE, charges 0.09% pa and of course I would pay the bid/offer spread, which seems to be approx 0.01%.
But do I pay the Vanguard initial charge when I buy the ETF?
Hi Dik, no initial charge on the ETFs.
Thanks The Accumulator. That’s what I thought. I suppose some might prefer the fund if their broker charges a high dealing fee.
I prefer the fund because it tracks the FTSE All-Share rather than the FTSE 100. True, the All-Share is dominated by the 100 but it’s better diversified overall.
Also, the initial charge is used to cover the stamp duty costs of buying the underlying shares. Although there is no stamp duty charge to buy the ETF, the APs will still be paying this to buy the underlying shares that constitute the ETF and I dare say that cost falls to the investor somewhere.
Forgive my ignorance, but what are “APs”.
When someone like me buys ETFs is it like buying shares in the sense that I am buying existing ETFs or are my ETFs created specially?
@Dik — No need to ask for forgiveness, a bit of a slip by The Accumulator to lapse into industry speak in this home of Proud DIY-ers. 🙂
I believe he is referring to Authorised Participants. These are the companies that buy and sell shares and ETFs as part of ensuring a particular ETF holds the correct securities such that its holdings and its pricing tracks the appropriate index.
I am simplifying here. See this article http://www.etf.com/etf-education-center/21014-what-is-the-creationredemption-mechanism.html
That should also help answer your second question. 🙂
Interesting. Especially “Ultimately, investors entering or exiting the ETF pay these costs through the bid/ask spread.”. But the spread on the Vanguard FTSE 100 ETF is currently 0.05% so much less than the fund’s initial charge and much less than stamp duty. If the APs are market makers do they pay stamp duty?
Dik, Vanguard’s ETFs are “Irish domiciled” so for normal investors you are buying or selling an Irish security and there’s no stamp duty to pay. However new ETF shares are created as demand requires. This tpically happens in large lots, perhaps 100,000 shares, and the AP then has to go out and buy all the underlying components of the FTSE100. That transaction effectively takes place under UK jurisdiction and the 0.5%stamp duty is payable at that stage.
Mutual funds work in much the same way but because the FTSE ALL Share OEIC is UK domiciled then stamp duty is paid both when new units are created and when they are traded from one person to another. That has been true for all UK domiciled funds for a long time but will be changing shortly so that the stamp duty is only paid, like the ETF. when underlying shares are bought and not when units are traded.
Hi,
I recently became a dad and want to start putting money into a Stocks & Shares ISA for my son. This would be my first time investing so I have little to no idea about what to do – something quick and easy would be great.
I was therefore thinking of going through with the LifeStrategy funds – would this be the best option? If so, were best to go; alliancetrustsavings.co.uk as above?
Thanks
Andrew
I would avoid ATS for back junior ISA. They charge £50 pa which is over 1% pa. I’m about to close those I have with them for my own children – indeed for the family as a whole they are no longer the best value and seem to have lost their way.
I think the best platform ISA charge deal at present is with AJBell/Youinvest. From what I’ve seen they have no annual charge and a £4.95 dealing fee. Looks like they are ousting ATS from the low cost sector.
Hi WeeBeastie,
Thanks for your reply. I’m not completely sure about dealing fees. If I do a monthly direct debit over a year, would that be 12x dealing fees and therefore more than the £50 pa from ATS?
Thanks
Andrew
You can find the details of the YouInvest JISA here – looks like its 1.50 a month for regular deals.
http://www.youinvest.co.uk/JuniorISA/Offer/
ATS also seem to charge 1.50 a month but that appears to be in addition to the annual fee so you are definitely better off with Youinvest, assuming they have the funds you want.
http://www.alliancetrustsavings.co.uk/forms-documents/fees-charges/Table-of-Charges.pdf
@ Andrew – if the JISA is likely to remain under £20K or so for a long time then take a look at:
Charles Stanley Direct and Cavendish Online
They charge a % of your total assets but no fund dealing fees. So if you had 10K in there you’d pay £25 and that’s it. That’s the way to go for small portfolios and monthly contributions.
Comparison table here, but you’ll need to go to the individual sites to compare JISAs: http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/
I am interested in knowing the current best place to put a vanguard life strategy 60-40 accummalator – or two as my wife and I will be investing the equity from a house sale in this way.
I appreciate the above article as it explains how to buy one through a platform, but are the fees now out of date since the article is from 2012?
We will have £60,000 (not enough to put direct with vanguard) but we want to put it somewhere and forget about it for at least ten years.
Thanks in advance for any replies.
@Optimist — Hi, you might want to have a look at our fee comparison table:
http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/
Platform charges: Hargreaves Lansdown.
HL charges 0.45%:
(1) for OEICs without limit
(2) for others, including ETFs, subject to a maximum of £200 for a SIPP and £45 for an ISA.
It follows that if you hold shares, bonds, ETFs, etc worth over £44,444 (SIPP) or £10,000 (ISA) then there is no charge on the other excess.
For this reason I use ETFs for index trackers. Regrettably I can not use Vanguard funds as they would cost me an extra 0.45% p.a.
I am a UK resident with a UK bank account, can I invest in Vanguard’s VTSAX, VTIAX & Total Bond market Fund? Any DIY platforms offering these choices?