with respects to tax leak, these are european based funds holding international securities (Euro, Pound, Dollar, Yen, and other denominated and geographically based). so, of course there will be some level of tax leak, but what can you do - also, you have to pay the piper, i genuinely don't mind paying taxes when they're fair and the money is put to good use (the latter is a discussion for another day). as long as I am going along with the market in a diversified manner, i should be fine (LT goal is an avg of 7% real return).
personally, i pay no tax on income from capital (special tax rule for expat employees in NL for 8 years, the 30% rule as it's known), so i shouldn't have any euoprean based taxes to pay.
Here's the ishares vs. vanguard comparison
Investment Type ETF Name Symbol Yield MER
iShares
World Exposure iShares MSCI World Core UCITS ETFs IWDA.AS reinvested 0.20%
World Dividend iShares STOXX Global Select Dividend 100 UCITS ETF (DE) ISPA 4.42% 0.46%
Emerging Markets Core iShares MSCI Emerging Markets IMI UCITS ETFs EMIM.AS reinvested 0.25%
Real Estate iShares Developed Markets Property Yield UCITS ETFs IWDP.AS 2.67% 0.59%
Fixed Income Core iShares Euro Corporate Bond UCITS ETF IEAC.AS 2.47% 0.20%
Vangaurd
World Exposure FTSE All-World UCITS ETF VWRL 2.40% 0.25%
World Dividend Vanguard FTSE Al-World High Dividend Yield UCITS ETF VHYL 3.70% 0.29%
Emerging Markets FTSE Emerging Markets UCITS ETF VFEM 2.80% 0.29%
Real Estate
Fixed Income
Sorry it's a bit ugly, but here you have it. So things to note, ishares automatically reinvests the dividends from the MSCI World Core and MSCI Emerging markets funds, their share price performance is accordingly much better than the vanguard equivalent over time. The MERs are about the same for these two (slightly better for ishares)
The Dividend blue chips one is interesting - i prefer the ishares as it is a bit more selective in it's indexing, accordingly I get a much higher dividend at the cost of a slightly higher MER, I can live with this.
Vanguard has no Euro denominated real estate or bond fund, which is a major turn off for me - come on vanguard!!! give me more selection!!
I will continue to assess the comparable performance of the funds, but so far I'm happy with this selection. Certainly is easy to just buy these five every month on pay day and forget about it.
As said, I'm paying next to nothing for my IB account, and the money transfers are so seamless (unlike the Questrade account I was using in Canada - that was a real pain) - money is available next day, and the platform is easy to pick up and use. The fact that i'm paying a couple of Euros per trade makes me very happy. Further, the fact that I can later on move some US $ into this account and trade US$ denominated ETFs in the US makes it even better! IB is really good.