UK index fund - is this the one I should be buying?

[shelivesthedream]

I'm finally taking a good look at what I'm invested in, as at first I just dived in on a "better sooner than later" principle. I've got some individual stocks but most of my money is in a balance of two index funds, neither of which I think is optimal for charges. This is partially because the search function on my investment platform is terrible if you just want to browse, and partially because I didn't really know what I was searching for.

But now I think I have found it and just want to check - if I am only buying one thing (think JL Collins' simple path to wealth) this is it, right?

http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/v/vanguard-ftse-uk-all-share-index-accumulation

[mveill1]

Yes this is the one - why not have a look at this article which is quite good considering the source:

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/investing/article-1583915/A-guide-cheapest-index-tracker-funds.html

Also, can I overstep and ask why you're restricting yourself to the UK market?

[shelivesthedream]

Also, can I overstep and ask why you're restricting yourself to the UK market?

As opposed to what?

[mveill1]

... the global market. For instance, you could get exposure to the global developed market (ie excludes emerging markets) through Fidelity:

https://www.fidelity.co.uk/investor/research-funds/fund-supermarket/factsheet/summary.page?idtype=ISIN&fundid=GB00BJS8SJ34&UseProxy=Yes&fundname=Fidelity%20Index%20World%20P%20Acc&UserChannel=Direct

Only 9% of the fund is made up of UK companies, it's mostly US as it makes up the bulk of global market cap.

I am not trying to tell you what to do here, but simply to point out that many people will invest in a tracker because they don't want to bet on a single stock. But investing most of one's money in the FTSE is a bet on a single country. It's fine if that's what you want, of course.

[shelivesthedream]

Erm... tough question! If I did have to bet on a country in the world, I suppose it would be the UK because I live here and it seems stable and reasonably prosperous generally. It just seems like 'thing to do' - to track the market of whatever country you live in as a default. For some reason I perceive tracking the world as riskier - maybe because I feel like I know what the UK economy is doing at any given time but I don't know what's going on in the rest of the world. Also, a vague and probably unjustified sense that if the COL goes up in the UK our stock market probably will too, but that won't correlate with the rest of the world.

So in summary: Not sure!

[TenYearsOrLess]

I'm a complete beginner, and only have a small 'trial' amount invested while I pay off debt so take this with a pinch of salt but you might want to check out Vanguard LifeStrategy 100% equity accumulation fund through HL. Its a fund containing a multiple index funds that are re-balanced for you. It includes the UK FTSE all share but also US and emerging markets, ect.

The link is here if you're interested -  http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/v/vanguard-lifestrategy-100-equity-accumulation

[frugledoc]

If you are investing on the hargreaves lansdowne platform you will need to pay a platform fee of 0.45% per annum just for holding the vanguard fund.  If you buy the ETF you do not have to pay the platform fee.  Becomes more relevant for large amounts of money, depends how much you are investing.

You can buy vanguard funds direct from vanguard in the UK with no platform fee but minimum investment is 100k!

I don't think they actually do a ftse all share etf so you would need to buy the FTSE 100 ETF and FTSE 250 ETF.

[mohawkbrah]

i would rather go for a ftse 100 index fund instead of all shares. but thats just me