How we think about funds at Freetrade šŸ„ššŸ„ššŸ„š

Funds are one of the most important asset classes to get to grips with when you start investing. The available funds on Freetrade are a common topic in the community.

So we wanted to give some insight on how we think about funds at Freetrade and why we feature only exchange traded funds and assets.

Back to basics: whatā€™s a fund

A fund is a type of investment company that buys a bunch of assets and packages them up for investors to buy in one holding. They help investors build diversified portfolios without having to individually select 10s, 100s or even 1000s of stocks or assets. In return, the fund will charge some kind of fee on the money invested.

For retail investors, there are three major types of fund:

  • Exchange traded funds/ETFs (on Freetrade)
  • Investment trusts (on Freetrade)
  • Mutual funds/open-ended investment companies (not on Freetrade)

There are more variations (hedge funds, venture capital funds, real estate trusts etc). But these three are the most relevant and common for retail investors.

Note that a fundā€™s type (whether itā€™s an ETF or a mutual fund etc) does not determine its strategy (how the fund invests).

There are lots of strategies a fund can pursue but the two big camps that encompass them all are passive and active management.

Passive funds track the performance of an index of assets like the FTSE 100 or S&P 500. Theyā€™re often called index funds or tracker funds. Instead of looking for outperformance, theyā€™re trying to deliver the exact return of an index. If the index as a whole grows, then the fund should have positive returns. :heart:

Actively managed funds invest with a particular style or judgement to try to outperform the broader market. An active manager investing in stocks will usually try to find companies they believe will grow faster than others.

The different fund types arenā€™t bound to follow a particular strategy. Both mutual funds and ETFs can index track. Many mutual funds are active, but there are also some active ETFs too. Generally though, an ETF is more likely to be a passive index tracker.

Letā€™s have a quick runthrough of the types of fund.

Mutual funds/open-ended investment companies

  • Not traded on a stock exchange
  • Can only be bought and sold once a day
  • Open-ended - the fund can create new shares and accept new investment
  • Share price determined by value of underlying investments
  • Passive or active
  • Not on Freetrade

This is one of the oldest types of fund and a mainstay of traditional UK stockbrokers.

Technically, mutual funds are actually a US concept. In the UK, the equivalent type of fund is called an ā€˜open-ended investment companyā€™ or OEIC. But almost everyone calls them mutual funds anyway, so thatā€™s the term weā€™ll use.

(To be very thorough, there are also similar funds in the UK called unit trusts. Overall theyā€™re very close to OEICs but have some differences in terms of structure.)

Anyway, the phrase ā€˜open-endedā€™ means that OEICs can create (and destroy) new shares in the fund at will.

Itā€™s a very simple structure:

  • The fund managers decides an investment strategy
  • A customer put Ā£100 into the fund
  • The managers creates Ā£100 worth of new shares in the fund and gives them to the customer
  • The cash is used to buy Ā£100 worth of investments based on the strategy
  • If the customer wants to sell Ā£100 of the fund, the fund sells Ā£100 worth of its investments, destroys the customersā€™ shares and gives them Ā£100 back

To buy or sell a mutual fund, customers put an instruction to their broker and the broker passes it onto the fund. Customers can also go directly to the fund themselves. The fund values its holdings and executes buys or sells into the fund once a day.

Because the value of the fund can vary between the time you place the instruction and when the manager puts a buy or sell through, you donā€™t necessarily know what exact price youā€™re going to get.

As we say, itā€™s a simple set-up, but potentially a bit clunky and inefficient. Itā€™s also arguably not too transparent for customers, because they donā€™t get that much visibility on prices and transactions. :eyes:

Investment trusts

  • Traded on a stock exchange
  • Can buy and sell throughout the day
  • Closed-ended - the fund has a set number of shares and a fixed amount of capital
  • Price based on demand and supply on the exchange
  • Always actively managed
  • On Freetrade

The trust is set up by creating a set number of shares and selling them to the public or institutions. The cash raised is used to go and buy a pot of investments. Then the trustā€™s shares can be bought or sold on a stock exchange.

A trust is called closed-ended because the number of shares and the capital raised to invest is set at the start. If someone wants to own a bit of a trust, they have to buy shares from someone else who already owns them. The amount of money invested by the trust stays exactly the same.

Thatā€™s getting more efficient than a mutual fund, because investors can move in and out of the fund, without a mutual fundā€™s need to keep buying and selling new investments each time. This could mean a potential cost saving for the trust.

However, because there are only a set number of shares, trusts arenā€™t that good at tracking assets extremely closely. If investors get very enthusiastic about the trust and drive up demand for the limited number of shares, the overall value of the trust can rise above the value of all its investments, called the net asset value or NAV.

Likewise if investors get cold feet, the trust can get a discount to the NAV and be worth less than the investments it holds.

ETFs

  • Traded on a stock exchange
  • Can buy and sell throughout the day
  • Open-ended - the fund can create new shares and accept new investment
  • Passive or active - but more likely passive
  • On Freetrade

ETFs are a relatively recent invention. Theyā€™re often created as passive index trackers and when financial media talks about ETFs, they usually mean passive funds. But they donā€™t have to be.

ETFs are built to trade on an exchange and give investors near-instant liquidity. However, as weā€™ve seen with trusts when a fund trades on the constantly fluctuating stock market, itā€™s very difficult to keep the fundā€™s value the same as the underlying investments.

But ETFs have a clever mechanism to let them:

  • Be exchange traded
  • Have a flexible open-ended structure
  • Track their assets very closely.

Weā€™ll have a deeper dive post on how ETFs actually work soon!

Why we offer exchange traded funds (and trusts) and not mutual funds

On Freetrade, we offer funds that trade on a stock exchange: ETFs and Investment Trusts. Despite lots of presence and variety in the UK, we donā€™t feature mutual funds. The rundown above should give you some hints why!

ETFs are more innovative, flexible vehicles: they give investors the ability to track huge indexes or asset classes, with transparent prices and liquidity throughout the day.

We also offer trusts to give our customers the choice to invest in an active manager, as well as the opportunity to access certain asset classes (private equity, renewable energy) that are covered by trusts in the UK. We hope that over time that weā€™ll see more active ETFs in Europe and the UK too so we can offer even more choice.

We donā€™t offer mutual funds/OEICs. Fundamentally, we donā€™t think they offer customers enough transparency or control over their investments.

Hereā€™s a breakdown of different fund types:

And a breakdown of passive vs active strategy:

Overall, the main factor for fees seems to be whether the fund is active or passive, along with the preference of the particular fund provider. You pay more for active management, less for passive.

When it comes to fees, ETFs tend to be lower because theyā€™re more likely to be passive. We know there are also some mutual funds that do have low fees though.

However, mutual fundsā€™ overall lack of transparency and customer control mean that as a category they just arenā€™t right for Freetrade.

We believe with ETFs our customers can build fully diversified portfolios, with generally as low or lower fees and more control over their investments.

So thatā€™s our take on funds here at Freetrade. As always, this is not financial advice. :pray:


Freetrade does not provide investment advice and individual investors should make their own decisions or seek independent advice. The value of investments can go up as well as down and you may receive back less than your original investment. Tax laws are subject to change and may vary in how they apply depending on the circumstances.

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16 Likes

This is a great summary. Thank you.

I think Freetrade is missing a trick by not including mutual funds in itā€™s line up of investments. Mutual funds offer investors a huge amount of choice that will never be fulfilled by ETFs and Trusts. I think mutual funds could be a significant point of differentiation relative to the many ā€˜freeā€™ share trading platforms out there now or launching imminently. It also adds a different revenue stream from pure trading activity. And finally Freetrade could add some technology and lower fees to an antiquated process: for example just displaying to the client when funds will be taken from your account, what date the mutual fund is purchased and at what price would add transparency relative to Hargreaves Lansdown or AJ Bell.

My guess is customers might use Freetrade to dabble in some share trading because of the low fee structure but the real weight of assets (and revenue) will be kept in legacy stockbrokers where they have long term mutual fund holdings. This is what I have had to do because of the lack of mutual fund offering from Freetrade.

Regarding the lack of transparency and control comment in this article: For some elements of transparency you can usually access the top 10 holdings of mutual funds and manager fact sheets to understand what the strategy is all about. And get comfortable with the philosophy, process and style. BTW the same problem exists for many Trusts and ETFs as well. For control - sure you cannot execute a trade at any time of day like ETFs or stocks, but you have total control to buy and sell the investment - in other words no one is taking control away from you. These are long term investments and so one should not be too concerned about trading them throughout the day.

11 Likes

Have to agree that itā€™s disappointing to not include mutual funds. For the major markets, passive instruments (ETFs) should suffice. For less efficient markets, active management may be preferred and thereā€™s a limited range of investment trusts for this purposeā€¦

For all but the shortest term investors, Iā€™d suggest active funds would be a very helpful addition for less efficient markets - I know set up would be far from straightforward though!

4 Likes

I can already buy and sell my OEICs/funds for free with HL but I canā€™t do the same with my ETFs, ITs or individual shares.

Far from missing a trick, Freetrade is offering me something different for my portfolio.

Sure, I might dabble in a bit of share trading, but Iā€™ll be attempting to fill my ISA with Freetrade this year with ETFs and ITs.

4 Likes

winnie sums it up nicely. While more of my current money is going into freetrade than other platforms right now it will never replace them unless ETFs become more varied and with lower TERs. Some of my index funds have lower TERs than the ETF equivalents here. I like Fundsmith and Lindsell Train Global too as do many others (Ā£17.5bn and Ā£8bn under management)

Even a small number could attract a lot of investment and could even be marketed like ā€œFTs Top 20 OIECsā€ (just taking the 20 most invested by UK investors)

4 Likes

They have the largest fee out there though? 0.45% or so? If you will split your portfolio between ETFs on freetrade and OEICs elsewhere then you can find cheaper for the latter

Iā€™m happy to leave my OEICs/funds with HL for now (Fundsmith and VLS80%) despite the fees.

At some point, I may consider transferring but thatā€™s not a priority right now for me.

Iā€™d like to transfer my SIPP from HL to Vanguard when possible ( Target Retirement ) however Iā€™m happy to keep my ISA funds there in the interim.

1 Like

How do Vanguardā€™s SIPP fees for drawdown compare to HLā€™s, @Jim_mcgrain ?

Mike at 7 Circles once did a comparison which included AJ Bell and HL and he found the latter to be cheaper when it was time to convert the SIPP to flexi/drawdown.

I donā€™t think anyone knows what the Vanguard SIPP fee will be.

In the mean time, you can do more or less the same with Target Retirement via Cavendish/Fundsnetwork, aka the Fidelity platform on the cheap

Hi Toby,

Thanks for the detailed post. Why donā€™t you offer mutual funds and let investors decide whether they want to invest. Iā€™ve invested in Sirius minerals on the Freetrade platform, which is arguably magnitudes more risky than my Lifestrategy fund with Vanguard.

Is it mainly a cost and administrative argument that prevents Freetrade from adding these funds? I really think this would be a great offering to include, as have most users also stated above. For myself and likely a large proporion of other users, the lack of funds is a barrier to having a complete investment portfolio within FT.

Regards

3 Likes

I guess part of the problem is they canā€™t provide free/paid alternatives like with ETFs. With an ETF you can say ā€œbuy nowā€ to gurantee a price but it sounds like mutual funds are all purchased at end of day/same price?

Theyā€™d basically have to make a decision that theyā€™ll include mutual funds as a loss leader so people bring over all their investments & hopefully move some to ETFs

Agree with this, funds just donā€™t fit in with the Freetrade pricing model.

As funds can only be traded once per day (at the end of the day), they would just fall into the free category, no one would ever pay Ā£1 to sell or buy their funds since it is not possible to execute the trade instantly.

I guess they could add a small fee for all funds as standard?

But I take your point that it wouldnt fit with the Freetrade ethos

Then theyā€™d need to buy the smallfeetrade.io domain :stuck_out_tongue:

3 Likes

I agree but normal shares would still be free to buy

I got the sense from the ā€œmost popular buys this weekā€ posts that people are buying stocks more than etfs, so maybe funds wouldnā€™t be too impactful, dunno. (Personally Iā€™d like to see funds, or at least asset managers making etf versions of their funds :slight_smile:

Lifestrategy :+1:

4 Likes

+1 for a Lifestrategy ETF! :grinning:

4 Likes

+1 for Lifestrategyā€¦

4 Likes

The main difference between lifestrategy 100% and the Vanguard all world Equity ETF is lifestrategy is overweight with UK equity. You can more or less duplicate any lifestrategy with bond and equity ETFs.

Personally, I think UT/OEIC are too much of a call to the past. If Freetrade offered them they would end up looking like every other do it yourself platform.

Possibly when Freetrade is well established and saturated itself it should offer a narrow range of multi-asset mutual funds to broaden itā€™s market but thatā€™s a long way off. Personally, I think share and ETF model portfolios with auto-rebalancing should come before then.