Hi all, trying the wisdom of FT crowd here to see what people suggest to this question
My portfolio is fairly balanced between stocks, bonds, bit of gold, small bit of bitcoin, geographically well diversified between us/world/eu/emerging, mostly in ETFs/Trusts with a small part of single stocks picks. I do have a preference towards tech/cutting edge/disruptive, so I wouldn’t mind rebalancing as well some sectors.
I always keep an eye with my Morninstar x-ray analysis keeping things in check.
Overall though it became biased over time towards growth/large cap, and I’d like to balance a bit (I’d say towards value/small cap).
What are in your opinion the best ETFs/Trusts available on FT that could help rebalancing these things? I’m going to add all your suggestions to my Watchlist and analyse each of them (if they’re not there already!)
WLDS is the Global small cap, but it is a relatively new ETF so a bit tricky to judge how it performs in general.
iWVF is world value factor, generally hasn’t put out decent enough returns IMO to warrant it, but in this day and age with value becoming fashionable in this moment, who knows?
There’s others if you look on the FreeTrade ETF list on the main page of the site, just screen it by stock ETF and you’ll have the full list you can browse on PC.
Yeah WLDS is in my bookmarks since some time, as it is IWVF, but on both I have the same reserves as you have.
I’m not too much into what’s trending, more really a long term rebalancing. I somehow find FT still lacks lots of ‘diverse’ ETFs I see often in Morningstar (that is usually less ‘tech/trend’ oriented and more classic investments oriented, that I’d like to see more on FT).
Unfortunately there’s no sterling denominated small cap value ETF. I would agree that this factor might do well in a recovery. Small cap on its own as a factor has more of a growth tilt.
My diversification away from growth is through Financials, Industrials and Materials because I believe there’s alot of crap in Value ETFs which won’t ever recover. So here are some options:
US financials UIFS is probably the best value play in my opinion as banks will benefit from a steepening yield curve. (Although it is large cap)
For Plus members there is
Polar Capital Global Financials for global financial exposure
MSCI US banks XUFB for the pure US banks exposure.
In the materials sector you can expect it to benefit from inflation and huge government infrastructure spending.
IMSU is the ETF for US exposure where you can expect alot of stimulus to drive recovery.
Industrial metals will do well and you can look at Blackrock world mining trust BRWM for a diversified metals exposure.
There are also several income orientated Trusts you could consider if you don’t want to bother picking sectors: AVI global (super expensive), Murray International, SAINTS to name a few. As always check fees, discount Vs long term and return Vs FTSE World. Ultimately if they’re not outperforming then it’s best to stick to Low cost Index trackers
Thanks you for the excellent detailed reply. Indeed Financials (as well as Properties) are two sectors I was looking at, but indeed I wanted to check if there’s some more ‘generic’ or ‘sector agnostic’ approach.
Polar Capital was on my radar some time ago, so I’ll definitely have another look at it.
Actually Income trusts are a good option, more near what I had in mind. I’ll do another round on these.
I thought that probably I’m not the only one in this situation after 2020 so this could be an interesting topic for other investors trying to have a look at their portfolio and check that’s fitting their expectations.
Sorry I am new to this so don’t have an answer, but I do have a question sorry!
The Morningstar x-ray analysis… Do you pay the subscription for that? If so, would you recommend? I am looking for a portfolio analysis tool but have hot a brick wall…
Personally I think it’s super useful…what I do at the moment is I pay Morningstar US, so I get covered with all the US stuff, and then you can write to Morningstar UK and you pay the UK half price.
