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VAS - Vanguard Australian Shares Index ETF

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I did consider the total return position at one stage with a view to selling down over time due to the favourable CG aspect but went for moderate growth plus income. Prefer to buy my groceries with the cash in bank rather than worrying about which tranche of 5 units I'd need to sell. . I have avoided those products which generate a high yield by returning a large proportion of capital.

When I first started investing there wasn't much I could find listed which gave international exposure. Sure there were unlisted funds but I got burnt with them so after extracting myself from them stuck to LICs. Now, since I have a bucket load in LICs and in VAS, while I still invest in VAS and sometimes in LICs, a large portion of my funds are directed towards VGS which in itself has a large exposure to the US with which I am comfortable. Emerging markets would have been a possibility in the past but not for me now with the greater associated risk (as defined by me for me. )

But as you imply it's an individual thing.

Generally I feel if investors stick to broad based, relatively low cost entities and not jump for what may appear the "next best thing" as some apparently do, while they may not shoot the lights out they won't go far wrong either.
 
i am VERY CAREFULLY trying to increase my exposure to India , that is currently via 2 LICs ( PAI and EAI ) and one ETF ( IIND ) and also hold ASIA , but crikey India is a tough place to research

but mostly focused on Australia and NZ ( and a much lesser extent to PNG )

but looks like a time to be careful ( but not paralyzed with fear )
 

that's fair enough, there's definitely a big drawcard to having the funds just appear in your account automatically, ready to be spent on living life. i'm still willing to go thru the hassle of selling units to raise cash as necessary though, i like the tax flexibility of being able to sell just enough units to suit the situation i'm in eg. being able to stop on a dime right before my trust beneficiaries creep into the next bracket, and get the 50% CGT discount on those units.

the other reason i'm not so keen on yield is that companies with a high payout ratio aren't reinvesting their profits to fuel their own growth. if a company is capable of a 20%+ ROE, i don't want them paying me a dividend, i'd rather they keep it and pump it back into growing their own business. of course nothing's ever guaranteed, but this should in theory generate better total return in the form of capital growth over the long term. investors in many developed nations, particularly the US, adopt this philosophy. but for some reason Aust investors in general are fixated on yield over total return (maybe it's the franking credit effect, i'm not sure).
 
Sharkman said:
the other reason i'm not so keen on yield is that companies with a high payout ratio aren't reinvesting their profits to fuel their own growth.
Click to expand...

It's an interesting point. I don't know the payout ratio of individual companies in Australia although I was informed Macquarie's latest was below 60%. I do know that presently the ratio for the LICs I hold are above 100% due to using some reserves but LICs are a different beast so really not a comparison.

It's a fine balancing act I think for companies and sometimes too much cash goes to their head so they back up the B-Double and shovel the money into a furnace on some hair-brained scheme (Bunnings' O/S adventure, Woolworths & Masters, BHP & Magna.). In those cases I feel shareholders would have preferred to get the cash.

And of course you are in a different situation than I as I don't have a discretionary or family trust in operation and therefore no trust beneficiaries. I simply give my kids cash once in a while so it's tax-free in their hands. Hey, they're going to get the lot eventually so they may as well have some of it now.
 

yeah there's going to be a few cases of that across the broader market, and it sure doesn't feel great when you've directly invested in a company that fritters away capital like that (i got burned a bit by the Masters fiasco myself, i bought some WOW back in the early 2000s as a buy & hold position when i first started working, before i set up my trust, got into options trading and well before i switched to index investing).

but if investing in an entire index, i don't think it has that much of an impact, the weighting of such companies shrinks over time as a result of their misadventures, and the fund should end up buying more and more of the companies who continue to reinvest their profits well and produce better and better products, so it works itself out in the long run.

behemoths like Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia etc. probably don't become what they are today if they'd paid out a 5% dividend instead of paying the zero or sub-1% that they did, and retaining the rest to ensure they had the capital to fund product R&D. closer to home i guess our closest equivalent would be CSL, which also pays a yield of around 1%, and has done for many years.
 
Yes, the home country bias. The concept has been around for a long time. Here is a recent blog opinion on the subject; there are many more.

Home Country Bias Investing And Why It Can Be A Big Problem

All of us are patriots to some degree. However, it's good to beware of home country bias to protect ourselves from unexpected risk. Home country bias refers to investors' tendency to favor companies from their own country over those from other countries or regions. After all, it's usually better...
www.financialsamurai.com
 
i would counter that with Buffet's ' invest in what you understand '

yes i have some international ( focus ) exposure ( although ASX listed ) VUK and JHG and a lesser extent PDL for the UK , a collection of NZ based companies , KSL for PNG a few LICs and ETFs that invest in Asia , ZIM operating in Africa , but i am looking at the geopolitics and am not seeing a compelling picture the go into distant shores , add FX rate risk , i am very wary

maybe after the war ( that is coming )
 
VAS has announced an estimated distribution of $0.746624 for the December quarter. PCP was $0.696.
 
The share registry for Vanguard is starting to get its act together. If holding say VGS & VAS, both are included on one distribution statement although that statement is in each folder for VAS & VGS.

Funds should hit my accounts cleared and available around mid-morning.
 
Vanguard advises estimated distribution for VAS is $0.576988 (pcp $1.9985.) Payable 20 April.
 
reduced my holding yesterday

i see dividends ( in the share portfolio ) being under pressure ( in general not every company )
 
Belli said:
That's going to be interesting for the June distribution.

View attachment 156552
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well the passive index funds should all benefit , where things should differ are the various 'high yield ' ETFs , the 'high yield' strategies varied quite a bit

don't ignore the impact of BKL if that take-over crosses the line in time for the June distribution , although some ETFs might be crystallizing a loss on BKL , if they bought in late in the initial big spike a few years back
 
That is a dumb statement which displays your ignorance of how indexing actually works.
 
Vanguard Investments Australia Ltd announces the following management fee change effective 3 July
2023: Vanguard Australian Shares Index ETF
ETF ASX CODE Current % p.a. New % p.a. Effective from
VAS 0.10% 0.07% 3 July 2023
Why has Vanguard made this change?
At Vanguard we periodically review the pricing of our funds and, as part of our ongoing commitment to
investors, we aim to pass on any savings to investors where possible.
Following our latest review, we are pleased to announce a fee reduction for our flagship Vanguard
Australian Shares Index ETF (ASX: VAS) effective 3 July 2023.
Further Information
If you have any queries on Vanguard ETFs, please visit vanguard.com.au

DYOR

i hold VAS ( basically my DRP shares left running , and still participating in the DRP , but maybe not forever )
 
That’s good ??
 
A200 (Betashares) recently dropped their MER from 0.07% to 0.04%. Vanguard probably felt they had to do something to remain competitive.

I don't think it costs that much to run an index fund TBH, there's no discretionary decision making involved once it's all up and running. By up and running I mean building a proprietary system that continually monitors the weights of the fund's underlying holdings vs the weights of the index, and when they diverge past a certain tolerance that can be set by the fund's managers, the computer goes and starts buying or selling the stock in question, possibly using some sort of accumulate/distribute algo to drip feed it in/out in small lots to avoid moving the market too much, until the divergence between fund weight/index weight is within tolerance again.

At least that's how I'd imagine index funds generally operate, in a mostly automated fashion with the computer doing most of the work, the fund managers just need to keep an eye on it and intervene if necessary. As opposed to a discretionary fund where they need to employ a bunch of analysts to research numerous companies, managers to ponder over the reports and make decisions, and they'd still need to pay ongoing operational costs for running computer systems etc. But I've never worked in that area before, so I wouldn't know how they're actually run.
 
VAS Portfolio Turnover 0.82%

A200 Portfolio Turnover 4.71%

STW Portfolio Turnover 2.46%

IOZ Portfolio Turnover 4.34%

some seem to be less 'passive' than others , ( i would have thought VAS would turn over more than the rivals with roughly 100 more stocks held )
 
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