EthicsGradient wrote:But the problem, for most, is that while the "equal-weight-and-leave-alone" strategy may do well (since it doesn't waste money in the churn of rebalancing), you can't do it by buying a tracker (since that will rebalance), and to diversify "widely enough", you need to buy a lot of individual shares at the start - which may be inefficient in terms of fees, unless you have a very big lump sum to invest. If you want to invest regularly, it doesn't really help at all - perhaps then your strategy could be "buy the same pound amount, of the next-biggest share you currently don't own". Or should you look at sectors, and make sure you're well spread between them? Or, if buying globally, well spread by country?
Yes, you need to buy enough shares such that you can be confident of capturing some big winners. Probably 50-60 would be my estimate, ensuring good sectoral diversification. To keep dealing charges low these would need to be in blocks of at least £1500 so, yes again, you are looking at a substantial sum of money for this kind of investment approach.
Within reason I don't think it matters whether this is done in one lump sum or over time. Both ways you end up with the required portfolio. You just need to accept the 'over time' approach will likely experience more volatility until the final portfolio is reached.
BoE