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Vanguard UK - new website layout

Index tracking funds and ETFs
NotSure
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Vanguard UK - new website layout

#486590

Postby NotSure » March 14th, 2022, 8:41 pm

I'm aware not many here have a Vanguard ISA (for good reason - but they are an extremely cheap option for me as I'm just starting, so fees are negligible even if I tinker a lot and buy several funds a month in small amounts).

Anyway, for anyone that does use them, what are your thoughts on the new website layout? I hate it. It's become an absolute chore to peruse their offerings and even basic info such as bond fund average yield to maturity/coupon are now missing. I fear than basic portfolio info on the equity funds will be next for the chop.

I have messaged them and received a prompt and polite reply, though of course the views of one very small investor will not change anything.

Does anyone else agree that the new website is a big step in the wrong direction?

Or should I just open a 'grown-up' account with someone else ;) I am happy with mainly passive equity index funds for now, though I also hold some Vanguard active funds. I do like to tune my weightings a bit though - e.g. I am currently overweight UK, especially higher yielders, and a bit underweight USA. But basic and cheap is what I need for now - hopefully in a few years, alternatives to VG will stack up for me. But for now, fees of barely £10/year including unlimited trading is rather appealing while I find my feet. (The bulk of my holdings are in company pension scheme and I get no choice of provider).

Hariseldon58
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Re: Vanguard UK - new website layout

#486600

Postby Hariseldon58 » March 14th, 2022, 9:38 pm

I must admit I quite like the new layout.

Depending on whether you are using a phone or a computer the layout is now effectively a set of tiles showing each fund. Click on full fund details for the one you are interested in, it shows a drop down showing “Overview” click and select from Distributions to see the yield, Portfolio Details is my usual choice to see the companies in an index, the spread of industries , the p/e etc

Nothing wrong with Vanguard, their products or their ISA

I would consider whether chopping and changing your portfolio on a regular basis is a good idea ?

Yes you can do it cheaply but it doesn’t help as an investor to do so, trading is a difficult game and very unlikely to be profitable. I understand the desire to try and respond to events, I have done so over the last 30 odd years I have been investing and I have made some good , profitable strategic changes but also I have made errors, things haven’t turned out as I had hoped. On balance doing nothing and keeping costs very low would have done just fine !

There is a lot to be said for regular investing , month in, month out, keeping your portfolio diversified as widely as possible and doing nothing. If your investing for the long term then a strong equity bias is likely to be helpful.

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Re: Vanguard UK - new website layout

#486606

Postby mc2fool » March 14th, 2022, 10:27 pm

Yuk. Don't like the tiles. Another case of the "phone-ification" of websites, even when viewed on a PC. Bring back the tabular lists. :evil:

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Re: Vanguard UK - new website layout

#486611

Postby hiriskpaul » March 14th, 2022, 10:38 pm

I don't know about the ISA, but I look after a Vanguard SIPP for a relative. As far as I can tell nothing has changed, so perhaps the ISA is being brought into line with the SIPP? Not sure what the "tiles" are though.

The web site seems fine to me. £240 pm goes in, I log in every month and invest any cash into ETFs, VEVE/VFEM, keeping them balanced 9:1. I quite like the charts with the green blobs showing investments. Completely pointless, but pretty. Charges are paid by direct debit instead of from the account, which works well. For a small SIPP the charges are unbeatable.

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Re: Vanguard UK - new website layout

#486616

Postby mc2fool » March 14th, 2022, 10:51 pm

hiriskpaul wrote:Not sure what the "tiles" are though.

Here: https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/what-we-offer/all-products

Used to look like: https://web.archive.org/web/20210904101838/https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/what-we-offer/all-products -- note the Overview/Detailed switch.

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Re: Vanguard UK - new website layout

#486671

Postby hiriskpaul » March 15th, 2022, 10:00 am

I see what you mean now. The SIPP fund selection screen looks different again, but closer to the old non-tiled screen, so maybe it will be getting a makeover soon as well. Seems to be very wasteful of screen realestate.

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Re: Vanguard UK - new website layout

#486672

Postby NotSure » March 15th, 2022, 10:12 am

Hariseldon58 wrote:I must admit I quite like the new layout.

Depending on whether you are using a phone or a computer the layout is now effectively a set of tiles showing each fund. Click on full fund details for the one you are interested in, it shows a drop down showing “Overview” click and select from Distributions to see the yield, Portfolio Details is my usual choice to see the companies in an index, the spread of industries , the p/e etc

Nothing wrong with Vanguard, their products or their ISA

I would consider whether chopping and changing your portfolio on a regular basis is a good idea ?

Yes you can do it cheaply but it doesn’t help as an investor to do so, trading is a difficult game and very unlikely to be profitable. I understand the desire to try and respond to events, I have done so over the last 30 odd years I have been investing and I have made some good , profitable strategic changes but also I have made errors, things haven’t turned out as I had hoped. On balance doing nothing and keeping costs very low would have done just fine !

There is a lot to be said for regular investing , month in, month out, keeping your portfolio diversified as widely as possible and doing nothing. If your investing for the long term then a strong equity bias is likely to be helpful.


OK, so the new layout has received mixed reviews. My request to Vanguard was simply that they added an option to switch between views.

Regarding 'tinkering', you are correct IMHO. But I started as an absolute beginner. Initially I just had LifeStrategy, then I started region picking (stamp collecting). Now I have evolved back towards a fairly simple portfolio - Dev World ex-UK as core, a bit of EM separately - this is cheaper than a truly global fund and allows me to control the percentage. Some small cap, again separate to core as cheaper than All Cap and allows control. Plus a bit of FTSE250 and UK Income fund, because they look really cheap and maybe a bit defensive, and I cannot resist a bit of value ;) (hence ex-UK for the core global fund) Finally a bit of Global income to slightly dilute the tech weighting - I want a good lump of US tech, but the global fund is very heavily weighted to this. Going forward, I'll just add to these to reach my current target weights, and adjust these wights as and when my take on the outlook changes. This 'learning process' would have cost a fortune on most platforms (in percentage terms) plus on Vanguard I can split my monthly and lump sum contributions if I wish, at zero cost. For a small value portfolio for someone happy with VGs range of options, it is ridiculously cheap.

Maybe now I have (hopefully) settled on what passes for a strategy, the new layout won't bother me as I'll be a bit more mechanical. Or better still, they'll add the option to switch views so everyone would be happy.

Thanks to all for the replies.

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Re: Vanguard UK - new website layout

#486676

Postby xxd09 » March 15th, 2022, 10:33 am

Been a Vanguard investor for many years with funds bought way back when and still held !
I notice that the same funds are still in place and available on new website but with different ISIN letters and numbers ie different ISIN designations
Reason for this?
Ireland domicile of original funds?
xxd09

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Re: Vanguard UK - new website layout

#486678

Postby hiriskpaul » March 15th, 2022, 10:53 am

The costs and charges sheet is interesting. Here is the latest one:

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/cont ... harges.pdf

The first 2 letters of the ISIN indicates the domicile.

Some of the funds have high transaction costs, notably the FTSE 250 ETF, where the transaction costs of 0.20% are nearly double the OCF. Anything "Sustainable" or ESG tends to have higher transaction costs as well, as does hedging in the bond funds.

Someone was asking about VHYL on another board. OCF + transaction costs for that come to 0.38%. That compares with 0.25% for VWRL, or a 9:1 mix of VEVE and VFEM of only 0.16%. You can pay a lot for filtering!

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Re: Vanguard UK - new website layout

#486717

Postby xxd09 » March 15th, 2022, 12:42 pm

Yes I noticed my Global Bond Index Fund hedged to the Pound has had a costs increase
Getting expensive again out there!
xxd09

NotSure
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Re: Vanguard UK - new website layout

#486738

Postby NotSure » March 15th, 2022, 2:48 pm

Just FYI, I have to say that VG have been very responsive to my messages - real and prompt replies from a human going into some detail. I won't bother them again, but their latest reply concluded:

...I hope this makes sense and helps you and again I apologise for any inconvenience this new layout has caused. Our team are in discussion at this moment in trying to amend the website layout to cover the feedback we have received in regard to this...

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Re: Vanguard UK - new website layout

#486780

Postby GeoffF100 » March 15th, 2022, 8:11 pm

I agree that the changes to the public site are not all good. As has been noted, helpful information about the bond funds has been removed, which is not good, and the tiles are much less helpful than a simple list with headings and subheadings. On the plus side, it is now possible to cut and paste from the site.

I logged into my account to see if anything had changed there. I did not see anything obvious in the layout, which has never been great. It is OK once you get used to it, provided you maximise the window, but I tore my hair out initially.

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Re: Vanguard UK - new website layout

#487504

Postby NotSure » March 18th, 2022, 6:04 pm

What is quite annoying is that the German VG website is far better than the new UK one!

Link to a bond fund below as the contrast is particularly stark for these, but the equity funds are also far better laid out than UK IMHO

https://www.vanguardinvestments.dk/portal/instl/dk/en/product.html#/fundDetail/etf/portId=9600/assetCode=bond/?overview

I wonder how long it will be before the Germain site gets the same "improvements" as the UK? I'm guessing VG is just trying to phone friendly?

Edit - the site is Danish, not German.

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Re: Vanguard UK - new website layout

#487509

Postby GeoffF100 » March 18th, 2022, 6:20 pm

Yes, that is much better. The site has a more grown up look to it too.

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Re: Vanguard UK - new website layout

#487776

Postby NotSure » March 20th, 2022, 11:28 am

GeoffF100 wrote:Yes, that is much better. The site has a more grown up look to it too.


I think the Danish site was the "professional" version.

Looks like UK also has an equivalent, with all the useful info included e.g.:

https://www.vanguard.co.uk/professional/product

https://www.vanguard.co.uk/professional/product/etf/bond/9591/eur-eurozone-government-bond-ucits-etf-eur-accumulating

https://www.vanguard.co.uk/professional/product/fund/equity/9526/esg-developed-world-all-cap-equity-index-fund-uk-gbp-acc

It's harder to navigate than "junior" website - has each fund in various currencies etc. but is at least a much better source of info.


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