# Best Index Funds For Long Term: One ETF To Rule Them All (2026) ## Метаданные - **Канал:** PensionCraft - **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAA3fSUu9JQ - **Дата:** 22.04.2026 - **Длительность:** 12:25 - **Просмотры:** 60,758 ## Описание People are usually surprised to hear that my entire core stock portfolio is just plain global stock funds. Nothing else, no regional tilts, no sector bets. In this video I walk through the cheapest global funds available to UK investors right now, tell you which ones I actually hold and why, and at the end reveal a hidden cost that I think matters more than most of the fee differences we're about to compare. ✔️ If you want to learn more about investing, why not become a pensioncraft.com member? 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New users get a special 20% discount on the Premium plan when they use the promo code PENSIONCRAFT at https://bondfish.com/pensioncraft Timestamps 00:00 Introduction 00:34 Avoiding Fund Rabbit Holes 01:26 Five Things That Matter 03:18 Cheapest UK Global Funds 04:41 Do Index Differences Matter 06:41 My Funds and Rules 08:44 Hidden Withholding Tax 09:55 Synthetic ETFs Trade Offs 11:03 Wrap Up and Next Steps Where Else You Can Find Me 🌐 Website - https://pensioncraft.com/ 📱 Twitter - https://twitter.com/PensionCraft 👨 Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pensioncraft/ 🔗 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/pensioncraft Take A Look At Some Of My Other Videos 📹 Investment For Beginners playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlqeAQqQK7TcG9QNlRJ_QjI8iX_q_I8jo 📹 Investing For Retirement playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlqeAQqQK7TcWFuRd51gkPyAGleZRvGcN 📹Investing With Vanguard playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlqeAQqQK7TfMV4S_51E_zmbMio4UNBtM 📹 Portfolio Building Blocks playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlqeAQqQK7TdRdp-hLnL5oxsaRjJZVSyn DISCLAIMER All information is given for educational purposes and is not financial advice. Ramin does not provide recommendations and is not responsible for investment actions taken by viewers. Figures that are quoted refer to the past and past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. If you need financial advice, Unbiased, the UK’s leading online directory of financial advisers, can connect you to an Independent financial advisor for free. Additionally if you use our link to register with Unbiased, your first consultation with a financial adviser is free. https://imp.i337888.net/c/4012142/1936845/11746 (This link provides you with a special offer and we will also earn a small commission) ## Содержание ### [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAA3fSUu9JQ) Introduction People are usually surprised to hear that my entire core stock portfolio is just plain global stock funds. Nothing else. No regional tilts, no sector bets. So, in this video, we'll look at the cheapest global funds available to UK investors right now. I'll tell you which ones I hold and why. And at the end, I'll show you a hidden fee that I think matters more than most of the fee differences that we're about to compare. Now, if you've ever spent the evening comparing global funds, you'll know how quickly it turns into a rabbit hole. ### [0:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAA3fSUu9JQ&t=34s) Avoiding Fund Rabbit Holes There are dozens of them, and the fees all look quite similar. They seem to track more or less the same things. And the result is you either freeze and you don't invest at all, or you end up owning three or four overlapping funds that all hold the same Nvidia, Apple, and Microsoft at the top. In other words, the choice matters a lot less than people assume. And that's because these funds are almost interchangeable. Now, let me show you why. Stocks have beaten bonds and cash over the long run in every country with a continuous record going back to 1900. So, if you're in this for the long haul, then the real question isn't whether to own a global stock fund, it's which one. Now, let's turn to what actually matters when you're choosing between these ### [1:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAA3fSUu9JQ&t=86s) Five Things That Matter funds. And I think there are really just five things, and everything else is probably just noise. The first is currency. Your global fund holds stocks in lots of different currencies, but over long holding periods, currency risk largely washes out for equities. It can add a few percentage points to volatility, but over decades, that's fairly manageable. Another consideration is accumulation versus income. An accumulating fund rolls up the dividends automatically. And for most people in an individual savings account or a self-invested personal pension, that's simpler. And that's because you don't have to reinvest those dividends. A third point is emerging markets. The Footsie All World Index has about 4,300 stocks in it and that includes emerging market stocks, but the Msei World, notice it's got no all country in that phrase, only covers developed markets. So, if you want emerging market stocks in your fund, check the index name very carefully. Then there's exchangeraded funds, ETFs, versus open-ended investment companies, OEIC or OI, or alternatively we call those funds. Now, for most people, I don't think it makes much difference which of those you choose. Certainly, if you're investing over the long term, but on some investment platforms, holding funds, OEIC's, is more expensive than holding ETFs. So that's worth checking on your platform before choosing one over another. And then finally, UK tax treatment, which inside an ISA or a SIP is largely a non-issue anyway. Everything else, well, I'd say it's noise. So let's look at the actual funds. If we look at our cheapest funds ### [3:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAA3fSUu9JQ&t=198s) Cheapest UK Global Funds tracker and this is one of the trackers that we maintain for our premium website members. You can see the options for UK investors sorted by their management fee. The ETFs have tickers on this list and the funds or os don't. So those are the blanks you can see in that column. At the top is a Mundy Prime All Country World and the fee there is just 07%. But here's a really important detail. That's a distributing fund. It pays out dividends rather than rolling them up. And the accumulation version of that fund only trades in euros on the German exchange, not in pounds on the London Stock Exchange. So the cheapest accumulating option in pounds is the SPDR or spider MSCI All Country World Index Aqu. That's got a fee of. 12%. Then you've got HSBC Footsie All World at. 13%, Invesco Footsie All World at. 15 and Vanguard's Footsie All World at. 19. In other words, the gap between the cheapest and the most expensive here is about. 16%. So if you've got £10,000 invested, that's £16 a year. Now that's real money but it's not going to make or break your retirement. Now these funds track ### [4:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAA3fSUu9JQ&t=281s) Do Index Differences Matter slightly different indices Footsie, MSCI and in the case of Amundi Selective. The natural question of course is whether that actually matters. If we look at the returns of four of these contenders since 2019. So that's a Spider Msei Aquif, the HSBC Footsie Allworld, Vanguard's Footsie All World, and Vanguard's Footsie Developed World Fund. You can see that they move almost in lock step. When one falls, they all fall. When one rises, they all rise. But what's interesting is that over this window, the three all world funds land within a tenth of a percent of each other. and the developed only fund is about 6/10en of a percent ahead. So even here across four funds covering three different indices and mixing in one that leaves out emerging markets entirely the annualized returns are within roughly half a percent of each other which is small compared to the size of annual market moves. That's why I wouldn't let the index name drive your decision. If you want small cap exposure as well, the Spider MCI Aqui Investable Market Index, the IMI version, tracks an index with over 8,000 stocks. But for most people, the large and midcap versions are perfectly fine. And this tracker is one of the things that we do for our premium website members. We keep it current. We run dozens of other trackers covering guilts, yields, and asset allocation. And there's a library of membersonly videos that go deeper than I can on YouTube. The whole idea is that the heavy lifting is done for you. So instead of spending your evenings reading fact sheets, you've got a clear answer. And I think more importantly, the confidence that you've made a sensible decision and you can compare notes with other investors. So which ### [6:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAA3fSUu9JQ&t=401s) My Funds and Rules ones do I own? Well, actually I own three different funds across two platforms. On my invest engine SIP, I hold the Spider Msei Aqui. The ticker there is ACWI and that trades on the London Stock Exchange and it's not the USlisted eyesshares fund with the same letters. So, make sure you don't make that mistake. It charges. 12% and it's the cheapest accumulating all world ETF that I can get in sterling on my invest engine is I hold the invesco footsie all world so the ticker for that is FWRG and the fee there is 0. 15% and on Vanguard which only allows you to own their own products I hold the Vanguard Footsie developed world ETF and the ticker there is VHVG and the fee is. 12% %. Now, that one doesn't include emerging markets, but EM is only about 10% of global market cap, so it's not a huge exclusion. VHVG is very low fee, and it's almost global. Not quite a global fund, but close enough for me. Three different funds, three different indices, three slightly different fees, and I don't lose sleep over any of it. And that's because the fee differences between them are absolutely tiny, well under a tenth of a percentage point, and they're all doing pretty much the same job in terms of risk and return. Now, the rule I follow personally is pretty simple. I just pick the cheapest accumulating sterling denominated allorlds fund which my platform offers. So if your platform does restrict what you can buy, maybe it's only the provider's own funds, just accept the tradeoff and move on. The important thing is that you've invested, not which specific global fund you've picked. But now let's talk about something that probably matters a lot more than these fee differences. And this is what I promised you at the start. Every ### [8:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAA3fSUu9JQ&t=524s) Hidden Withholding Tax physical ETF or fund that holds US stocks pays something called withholding tax and that's a tax on the dividends paid by the companies which are inside the fund. If the funds do in Ireland and most of the global ETFs you'll come across are then the US government takes 15% of each dividend before it reaches the fund. Now that's because of the tax treaty between the US and Ireland. Funds which are doiciled elsewhere in Europe like Luxembourg, they pay 30%. So the Irish doicile actually helps, but there's still a cost. And it's worthwhile doing the maths to see what the effect is. The S& P 500 currently yields roughly 1. 15%. So that's the dividend yield. And the US makes up about 61% of a typical global fund. So if 15% of those US dividends are taken in withholding tax, the drag on your fund works out to roughly. 1% a year. And what's interesting is that that's larger than most of the fee differences between the funds that we just compared. Now there's a way around this. Some ETFs use what's called a ### [9:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAA3fSUu9JQ&t=595s) Synthetic ETFs Trade Offs synthetic structure. They replicate the index using swap contracts instead of buying the stocks directly. And because of the way US tax law works, these swap-based funds can avoid the withholding tax entirely. For example, one of the Invesco S& P 500 ETFs uses this model. It charges 0. 5% in ongoing fees, but there's also a disclosed swap fee of 07%. So the total all-in cost is. 12%. Chris Miller at Invesco says that the swap model saves around 0. 05% a year compared to physical funds for their Msei World product. So the saving is real, but the swap counterparty takes a meaningful slice of returns. And there is a trade-off. You've got counterparty risk, and that's the risk that the bank providing the swap can't honor its obligations. Synthetic ETFs mitigate this by using multiple counterparties, but it is a genuine complexity to be aware of. It's not a free lunch. So, in ### [11:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAA3fSUu9JQ&t=663s) Wrap Up and Next Steps conclusion then, I think the fee differences between the main global trackers are real, but tiny up to about. 16%. And the withholding tax drag is probably a comparable number around. 1% for a physical fund. But the far bigger risk is spending months agonizing over which fund to pick and then not actually investing. And remember, stocks have beaten bonds and cash over the long run in every country with a continuous record going back to 1900. Personally, I hold three different global funds, and I think they're all fine. Pick one, stick with it, get your life back. And if you want us to do the heavy lifting for you, go to pensioncraft. com/membership to join our friendly community of premium website members. The links in the description below if you are interested in learning more about that. You'll get the cheapest funds tracker, which I showed you earlier, plus all our other tools and of course access to the community. But what is it that you use in your portfolio for your global equity exposure? Is it one of those funds, a combination of them, or maybe one I've missed out? Do tell me. And as always, thank you for listening. --- *Источник: https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/49259*