Which Index Fund to Invest In?

[Buffett Jr]

With my kiwisaver being in Superlife, I get the choice of choosing to invest in index funds in NZ, AUS, USA, UK, World, Emerging Markets, etc.

Which to choose?

I've arranged mine 25% NZ, 25% AUS and 50% USA.

What are everyone else's thoughts? This applies to kiwisaver as well as other index fund investments.

[winner69]

With my kiwisaver being in Superlife, I get the choice of choosing to invest in index funds in NZ, AUS, USA, UK, World, Emerging Markets, etc.

Which to choose?

I've arranged mine 25% NZ, 25% AUS and 50% USA.

What are everyone else's thoughts? This applies to kiwisaver as well as other index fund investments.

Your father would be proud of you, except he says just the S&P but seeing you shfted to NZ you allowed to split it between here and there

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/war...nds-2014-03-13

[huxley]

With my kiwisaver being in Superlife, I get the choice of choosing to invest in index funds in NZ, AUS, USA, UK, World, Emerging Markets, etc.

Which to choose?

I've arranged mine 25% NZ, 25% AUS and 50% USA.

What are everyone else's thoughts? This applies to kiwisaver as well as other index fund investments.

I've been thinking about my superlife kiwisaver allocation since they launched the new ETF funds - so far happy to keep it the same. Currently my kiwisaver is

OS Shares (Unhedged) 94%
SuperLife<sup>Income 6% (bonds fund)

Super life member is 70/30 OSshares/AUS mid cap

(This is long haul money i.e. I'm not going to us it for a first home deposit etc</sup>

[johnluangco]

I personally have a mixture:
- ASB Kiwisaver Growth Fund which is an index fund
- Smart Share USF (S&P500) and FNZ
- Superlife 10% NZ and overseas bonds + 90% NZ, Overseas unhedged, Property and USF. (So far the overseas and USF has been performing poorly with negative returns. NZ stock seems to be going pretty strong.)

[Harvey Specter]

I personally have a mixture:
- ASB Kiwisaver Growth Fund which is an index fund
- Smart Share USF (S&P500) and FNZ
- Superlife 10% NZ and overseas bonds + 90% NZ, Overseas unhedged, Property and USF. (So far the overseas and USF has been performing poorly with negative returns. NZ stock seems to be going pretty strong.)

Why not go superlife for all of those - they do all of those.

[johnluangco]

Good point

I didn't want to put all my eggs in one basket and so put my kiwisaver with ASB.

As for Smart Shares I started to invest with them (via FNZ) before I started with Superlife. I did consider consolidating everything into Superlife, but the only thing stopping me at the moment is psychological.

When buying shares and ETFs, I can clearly see how many units I own in the register and so when the market price goes down, it has less of a psychological impact.

However with Superlife, I don't have visibility in how many units I have against each fund, the reports I can see only provide information on the market value of your investment. The one thing I've always wondered is how gains and losses are allocated to investors in a superlife fund.

[Dr Cone]

Hi Everyone

I've been researching the difference between Index funds and ETFs, as I would like to invest in index funds, as opposed to ETFs. However, it seems it is hard to invest in standard index funds, as ETFs seem to be all the rage. For example, I rang Superlife, and they only invest in ETFs.

Is anyone able to help with investing in standard index funds? I've listed the key differences between index funds and ETFs below:

Index
Mutual Fund
Dividends re-invested automatically
Sale once a day, based on NAV
Easier to regularly invest without paying a commission

ETF
Security bought and sold on an exchange
Dividends not re-invested automatically
Traded throughout the day
Trading commission paid each time one invests

Thanks.

[huxley]

Hi Everyone

I've been researching the difference between Index funds and ETFs, as I would like to invest in index funds, as opposed to ETFs. However, it seems it is hard to invest in standard index funds, as ETFs seem to be all the rage. For example, I rang Superlife, and they only invest in ETFs.

Is anyone able to help with investing in standard index funds? I've listed the key differences between index funds and ETFs below:

Index
Mutual Fund
Dividends re-invested automatically
Sale once a day, based on NAV
Easier to regularly invest without paying a commission

ETF
Security bought and sold on an exchange
Dividends not re-invested automatically
Traded throughout the day
Trading commission paid each time one invests

Thanks.

Superlife funds invest in the underlying ETFs (mostly NZX Smartshares) so you'll get most of the features you list under Index funds above (i.e. you can DCA into a Superlife fund without buying on market or paying any additional fees).

[Dr Cone]

Thanks for this.

There is an advantage of saving fees by purchasing through a provider, such as SuperLife.

The question is finding a provider than can purchase, how shall I say, 'pure' index funds? For example, the Vanguard 500 Index is a standard index fund, whereas, the SPDR is the S&P 500 ETF. If I was a US Citizen, then I could just set up a Vanguard account and happily buy what I wanted (just like we can do on the NZX or ASX).

Whilst, in the case of SuperLife (as you say Huxley) I can get most of the features of an index fund, what I really want to do, is to be able to invest in other jurisdiction index funds. For that it seems, I need an intermediary, which is what I'm looking for.

Cheers!

[huxley]

Thanks for this.

There is an advantage of saving fees by purchasing through a provider, such as SuperLife.

The question is finding a provider than can purchase, how shall I say, 'pure' index funds? For example, the Vanguard 500 Index is a standard index fund, whereas, the SPDR is the S&P 500 ETF. If I was a US Citizen, then I could just set up a Vanguard account and happily buy what I wanted (just like we can do on the NZX or ASX).

Whilst, in the case of SuperLife (as you say Huxley) I can get most of the features of an index fund, what I really want to do, is to be able to invest in other jurisdiction index funds. For that it seems, I need an intermediary, which is what I'm looking for.

Cheers!

When you say "index funds" I think you mean mutual Funds? After all an index fund is just a fund which passively tracks an index (e.g. S&P500, MSCI world index etc etc) so you get the "market" return less fees. Is the S&PNZX50 ETF still an index fund in that the assets it holds just passively track the index? - it's just the units are listed on an exchange.

Sounds like you're just looking for a low cost passive fund.. good luck finding that in NZ!