AutoInvest - Feedback

I am impressed. Nice work. It is almost too much fun. Very tempting to create portfolios and add some ££s just to enjoy watching the magic happen. There is of course no fine control over the prices at which you buy, but pies are really aimed at wealth creation over the long term by regular investing, so fine tuning the buy in price is not really important.

As I have commented previously, I think people might enjoy creating their own approximations of ETFs or funds.

Vanguard FTSE High Dividend Yield ETF has yield of 4.09% and there is OCF of 0.29%. Because 15% withholding tax has been taken off that means the original yield on the holdings was (4.09+0.29)/0.85 = 5.16%. So you should be able to get better than 5% by buying stocks directly, i.e. 25% more income than you get with the Vanguard ETF. Of course you do not own as many stocks, but still, I think the performance should be good selecting a sample of 10 or so from Vanguard’s high dividend paying holdings.

Another thing one can do is pick the top 10 holdings of a successful fund like Fundsmith and own it without the 0.9% management fee, and with better dividend yield.

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