I have one question regarding the s&p 500 etf (VUAG) available in t212 vs the s&p 500 etf available in ibkr.
My friend is using the ibkr platform and that index last year was up around 19%, compared to what I see on t212 is around 8%, why this difference?
One of the differences is that the one on t212 is invested through LSE, and the other one is through NYSE, but is the margin in the profit this big, or there are other things?
I like the T212 UI and easy of use much more compared to whats in IBKR.
Since I’m a beginner in this area, if someone can share some thoughts, I will greatly appreciate that.
It’s to do with the currency it’s trading in. The one you’re looking at is trading in GBP and your friends one is trading in USD. The dollar got quite a lot weaker compared tot the pound in 2025 and this is where the difference comes from.
If you look at the VUAA on the trading 212 platform you can see that the USD version did quite well (+17% last year), but the GBP version did not soo good (+8% last year). And if you look at the EUR version it did even worse (+3%).
It will be the currency difference. If you had a multi-currency account, and say held VUAA instead (which is the exact same ETF as VUAG, but quoted in USD instead of GBP), then that would show a 1 yr total return, in dollar terms, of around 18.4% at time of writing. However, once you convert the returns to £’s it would be identical to the returns of VUAG.
There are some currency hedged ETF’s, for example iShares have GSPX which is their GBP hedged S&P 500 ETF. This shows an 18.8% 1 year return, and that would be in £ terms, because it aims to hedge out the effects of currency movements. However, sometimes it can work against you - if the dollar strengthens significantly against the pound (the most obvious in memory was after the Brexit vote when there was a huge currency swing overnight) then you’d have been better off in a non currency hedged fund. There’s also a small cost involved in having a hedge which adds to the TER. I think the most common view with equities anyway is for the most part, hedging is unnecessary for long term holdings. You might consider it for shorter term tactical use. Specific cases, like investing in Japanese equities as a UK investor has over the last few years greatly rewarded currency hedging (as the yen has weakened a lot, and their stocks have gone up a lot!).