FT Guide to Exchange Traded Funds and Index Funds, 2nd Edition

11

The master portfolios

The rapid development of ETFs ready made for a diversified portfolio – detailed in the last chapter – is an almost exclusively American phenomenon. The mainstream investment industry in the UK by contrast is built around trying to get you to buy the latest ‘best idea’, be it a fund, an investment strategy or a new business concept that can be floated on the stock market. The idea that investors might crave a one-size-fits-all portfolio approach – with low costs to boot – has so far largely translated itself into expensive and largely failing absolute returns funds or slightly more successful balanced/managed equity funds that might, if you are lucky, include some form of bond exposure. It seems that here in the UK, ...