New Vanguard fund

[m3racer]

What do you guys think of Vanguard's Total World Stock Index fund? It just opened 6/08.

[toboramai]

The problem if you invest in this fund and other funds is that you will probably have lots of overlap in your investments. i.e. You might be invested in the same company through two different funds. I do not see why you would do this unless you want to put all your money for stocks in one fund.

One thing I noticed recently, Vanguard has the exact same fund in ETF form as their regular funds with lower fees. Why would one not be in the ETF?

[noppenbd]

One thing I noticed recently, Vanguard has the exact same fund in ETF form as their regular funds with lower fees. Why would one not be in the ETF?

You have to pay commissions when you buy an ETF, plus the bid/ask spread. So frequent investors (dollar-cost averagers) would probably do better with the mutual fund. One strategy I might try is shifting money from funds to ETFs as the amounts grow, but continuing to DCA into the funds to avoid the commissions.

[jIM_Ohio]

question- how is currency risk handled with a fund like this?

indexes are usually cap weighted, meaning if Microsoft is worth $100 Billion and ToysRUs is worth $10 Billion, the index holds Microsoft stock worth 10X more than Toys R Us.

Throw Siemens (a german company) into this mix... Siemens value needs to be converted from Euros to dollars, then weighted.

This weighting will change as the value of currency changes. How does the fund handle that?

[m3racer]

question- how is currency risk handled with a fund like this?

indexes are usually cap weighted, meaning if Microsoft is worth $100 Billion and ToysRUs is worth $10 Billion, the index holds Microsoft stock worth 10X more than Toys R Us.

Throw Siemens (a german company) into this mix... Siemens value needs to be converted from Euros to dollars, then weighted.

This weighting will change as the value of currency changes. How does the fund handle that?

That's a good question but unfortunately I have no idea.