Paul
Here's a useful comparison piece from about a year ago looking at the Vanguard LS 60 fund and HSBC's equivalent;
http://diyinvestoruk.blo...obal-strategy-fund.html

The fees are similar but the holdings are slightly different.

Fidelity Multi Asset Allocator is another one. These include REIT funds and small cap. The fixed income is nearly all in overseas non-GBP bonds.

The difference is the multi asset funds is how they approach fixed income. HSBC go with GBP Corporate Bonds. Vanguard use a broad mix of UK bonds (treasury and coorporate) and Sterling-hedged foreign bonds.

@KL, yes I agree. When you look at the holdings in any say LS, there are holdings at less than 5%. You have to wonder what good is that but the list makes for a sophisticated impression.

I have used both LS and the global strategy funds as general equity holdings when I couldn't really make my mind up, so I bought GS Dynamic when my wifes ISA had spare cash, and LS 40% in lieu of a mildly defensive holding.

So they are a good way of avoiding the temptation to tinker or be forever ever adding to the list of holdings. But yes, if the fund has holdings of less than say 5% you do wonder if it's more for the appearance of diversification and sophistication rather than a likely real benefit.

For my SIPP I am doing my own mix and not using these. I was tempted to use a multiasset fund as a core holding and to build around that. However it became clear that I would end up holding a number of overlapping funds so decided to construct my own.

Fascinating thread.

I'm looking at these funds (and some other mixed asset) and it looks like every single one has some kind of bias, mostly towards the UK it seems.

What'd be truly unbiased though? Presumably a global market-cap-weighted equity tracker diluted per risk appetite with whatever flavour of bond "stabilizing ballast" you're comfortable with? You can do that rebalancing between just 2 ETFs and I suspect the vendors of these multiasset collectives feel like they have to pile on additional complexities and "bling" to get people to look at them and feel like they're getting something. If some degree of "home bias" is present that's presumably because market research tells the vendors that's what people want. Or at least what they wanted when the research was done. This dislike of home bias seems to be quite a new (post brexit-referendum) thing.