Thanks. Are there any accumulating etf listed on LSE for value/small-cap.
I think you might be missing the point; you don't need a dedicated allocation to small-caps, or to factors (whether those are value, momentum, quality, whatever).
Small-caps are, by their name, a small percentage of the market, and IWDA already has an allocation to global smallcaps anyway. If you're overweighting small-caps or value because you genuinely think the decade-long underperformance in small-cap value is about to turn around, that's a pretty ambitious bet...!
I see most people are using IWDA for the global portion. Why not something else like CSPX or VT?
Genuinely curious as I'm new!
This is a totally fair question, with a three-part answer:
1) Why a "global stocks" ETF, instead of a specific country?
Getting exposure to a lot of stock markets all around the world is a good thing. The US stock market has been a surprisingly strong performer over the last ten years; but from 2004-2007, emerging-market stocks were absolutely on fire, and nobody wanted to own US stocks.
You also want diversification between sectors. Tech (the infamous FAANG stocks) has been red-hot for the last few years, but commodity stocks were hot in 2009-2011 thanks to the gold boom; banks were hot in the 2000s...
Basically you don't want to focus on whatever the current hot sector or country is, because then you'll miss the moment when the
new hot sector or country starts to emerge.
2) Why not a US-listed ETF like VT?
For Singaporean investors (or basically any non-US-tax-resident), US-listed ETFs have an expensive slug of dividend withholding tax: 30% of the dividends get withheld by the US tax office.
If you own exactly the same stocks through an Irish-domiciled, UK-listed ETF, though, you can take advantage of the tax treaty between the UK and Ireland. That reduces the tax rate on dividends from US-listed stocks from 30% to 15%, which is quite literally free money. Free money!
3) Why IWDA instead of other Irish-listed global-stocks ETFs like VWRA or VWRD?
This one is a bit more line-ball. I prefer "accumulating" ETFs (ETFs that reinvest dividends) to "distributing" ETFs (ETFs that pay out dividends), and when I wrote the most recent edition of Rich by Retirement (in early 2019), IWDA was the only Irish global-stocks ETF that checked all of my boxes (low fees, liquid, big asset base).
VWRA emerged late last year, and is very good as well. The only difference between IWDA and VWRA is that IWDA is 100% in developed-market stocks, while VWRA is 90% in developed markets and 10% in emerging markets. In practice, the two ETFs track almost tick-for-tick, so it doesn't actually matter that much.
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So IWDA checks all the boxes for "a good global equities fund for Singaporean investors". It's easy to buy and sell; it has low fees; it's broadly diversified and has low turnover; it minimises your dividend taxes... it does everything you'd want it to.
