MoneyWeek ETF portfolio update: taking a lesson on inflation from the 1970s

Inflation is here to stay. Time to protect our ETF portfolio with some energy exposure, says Cris Sholto Heaton

The MoneyWeek exchange-traded fund (ETF) portfolio is very different to our investment trust portfolio. The investment trust portfolio consists of six trusts where we believe the managers will add considerable value through their decisions. The ETF portfolio is an asset-allocation strategy, which uses passive ETFs to build a cheap portfolio that’s diversified around the world and across different types of investment. It aims to strike a balance between risky, higher-return assets such as stocks and safer, lower-return ones such as bonds.

I use the strategy in my own portfolio as a standalone allocation for money that I want to invest (rather than have in cash savings), but might want to draw on more quickly than my mid-cap and emerging-market growth investments (which are very volatile) and sooner than my pension (which is invested to produce a long-term growing income stream). However, it’s designed to be flexible enough – and cheap enough to invest and divest – that it’s suitable for a number of scenarios where investors want steady long-term growth.

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Vanguard S&P 500 (LSE: VUSA)10%
Vanguard FTSE Dev. Europe (LSE: VEUR)10%
Vanguard FTSE 250 (LSE: VMID)10%
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iShares Core MSCI Em. Markets (LSE: EMIM)10%
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Cris Sholto Heaton

Cris Sholto Heaton is an investment analyst and writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2006 and was managing editor of the magazine between 2016 and 2018. He is especially interested in international investing, believing many investors still focus too much on their home markets and that it pays to take advantage of all the opportunities the world offers. He often writes about Asian equities, international income and global asset allocation.

Cris began his career in financial services consultancy at PwC and Lane Clark & Peacock, before an abrupt change of direction into oil, gas and energy at Petroleum Economist and Platts and subsequently into investment research and writing. In addition to his articles for MoneyWeek, he also works with a number of asset managers, consultancies and financial information providers.

He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and the Investment Management Certificate, as well as degrees in finance and mathematics. He has also studied acting, film-making and photography, and strongly suspects that an awareness of what makes a compelling story is just as important for understanding markets as any amount of qualifications.