One fund to rule them all?

[RetireJapan]

The new eMaxis slim all-country fund seems pretty good: https://siegeljiro.com/emaxis-slim-allcountry-bunseki

Any drawbacks?

[adamu]

Looks great.

It seems to be more expensive than building it yourself from the three funds (figures change depending on what proportion you allocate to each fund):

Edit Sep 2020: This is no longer the case. The All Country fund is cheaper. See this Shinaro Money article (Japanese) for the latest info.

三菱ＵＦＪ国際－ｅＭＡＸＩＳ Ｓｌｉｍ 先進国株式インデックス 0.11772% * 80% asset allocation
三菱ＵＦＪ国際－ｅＭＡＸＩＳ Ｓｌｉｍ 新興国株式インデックス 0.20412% * 12% asset allocation
三菱ＵＦＪ国際－ｅＭＡＸＩＳ Ｓｌｉｍ 国内株式（ＴＯＰＩＸ） 0.17172% * 8% asset allocation
= 0.132408%

But the All Country fund:
三菱ＵＦＪ国際－ｅＭＡＸＩＳ　Ｓｌｉｍ　全世界株式（オール・カントリー） 0.15336％

So it's more expensive, but the simplicity and auto-rebalancing probably make it worth it. I wonder how they decide the asset allocations and what they are? Need to read the prospectus in more detail.

This fund is probably the answer I was looking for in these threads.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=310
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=184

[RetireJapan]

Just bought some for my granddaughter in her Junior NISA

[judomarshall]

going to do the same for my son.

is there a code for this so i can track it on google finance?

BTW, Merry Christmas to everyone!

[adamu]

Did some research regarding this fund.

It tracks the MSCI All Country World Index (yen-base).
This means it is a Japanese-yen denominated, domestically domiciled, mutual fund-version of ETFs such as the iShares MSCI ACWI ETF .

One slight quirk is that while it tracks the MSCI ACWI index, it implements this by balancing its investments between three "mother funds", which track the MSCI Kokusai Index, MSCI Emerging Market Index, and MSCI Japan index (these three funds can also be invested in by the individual investor via the products listed in my earlier post above, except the Japan one which uses TOPIX index instead). They don't seem to publish the exact allocation between the mother funds in the simple prospectus, and I gave up trying to decipher the detailed prospectus. The mother funds' investments are held by Mitsubishi UFJ Trust Bank.

Coincidentally, SBI's EXE-i global inc. Japan fund also follows the same index, but SBI's fund buys US-listed Scwhab ETFs such as this, whereas this eMaxis Slim fund buys the underlying shares directly (or directly enough, more accurately via the in-house mother funds).

The information, including a PDF that details the breakdown of the MSCI ACWI index, is available in English on MSCI's website.

P.S. Merry Christmas!

[adamu]

Seems this isn't available in iDeCo on SBI yet. I wonder if they plan on adding it? Maybe I'll email them.

[RetireJapan]

Let us know if they reply!

[adamu]

Got a reply:

誠に申し訳ございませんが、現在のところ、ご希望の投資信託をiDeCo（個人型確定拠出年金）への取扱いは未定となっております。

お客様からお寄せいただいたご要望を真摯に受け止め、今後の検討事項とし、より一層のサービス向上に役立たせて参る所存でございます。

My translation:

There are currently no plans to provide this fund as part of iDeCo, but we will take your feedback into consideration to provide a better service in the future.

So basically, it seems like we can't expect this fund in iDeCo on SBI any time soon (although they do have the ex-Japan version, as well as the other funds mentioned earlier in this thread if you want to mix and match).

[RetireJapan]

Yeah, it seems there is now a limit on the number of funds that can be offered in iDeCo platforms so they would have to take one out to put a new one in.

[adamu]

And they already have their own all world fund (wrapping US ETFs), so it's probably not likely.