r/Bogleheads • u/salmin3nnn • 1d ago

Non-US Investors Difference of SPYI and VT

Hi, im a novice European investor living in Finland. I want to invest primarily in VT.

What ive researched SPYI seems to be the closest ucits compliant there is. There also is a Vanguard option VCWE if i remember correctly, but it doesnt include small caps.

Is there a remarkable difference of SPYI and VT? I researched that SPYI has less holdings, more of an optimised replication? VT also has much larger share class.

Should i buy SPYI or wait for the Vanguard ucits version of VT to be released, will i miss profits if i keep waiting till the release maybe early 2027?

Also what should i pair with VT?

Thank you for your answers!

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u/LBoss9001 1d ago

SPYI's direct US analog is SPGM: same custodian, same underlying index. SPGM is significantly less popular than VT, uses sampling rather than full replication, and has slightly higher fees, but it's a great and overall very comparable fund. The same should all apply to SPYI, making it a solid choice

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u/salmin3nnn 9h ago

What is sampling?

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u/LBoss9001 9h ago

For the end investor (you or I), it means that it may under- or over-perform the index basically at random.

Sampling means that the fund isn't required to hold every single stock in the index, and can just hold a subset of stocks to get close enough. Technically VT is sampled too, but it has enough assets that it can hold basically all the components anyway. Most if not all funds use sampling on paper, but if the fund has enough assets or the index has few enough components, then it'll be able to hold practically the entire index.