In a lot of ways I think making things simple is normally the best way to approach investing and finance.
Investing in low-cost, diversified exchange-traded funds (ETFs) obviously is a pretty good strategy for most people. But even then you need to choose which ones you're going to invest in.
I think it would be feasible for your entire investment strategy to be just one of these two ETFs:
Vanguard Diversified High Growth Index ETF (ASX: VDHG)
This ETF is an all-in-one type investment that gives you exposure to different asset classes.
It has around 35.6% invested in Australian shares, 26.7% invested in international shares, 16.3% invested in a hedged international shares fund, 6.6% in small international companies and 4.8% in emerging markets. It also has 7.1% invested in global bonds and 2.9% in Australian bonds.
As you can see, it's very diversified and each of those funds has many underlying investments, meaning that you are very well invested with this ETF in terms of diversification.
It comes with a management fee of only 0.27%, which is excellent for all of that diversified exposure.
I'd be happy enough if this was my only investment.
iShares S&P 500 ETF (ASX: IVV)
Many of the world's top investors say it's hard to beat the return of the S&P 500, which is interesting considering it's invested in 500 businesses – you'd think it would be possible to cut out some of the bad investments and do well. S&P have a handy selection process which naturally improves the quality of the holdings and returns in this index.
With the ETF's top holdings being businesses like Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Alphabet and Amazon, it's quite likely this ETF can continue to do quite well as long as the big tech businesses aren't broken up. A lot of the underlying earnings from the ETF comes from right across the world.
It has an insanely-low annual management fee of only 0.04% per year, leaving nearly all of the returns in the hands of investors.
Foolish takeaway
I reckon both of these ETFs would be attractive as a single investment in your portfolio for many years. Which is the best out of the two? It depends whether you want additional diversification with bonds and shares listed in many other countries. Over the long-term I think the S&P 500 ETF will deliver stronger returns so that would be my pick.
