U.S. Index fund FX risk

[meganrijkers]

Hello all,

I am looking to start putting some spare cash into index funds (probably a good time to do so at least).

I'd like to do this across a few funds and I am attracted to U.S. stock index funds (betting on the U.S. economy is historically a sound choice) e.g. Vanguard S&P 500.

I work in finance and studied econ so have a decent understanding of how these things works (although equities is not my field) but I am confused about one point. If I am buying US stocks I assume I have to buy dollars to buy these stocks. This opens me up to currency risk. For example, if I bought U.S. stocks before corona when sterling was in the shit and the dollar was strong, I would have got far less value of stock compared to if the pound were strong and dollar weak (please correct me if I am wrong about this).

I had a flick through the 300 page prospectus of one of these U.S. index funds (not fun) and they use currency hedging to mitigate FX risks but is this enough to counteract situations when the pound is weak like it is at the moment?

Any insight into this would be appreciated. Or am I overthinking this and should I just leave it to the professionals?