The Dukesters Fund Corner II. More portfolios

Art

Puddnhead, I will start a new thread for my portfolio.

I am 59, married(3rd time) with plans to retire in 3 years. I will have 40+ years as an IBEW member and have a defined benefit along with a 401 at the workplace. The DB will pay about $150/month per year of service. The exes will get some of that. I also have a small ROTH and IRA. Live in the Midwest. No mortgage. No kids but recent wife has 2 so I inherited grandkids. Portfolio percentages are rounded up or down for convenience. The smaller %'s are in the ROTH and IRA. My wife also has a 401 with DFA and a ROTH. I am not including these monies but when you put it all together and add SS I should have enough money to live on and take the yearly vacation to Florida or somewhere warm, so why do I fret over money spent on kids and grandkids? I guess one of us needs to be conservative while the other spends. Probably like that in most marriages.

PTTDX-22%
Cash-11%
OARIX-11%
PCVAX-10%
CHTTX-10%
OARBX-7%
VFINX-6%
AMRMX-5%
FPACX-4%
EVGBX-3%
FARNX-3%
IVWIX-2%
ARTGX-2%
GPROX-2%
VVPSX-2%

Old_Skeet

@Art

One of the things I like to do is input the holdings into Xray. In doing this provides me some insight as to your overall portfolio's structure. In review of Xray, I am finding that your portfolio is 142% long, 42% short mostly in the cash and bond areas. The net asset allocation is 18% Cash, 41% US Stocks, 17% Foreign Stocks, 23% Bonds and 2% Other. Within equities it appears you are 50% large & 50% smids. The portfolio appears to have a value tilt with a P/E ratio of 16.66% but is short in the defensive sectors (at about 14% allocated) consisting of staples, health care and utilities. In addition, Morningstar indicates your mutual fund expense ratio on the portfolio is 0.98%. Is this by design?

Could you share with me and others your positioning along with expectations. If my assessment is close then was this allocation planned or just a happening? And, why? Also, could you share with us tools you use to know what your have and also monitor your portfolio. In addition, is there some things you would like to comment on that your feel might be of interest and possibly a tip you might have for others that has helped you in the past.

Thanks,
Old_Skeet

Art

Skeet, I used to have M-Star's premium and used that for x-rays but got tired of paying that yearly cost. Now days I don't bother with the x-ray. I do lean to value funds and small/mid caps but that has not been the place to be the last few years. My biggest positions are in the 401 and I don't have many funds available that I am not using. VIGRX and ODMAX are available and I have used them in the past. Just sold both of these earlier this year. I am in the process of reducing small positions with a goal of 5% or more per fund. Allocation just happened, not planned. When you have go anywhere funds then that is what you get. I have made some bad choices, like selling EM to soon, so no tips for others from me other than save as much as you can.

slick

Whew. This started out as a simple exercise and will try and provide commentary on my portfolio in addition to allocations and percentages. I have three portfolios. First one , is a taxable account which has a majority of the bond allocation at 80%, which includes 2 munis I am holding til maturity, also have two stocks in that portfolio, one of which I am getting ready to sell for its gains. That portfolio is 27% of my total. The other two are a traditional ira and a roth, and the roth is the larger of the two. You will notice some duplications in fund characteristics, the result of my moving from Merrill Lynch last year to Fidelity. Some positions I could not add to since they are institutional funds, so had to add similar funds from another fund company. I take a barbell approach to the total, balancing aggressive funds with conservative ones. More people seem to use balanced funds, I chose this method. That said, I am 68% equities, 32% bonds and cash, and 66 and retired. SS provides me about 1/3 of my expenses, rest comes from taxable account, which will be the first to be depleted, but I do have to start taking from the ira in four years. I am trying to follow the basic set up that Pudd used, adding my own tweaks. This reflects iras only. I threw in etfs into the mix. Here goes:

Large and multi cap:
MSEGX 1.5%
POGRX 2.6%
RSP 1.0%
SMGIX 6.4%
TWEIX 2.5%
VIG 3.0%
VDIGX 6.5%
VOO 5.6%
VPCCX 2.9%
VWINX 2.7%

Sector funds
CMTFX 3.1%
PHSZX 1.4%
FRUAX 1.5%
FSPHX 1.3%
IHI 2.0%
JRBFX 1.3%
PRGTX 6.2%
RHS 3.7%
SHSAX 1.4%
VPU 2.0%
FRIFX 2.9%

Small-midcap
CCASX 1%
SMDV 1%
UBVSX 1.3%

Global non sector funds (with a minimum of 30% foreign)
APDGX 3.0%
IWIRX 2.6%

Foreign
FMIJX 4.5%
SIGIX 4.9%
GSIHX 1.8%
OSMYX 2.8%
MINDX 2.5%

Stocks
MMM 2.1%
TRV 1.2%

Bonds and cash are 9.6% of total iras, since taxable portfolio has the high bond allocation. I use PONDX, PYACX, CPXAX, GIBIX.

According to Fidelity, in the iras, I am 76% large cap, 17% mid cap, 7% small. The above small cap funds I have do not reflect total small cap exposure since I have small cap stocks in a number of funds that are multi cap. I usually have more stocks, and use them more for trading than investment.

Im sure I have many more funds and etfs than most, but this is cut down from earlier this year All comments welcome, good and bad.

Art

Slick, A nice collection of funds. Curious did you make an effort to transfer 401's and IRA's to the ROTH after you retired? This is something I am thinking about doing as you do not need earned income to make a transfer.

Puddnhead

Hi Art!
So, help me out here 'cause I'm challenged. IBEW is what? International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, I'm assuming. As for the exes, women tend to get everything anyway....they tend to outlive us.....lol. Your portfolio seems to have a lot of funds I recognize so far, most don't. By the way, I sold CHTTX last week, so it's no surprise if it goes up now. You can thank me later.....lol. In the end, Art, I like what I see, Big Guy!

slick: LOL -- Whew! Things are not easy when they are important.....or so it seems to be in my life. Yet, to get to know a person behind a screen name is probably the most important thing I have done so far in this exercise. Moving on now.......VWINX....why so little? Of course, you know why I ask. Sector funds....2 in healthcare.....why? I see you own FRIFX. Will you hold it in rising rates and why? Just asking.....I have a REIT also.
And MINDX.....I have looked at this several times. Would you recommend it now? Also, some funds you have little in.....are you going to consolidate more in the future? Just asking.....it's something I try to avoid but.....not doing so well right now.
God bless
the Pudd

Art

Pudd, You are correct as I am a Journeyman electrician. Don't dwell on the ex-wives thing. Latest wife is wonderful. It's not that I think CHTTX is a good fund it is the only US MC fund choice in my workplace 401. Two of my midcap choices would be WSMNX AND UMBMX.

MikeM

Hi Slick. Not to be negative but I am a proponent of lean and simple. Hell, I believe a Retirement fund from TRP would do just fine, but what fun is that.

Way to may funds for my taste and many at such low percentage - what's the point? . I think Pud mentioned why have 2 HC funds. You actually have 4 as I see it. When you have so many sector funds, that doesn't seem like trying to weight the portfolio in a specific direction, but more like a collection of "one of these funds has to do well, right?". Anyway, not my thing, but some good funds in your collection.

Hope I'm not being to critical. I enjoy your contributions.

slick

Thanks for your comments guys,I expected the too many funds and too low on some questions. Will try and address your comments:

@Art: Over the last ten years, converted quite a bit from traditional ira to roth. 2/3 of my retirement funds are now in the roth. I treat the roth a bit differently than the traditional ira, as it will be the last to be used, and it much more aggressive.

@Pudd: I only started VWINX this year, and because it is $75 each time I want to add to it, I wait until I sell another fund or stock to fund it more. As I stated, I tend to use a barbell approach rather than allocation or balanced funds, but will add to it over time. I use the staples, utilities, and more value and moderate stock funds as ballast to my more aggressive holdings. I have two general hc funds basically because I cant add to PHSZX at Fido, it was bought when I was with ML I sold the amount I had in the traditional ira and bought SHSAX so I could add to it. I used to have a biotech and a pure pharma etf but sold those to invest in IHI and FSPHX. Regarding the reit, I only bought FRIFX on Friday, selling VNQ after 5 years. I wanted to give a managed fund a try in this sector and liked the Fido offering. It is not a spif, I like having reits as a permanenet part of the portfolio. Not expecting rates to rise very fast anyway. I like how FRIFX is a bit more diversified in its components. Ive had MINDX for over 3 years, but probably would not be buying it now but perhaps a more diversified Asian fund. I have enough diversity in my other foreign holdings that I could risk it. I know I have many funds, primarily because I could not bring some of them from ML and had to find a comparable fund. I brought the traditional ira over first, a year later the rest, so in that year, some I could not bring over, and had to sell, and some closed so had to find alternatives.

@MikeM: I was expecting this comment from someone lol. I love small caps, but the reason they are so low is that I have many funds that have small caps in the portfolio and already at 24% small and mid.

Hope I addressed your comments enough, and no Im not sensitive, many times I think I have too many funds myself, but there is somethng I like about each of them that I hold. And each does have a role, maybe someday this will change

bee

@Slick,
You seem to have a fair number of Vanguard Funds. Why not consider moving all of them "in Kind" from Fidelity to Vanguard. I have done that for no charge. This would elevate the $75 TF Fidelity charge to buy/sell Vanguard funds as well as Vanguard does not charge to trade Vanguard ETFs that you trade (Brokerage).

slick

I thought about doing that but decided i wanted to keep everything in one place . that was the only fund that had a fee of my VG funds. I wish i could add to VPCCX but it's hard closed.

MikeM

Hi @slick, my 'observation' was not about small caps, but on all the sector funds/etfs you own, 11 of them. Just looks from the outside that you're throwing bets against the wall and hoping something sticks. My question will always be, why not pick a trusted fund manager or team to use their analysis to do the sector weighting. Do you believe you are better at it?

slick

@MikeM: I use sector funds/etfs such as utility and staples to add ballast and counterbalance some of my more aggressive funds or to correct underweighting of sectors in my overall portfolio. I had to sell the utility fund I had at ML when I transferred, since it was not offered at Fido. They did accept FRUAX when I transferred the roth, but one year earlier when I transferred the traditional ira, they did not, so bought VPU in its place. Same story on the health care funds, they would not accept PHSZX in the ira, so I bought SHSAX, but did accept it by the time i transferred the roth. I added IHI and FRHFX when I sold PJP and my biotech fund. I liked the emphasis on medical devices over biotech going forward. I was light on financials, so I added JRBFX. No, I do not think I know more than mf managers, as a matter of fact, I used to be all funds and no etfs and over the last two years did some comparisons and in some of the sectors I actually liked the etfs better. I enjoy investing and most of my portfolio is in funds Ive had for many years such as the Vanguard funds. Im sure I could consolidate further by getting rid of the funds that I cannot add to that I brought over from ML but all of the ones I kept do well.

I basically am following the sector weightings my ML advisor set up, I just dont pay for the advice anymore, and I left ML because they have limited fund offerings. They sell very few Vanguard funds, which was my original impetus to start moving over to Fido.

We all invest as we see fit, mine works for me, and I assume your works for you.

davidrmoran

@slick,

I missed that you moved from ML to Fido, since I have just done the reverse.

Fido offers Vanguard funds?? Not ntf, right?

Since this is supposed to be an empirical thread, I would like to see the annual results of all those with lots of funds, say more than, I dunno, 10?

(I too concur in the tested take that adding a half-dozen at the 1%-2% level does nothing other than assuage OCD....)

slick

@Davidmoran since I received some free trades when I tranferred to Fido, it helped. ML does not sell VWINX and some other Vg funds along with a few other funds I wanted plus my advisor and I disagreed on etfs which I wanted to add. I will admit I do like having those smaller allocations to some of the funds and etfs I have added and I do have spifs from time to time which i play with, bottom line is 1/3 of my ira portfolio is conservative and all of my taxable is in that category. So about half of my total investments are fairly staid. The rest chalk up to OCD lol.

My results in total for ytd Is within one percent of the s + P including bonds, and while at ML a bit less, but with so many changes this last year, will be easier to track going forward.Thanks for contributing to the thread.

MikeM

Hi @slick, didn't mean to come across as critical. Sector funds just aren't my cup of tea. I definitely can appreciate the enjoyment with investing though. With what I call my play money, I get enjoyment from playing specific stocks - so I guess not much different them your sector bets. I've had some successes, BABA for example, but also some duds.. can you say VRX? Thanks for the feedback.

Graust

@slick,

Maybe you know this, but you can actually buy TF funds at Fidelity by setting up an automatic investment (this usually has to be at least the day after you enter the trade, and can’t be a “sell a fund and use the proceeds to buy another” type transaction), once you own said fund. This drops transaction fees of “automatic investments” to $5.

Set the auto investment to occur monthly, as an example, and once the buy executes, you cancel the auto investment and you have just added to VWINX for $5

Let me know if this doesn’t make sense, please.

slick

@graust, thanks will look into it. I had forgotten about the fact that many fund families do something similar. Fido comped my initial purchase of VWINX in my ira, but i paid to put it into my roth, where i want to add more. Thanks for your feedback.