Hello Everyone,
I'm new to the globe of
mutual fund investing, so I'm looking for tips on how to diversify my holdings in order to increase my portfolio over time. My portfolio is now made up of a combination of bond and equity funds, but I want to make sure that my approach is sound and situated for future returns.
This is a quick look at everything I currently own:Mutual Funds for Equity:Bond funds: T. Rowe Prices Blue Chip Growth Funds (TRBCX), Financing Contrafund (FCNTX), Vanguard 500 Index Funds (VFIAX), and
PIMCO Income Funds (PONAX) and Vanguard Total Bonds Market Index Funds (VBTLX)
I would much appreciate your insights on the following few questions I have:Diversification: Do my bond and stock holdings exhibit sufficient diversity? Do you suggest adding any particular industries or fund kinds (international, small-cap, sector-specific) to attain greater diversification?
Growth Potential: Do you think certain mutual funds or
investment strategies have particularly significant potential for growth over the next five to ten years, given the state of the market? Funds with a solid track record of success and reputed fund managers catch my attention in particular.
Risk Control: In what ways do you control risk in the mutual fund holdings? Do you employ any specific funds or different asset classes as a hedge against future market downturns?
Costs and Fees: When choosing mutual funds, how significant are cost ratios and
mlops fees? What are some recommendations for locating affordable, high-quality funds?
I appreciate your assistance in advance! I'm excited to hone my investing strategy for greater long-term rewards and to gain from the collective wisdom of this group.
Comments
You should move this to the "funds discussion" section. The off topic section doesn't get as much attention as the main investing sections of this board. Many people totally ignore the off-topic section as it usually has little or nothing to do with investing.
Minor tinkering:
In stocks, you have LCG and LCB. May be switch LCB SP500 VFIAX / VOO to LCB total stock VTSAX / VTI.
In bonds, may be switch from Total (investment-grade) Bond market VBTLX to core-plus VCPIX / VCPAX.
You got stocks-LCG and multisector bonds covered well.
Others may suggest more changes based on your personal situation (approx age, taxable or tax-deferred/free) and goals.
Additional information about yourself with respect to your goals/investment horizon and risk tolerance will help other posters in their recommendation.
Please tell us the following:
1. Your age and when you plan to retire
2. If this is the majority of your investment assets, or if you have anything held anywhere else (most people have the majority of their investments in their 401k/work retirement account especially when first getting started)
3. How much you hold (as a percentage of the total in each fund)
4. What your risk tolerance is (are you ok with being down 20% at various times and will you stick with the same plan, or sell out and go more conservative?)
5. No need to mention dollar amounts, as this is a public online forum (ie, to protect yourself).
6. Thanks in advance!
it is possible you could leave things alone or indeed ditch SP500 fund
depending
btw your Bond funds is inaccurate (of course)
some of your questions can be answered with just a bit more googling on your part
Go to the library and check out some books on investing in mutual funds/etf's. After that, identify useful tools on the internet to help you find what you're looking for that are in addition to whatever you get from your brokerage.
Read the buy, sell, why thread to see if any of us are making smart decisions over time.
You can leave your current mix alone until you sort through all the possibilities that make sense to you. FOMO is good thing to avoid.
Diversification doesn’t guarantee better returns. Generally, diversification reduces risk and lowers longer term performance. If you can, throw 100% into a single low cost S&P index fund, shut your eyes for 40-50 years while ignoring the markets. Then take a look. Chances are you’ll have more money after 40 or 50 years than you would have had in a more diversified portfolio.
But, is the above realistic?
Most people who lived through the Great Depression beginning in 1929 wanted nothing to do ever again with investing. By some accounts, it was around 1950 when equities got back to their 1929 levels. Not many of us date back quite that far. However, most of us here lived through the ‘07–08 ”great financial crisis”. Domestic blue chip stocks / stock funds tanked about 50% over that 16-17 month period. International stock funds fared worse, some falling 60-70%. Only the very highest rated bond funds held up. Some funds invested in junk bonds lost 50-60% over that time.
How would you react 10-12 months into the above saga with your portfolio down 35% from the previous year’s peak and the media ablaze with horror takes of loss and predictions of doom?
By a strange quirk of math, the % gain needed to get back to “break-even” is greater than the % lost. If your portfolio falls by 25% in one year you’ll need a 33% gain the following year to get back to break-even. If you lose 50% of your portfolio you’ll need a 100% return to get back to your old level.
Just food for thought.
All the recommendations in this thread are excellent. Putting a portfolio together is a very personal thing. No “one-size” fits all. My only “tip” would be to become a regular Barron’s reader. No single publication has done more to help me invest over the past 50 years. It’s not glamorous. It’s not really about mutual funds. And the articles are anything but consistent. You’ll read “bulls” and “bears” in the same issue. But it will get you thinking about money … money and risk.
Added Thought …
I like looking at model portfolios. T Rowe Price is noted for being a good asset allocator.
This LINK will take you to one of their web pages and a discussion of allocation, complete with pie charts. I have one minor gripe. That is they don’t include commodities in these sketches. While they can sometimes jump up and bite you, I think having 2%-5% in commodities / precious metals is a pretty good idea.
See results (link). You have just proved my point. Did diversification in other stock categories help you?
The only true diversification is thru bonds, but again, it depends on the holdings.
Diversification means having different asset types - like stocks, real estate, bonds, cash, commodities, precious metals and non-dollar currencies
Diversification also includes investment styles like growth, value, momentum, technical based, risk-premia, market neutral, long-short, options based, and several others.
Diversification also includes geographic area (ie domestic, international, regional).
Diversification also includes instrument type like OEFs, CEFs, ETFs, stocks, bonds, collectables, hard assets.
Within bonds or bond funds diversification means owning a range of credit quality (from AAA down to C-). It also includes a variety of years-to-maturity & duration.
How can you say that a combination of several of the above (pick 6-8) over 50 years would have beaten the S&P or would have presented a higher overall year-to-year risk profile?
So again, if you are diversifying in just RE, stocks, CEFs, commodities. They are not guaranteed to be better than SPY.
I remember so many posters quoting Merriman, saying your stocks must be diversified, just to come short in the last 15 years.
The next 10 years can be different than the last. I don't care what happened 50 years ago; I only care what the next years will do.
Basically, diversification is just a buzzword; the devil is in the details.
Example: If you invested in one of the most recommended bond funds, the US total bond index, VBTLX=BND, it made 1.5% annually in the last 10 years. The performance matches MM with no volatility, see (chart). BND has been a pretty bad choice, IMO.
To quote
ReganReagan, ”There you go again!”One of the most helpful things I encountered when beginning an investment journey was to purchase and devour materials which covered aspects considered helpful for new investors as well as more seasoned folks with more capital. Upon graduation from college, my parents purchased for me a subscription to Kiplinger. I still have that subscription some 45 years later. Many sample portfolios are included in the magazine as well.
Barron's was mentioned previously, but I'd suggest Kiplinger for someone starting out. It's a great tool for learning and becoming familiar with investments.
never bought the notion of diversification past a point.
an old and very tired argument. details, as he says.
Regan/ Reagan.)FD did not say anything untrue. He merely “misread” my original post where I referenced a hypothetical 40-50 year time-frame. His examples did not meet that criteria.
- I did not recommend @Joyes invest in the S&P 500.
- I did not recommend that he diversify.
- I do not believe diversification produces higher returns then a more focused portfolio.
@Joyes stated, ”I'm looking for tips on how to diversify my holdings in order to increase my portfolio over time.”
I honed in on that single sentence. Diversifying beyond what he already owns would likely lower his returns. But diversifying might reduce his risk level making it easier to ride-out extreme market fluctuations.
Please note - None of the diversifiers I mentioned is meant to be a recommendation. They merely suggest that diversification can extend well beyond just stocks & bonds.
If they are a physician, plumber, electrician etc..their work path is more "somewhat guaranteed in the future" so they might be more aggressive in their portfolio. If they are a real estate agent, programmer, where their future earnings might be lumpy or impacted negatively by AI, they might consider being way less aggressive in their portfolio.
I have personally worked with many young(er) colleagues, many starting out their careers, in their early to mid-20's and have found without a doubt (and I am more certain of this as anything I have ever posted on this site, political views included (Ha!) as I've seen it first hand many times) is that if you suggest to them "oh, you are young and have many years to invest, be aggressive, 90-100% in stocks", at the first draw down of over 15% they will bail and go all to cash. To someone without a lot of money, $20k going down to $13k is not something they are going to just watch happen.
Therefore, my suggestion for consideration and NOT ADVICE, would be to stay 50/50 in cash/Tbills and the other half in something like FPACX FPA Crescent..a fund that has been around a long time and is not super aggressive.
Don't gamble, don't overdo the booze, stay away from the floozies/bar flies, go home after work, don't go to the bars, stay fit, think for yourself, don't smoke, save at least 15% of your paycheck every pay day, don't care what others think or post on social media.
Good Luck and Good Health to ALL,
Baseball Fan
@BaseballFan - One guru I actually pay for monthly market analysis has had his readers at 58% equity and 42% T-Bills most of the year. I don't want to say who because it would violate my terms of use. But obviously that call has not been optimum YTD. Yet ISTM it’s hard to criticize someone wanting to make 5%+ in cash instruments. I recently upped my allocation to 44% equity from 37% when an opportunity came along. But like you I remain cautious.
If the FOMC should cut rates next week I think it would juice the markets. Most of the experts don’t expect a cut that soon. But my view is more sanguine.
would be allocated predominantly, if not entirely, to equities.
After all, young workers' risk capacity is great and equities
generate the highest long-term returns.
But what if an inexperienced investor has never encountered
a nasty bear market like the Global Financial Crisis?
It's possible some investors may panic and sell equities when prices are extremely depressed.
Then they may decide to remain out of the "market" for years failing to capture tremendous gains.
Would it be beneficial for certain investors to start with a lower equity allocation (maybe 50% - 60%)
which can be increased after they gain experience and discover their true risk tolerance?
"certain investors" should be in AOR or FPACX and that's it, sure; or half VONE and half ~5% money market.
Kind of a silly speculative discussion.
Compounding positive returns is what creates wealth.
While we're dancing and seeing how most of us are old enough to collect social security..what day you about a younger investor allocating say 10 to 20% to Bitcoin?
Note that many younger investors are much more open to the concept. I guess you could argue it's done a better job keeping up with inflation the last couple of years
It’s difficult to draw a line in the sand (or concrete). But if you’re under 40, dollar-cost averaging in and planning to work at least 20 more years … put it in a good low cost growth fund and let it rip. No more than 3 funds I’d say. You can withstand the +35% and -35% market whipsaws with that kind of time horizon.
I get the feeling from our friend @Joyes that his situation is different - probably an older investor.
The market has been at 'elevated valuations' for almost all of my 55y investing, except for that late '70s / early '80s dip and that short plunge 15y ago. I gave up worrying, though I am known to sell when I (totally imperfectly) deem things crazy-frothy.
Now it's well over double p/e (shiller anyway) its median of 16.
There's little helping someone who cannot stick with it, imo. I don't think 2/3 cash or whatever is it. Not saying stock prices aren't way high.