Vanguard Global Equity has been a decent performer, it has actually lagged some other of its larger active peers, but not by an amount worth considering changing.

I'd stop the VHGEX investment and put your 2010 investment into VTSMX or VDAIX. Don't worry about divesting out of it just yet.

Thanks for the reply. The 30K has accumulated in the last 6 months because for the most part we are paying minimums on the debt. If you were me, would you still set aside something for a new SEP-IRA for 2009 or just forget about it until next year?

I'm of the opinion if you can afford it, do it, even if its only a few thousand. Every bit aides the "miracle of compounding"

I would work on figuring out how much of a rotating savings/checking balance you need to have available and use the rest to put some into the SEP as well as pay down some extra on the higher dollar interest debt.

Perhaps leave $10k in the account and use $15k for the SEP and $5k to pay down some of the debt. Obviously this is your choice due to comfort level with that savings. I don't know your exact financial situation.

Also if a house is in your near term future (<=5y), you will want to consider that as well, maybe do $10, $5 and $5 and leave $10k for the house fund. Perhaps setting up another cash account specifically for that down payment so the money is separated.

my ROTH has 1 unit in VT, 2 units in VWO and I just put another 1.5 units in.

I like buy and hold forever propositions. Should I put it into an S&P ETF or something else? Considering I'm heavily leveraged towards emerging markets/international I wanted to put some more into the good ole USA to diversify.

Good idea / Bad idea / any low cost ETF/mutual suggestions?

I was thinking of just browsing Vanguard's offerings and picking one

I would definitely consider bringin' it home. Since you went the ETF route and its in your retirement account I'd suggest VTI or VIG.

Have 12k euros which I`m looking to put in a fund. Have a high risk tolerance and am 19 and living in Ireland. I`m looking at global equities funds, with Eagle Star being regarded as the best fund managers in Ireland so I`m looking to go with them. Any tips/ideas? I have a basic understanding of the markets etc. Am I better off in equities or commodities etc.?
Investment longer than 5 years.

dave427, the consensus (which if you have read this thread you would know) would be to put long term money into a target retirement fund if you are looking to set it and forget about it. (long term is more like 15 years+ imo)

Country you live in- USA
Income- ~200k (hopefully growing)
Risk Tolerance- Very high
Timeframe for investment- Long term
Debt- 16k left on a car loan

Any other information you might have that would help us- Hey guys, im a 23 year old poker player. Playing professionally since I graduated college last december. I'm getting married in March, and my fiance has a stable job and a good retirement plan. We will be looking to buy a house in the next year or 2. I'm looking to start saving a lot better, and plan on doing it on a per/month basis(probably 5-10k/month). Should I be creating a SEP IRA, traditional IRA or roth IRA? What about an individual 401k over the SEP IRA? Aside from those, where else should I be stuffing my money?

Thanks.

• Country - United Kingdom
• Amount to invest - $100k
• Income - ~£60k / $100k
• Risk Tolerance - high
• Timeframe - either retirement in 20 years, or until I decide to buy a house in a few years
• Debt - none whatsoever

Not sure about the house, it depends on how life goes. Just don't want something where I have to pay a huge commission to exit before time.

I have an account with Zecco and currently hold BND + TIP there. I used to hold some stock ETFs that I bought end of 2007 and they lost 30% of their value . I just sold them at my other brokerage to rebalance and I'm thinking of transferring all to Zecco and keeping the following:

30% VEU - ex-US stocks
20% VTI - US stocks
20% BND - bonds
10% DBC - commodities
5% TIP - TIPS
5% some oil ETF (?) - old
5% some gold ETF (?) - gold
5% VNQ - REITs

Comments? Does this make sense at all?

Stick it all in a Vanguard Target Retirement 2030 Fund instead? Will I be able to exit that easily? Also it seems a bit US heavy (and I'm not from the US).

$200k is over the ROTH income contribution limit and Traditional and Roth IRA's are limited to $5000 a year anyway, so

An individual 401K and SEP-IRA tend to be pretty close as to who allows the highest contribution limit. I'm not totally sure on the rules, so consult a tax accountant to figure out which gives you the highest retirement account contribution.

If you have maximized all "regularly accepted" retirement accounts and wish to put even more aside in a tax deferred account then think about a variable annuity. Vanguard offers some VA funds.

As for taxable, the first thing people need to think about is whether they want to manage a taxable account and if not, then just stick it in Target Retirement fund.

DBC does track oil and gold as part of its make up, that would be the only thing you need to keep in mind if you wanted a specific gold or oil fund alongside it. I'd maybe drop oil and gold to 2.5% and increase the TIPS to 10%.

Canada
$10K to invest
Highest Tolerance
Short-Long, doesn't matter
$0
No real investing knowledge other then Mutual Funds and some small investments but I am more interested in the amount of stocks that I should have in my portfolio.

Some people believe that an individual should never own more then 20-30 stocks at most because, and I'm sure others here would agree, if you're buying individual stocks it should be only because you've made a conscious and self informed decision to purchase the stock. Not because some newsletter told you too. You should know the companies.

Before you start investing in taxable brokerage accounts, you should first be maximizing your tax free and/or tax deferred accounts and making sure you're establishing or have established an emergency fund.

But based on what we've learned of you today, I would take that $10k and do the following:
Put 70% into VTI, 20% into VEU and the remaining 10% into BND.

Better yet, just hold on to the cash and learn and read and hopefully you will learn why we've been reluctant to discuss individual stocks for you, as well as why we've been "sour" with regard to your misguided questions about stock amounts and prices.

Country - United States
Amount to invest - ~50-75k
Income - varies
Risk Tolerance - very low
Timeframe - 6-9 months
Debt - Zero

My wife and I recently sold our house, and need somewhere very safe to put a chunk of the proceeds to use as a down payment for a new house once my wife starts working again, (we are currently renting). We live in Phoenix area, and waiting for her to get a job also helps with waiting out the real estate market to fall even further. If it matters, when we buy, we will probably be buying in the 400-600k range, depending on several factors. Best CD I can currently find is a 6 month at 1.4% through Ally Bank. Any other suggestions?

EDIT: I also see they have a money market account at 1.6%, which would be better, allowing us flexibility in amount of time and $$$ invested.

Dali: Get an ING Money Market account, I think they pay about 1.7%.

Country - Canada
Amount to invest - 100k+ (Canadian dollars)
Income - varies, but very likely over 100k for 2010
Risk Tolerance - low-medium
Timeframe - 2-5 years
Debt - Zero

I play poker full-time and will be paying taxes starting in 2010 according to legal advice I have received. I think there is a good chance that I purchase a house/condo in the next 2-5 years. I currently have all my money sittting in savings accounts.

ING direct Canada accounts currently pay 1.2% interest. How can I best beat this rate over the next 2-5 years while minimizing my chances of facing a significant drawdown? From reading this thread/forum I am thinking that short-term bond fund etfs (ishares has one with a low MER) would be a good bet to outperform an ING direct account? Some combination of the two? Would any small % in equities be a good idea, and if so would a specific index be better suited to my situation than a total market idex etf?

ishares bond fund distributions are made quarterly. I assume that these distributions are taxable as regular income and there aren't really much in the way of tax benefits of owning bond funds vs savings accounts?

I am also going to have ~15k in RSP (registered tax sheltered account) and 5k in tax-free savings account space in the coming years. Since these accounts would be for the long-term (10 years+) I plan on purchasing mainly the standard security etf indexes for them (eg Canadian ishares TSX total index fund).

Thank you in advance!

I wish I could speak for folks in foreign countries, but I really can't.

I agree with Arts response to Daliman. A stated defined need for that kind of lump sum in cash to cover a down payment signals you want to keep it as liquid cash as you can. If you don't keep it in a cash account the next thing to consider would be a bond market ETF like Vanguards BND. Maybe split it 50/50.

it doesnt always make sense to purchase a house/condo entirely in cash. I know poker players who put 25% down and got a very good rate, one which is lower than what you can expect to earn in equities. So given that I dont see why you need to be super safe with all the money I would put a bunch of it (50%?) into a world market etf and the rest in some bond etf. You can get canada bond etfs that yield 3.5% I think.

I started a new job and need to decide on the allocations for my 401k. I believe this is the list of funds that I must allocate into (i don't believe I can allocate to other funds, or even random stocks):

Vanguard 500 Index Fund Investor Shares * VFINX
Vanguard Growth and Income Fund Investor Shares * VQNPX
Vanguard Mid-Cap Index Fund Investor Shares * VIMSX
Vanguard Prime Money Market Fund * VMMXX
Vanguard REIT Index Fund Investor Shares *
Vanguard Short-Term Bond Index Fund Investor Shares * VBISX
Vanguard Small-Cap Growth Index Fund * VISGX
Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund Investor Shares * VBMFX
Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund *
Vanguard Wellesley Income Fund Investor Shares * VWINX
Vanguard Wellington Fund Investor Shares * VWELX

Thoughts? I'm thinking mostly in Growth and Income, with some in mid-cap, small-cap, and international.

Btw, I'd probably be putting in ~16k a year, with another 50% of that being matched with my companies stock.

How old are you?

Wellington is a good hybrid fund. Some of these are essentially the same and it would be over diversifying being in a lot of them. Like being in VQNPX and the 500 index fund. VQNPX looks basically the same as S&P 500 index
http://quote.morningstar.com/fund/f.aspx?t=VQNPX

Morningstar.com free is pretty good for dd

The total bond market one looks like it has the same holdings as some of the other ones like the short-term bond one so check to make sure you don't double up on the same holdings with different funds.

As far as stock weightings go I remember the industry recently has finally moved the standard allocation to overweight international stocks now vs US stocks(lost source). It used to be you could have a larger percentage in US stocks vs international but obviously the expected growth now is in Asia and the developing countries. Most important thing though, remember, avoid overdiversification.

Also I think doing mid cap and small cap would be overdiversification because they are pretty correlated. Small cap stocks will outperform larger cap stocks but in these type of funds I remember reading the fact that they have to keep selling the small cap stocks (because their market cap gets above the funds market cap threshold it eats away at the small caps advantage via the sell commissions) In other words the small cap fund has more "churning" buying and selling which is expensive and eats away at return because they have to keep just small cap stocks in there vs the S&P 500 where Exxon and the like could hit super mega cap status and they can keep it in. I think this applies not only to actively managed funds too which these are.

Also, favorite quote

"To carry ones eggs in a great number of baskets without having time or opportunity to discover how many have holes in the bottom is the surest way of increasing risk and loss."
-John Maynard Keynes


decent beginners guide
http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/assetallocation.htm

Thanks for the info! To answer your question, I'm 26 and hope to work at this company for at least 10 years, if not more.

Thanks for the responses guys, I appreciate it. I am starting to rethink the idea of having most of my asset allocation being in a house after reading this and some other resources. Basically the more I read the more I realize I have a lot to learn about personal finance and passive investing, buy vs rent, etc.

Your company is going to contribute $8k to make it $24k total? Thats kind of incredible.

I think sticking it mostly into Growth and Income is fine considering its tax deferred (or tax free? is it Roth?). Its value tilted compared to the Vanguard 500.

Consider adding the REIT fund at 10% of the total. Tax free and deferred accounts are better places for funds that kick off lots of dividends and capital gains - hence index funds tend to be better for taxable accounts.

yeah 24k total, 16 self contribution, 8 in company stock. Its deducted pretax, so that would make it tax deferred?

thanks for the info, ill take a look at the REIT fund as well.

Country: US
Income: 30K annually
Risk Tolerance: mid to high, I'd like to shoot for returns that will beat the interest rate on my student loans obv.
Timeframe for investment: until I have enough fk-u money to retire. i honestly dont expect to touch the money (or the returns) once its invested.
Debt: 49K in student loans @ 2.5-6%, 4K in closed cc accounts at ~3%

Other info: My expenses are pretty low. I dont make a lot currently and my budget is about 100% of my salary. FWIW i have about 6 more classes to complete before getting my degree, at which point i expect to make a career change (actuary: 6 figs in 3 to 5 years). At my current job I expect to make commission/bonuses monthly that exceed budgeted income. Rather than spending it on liquor and bitches I figure I can learn something with it. I figure to have $100~$400 per month to contribute. Thanks for any help.