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GoGoGadgetChris
Mar 18, 2010

i powder a
granite monument
in a soundless flash

showering the grass
with molten drops of
its gold inlay

sending smoking
chips of stone
skipping into the fog
What are everyone's target allocations, anyway? I'm 28, single and working. I have to wonder if my "high tolerance for risk" is because I started investing in one hell of a bull market. We'll see if it changes when The Big Crash happens again.
- 10% total bond market
- 75% total US stock market
- 15% total international stock market

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Vilgan
Dec 30, 2012

GoGoGadgetChris posted:

What are everyone's target allocations, anyway? I'm 28, single and working. I have to wonder if my "high tolerance for risk" is because I started investing in one hell of a bull market. We'll see if it changes when The Big Crash happens again.
- 10% total bond market
- 75% total US stock market
- 15% total international stock market

Not completely clear since I'm lazy with my Roth IRA and am just using a target date fund at the moment, but in my 401k (a bit higher international to balance out lack of international in Roth IRA) my contributions are as follows:

42% Total International
38% Total US
8% Small Cap US
6% Bonds (this is a balance of "now feels like a terrible time to buy bonds" vs "don't try to time the market" - I should probably have more here than I do)
6% REITs

According to personal capital, across all accounts this results in:
5.6% US Bonds
1.2% Intl Bonds
57.7% US Stocks
34.2% Intl Stocks
7.3% Alternatives (a bit high at the moment since rebalance hasn't taken effect)

If I had everything mirrored across accounts and I were to pick my allocation again today it'd probably be:
55% Total US
33% Total Intl
6% Bonds
6% REITs

I still have the small cap because that's the decision I made a year ago and I don't really want to second guess myself just because small caps did badly. If there is a year where small caps do way better, I would probably reset my allocation to the 55/33/6/6 I just mentioned. I'm also currently planning on increasing bond allocation slightly each year starting with the end of 2015.

Vilgan fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Dec 31, 2014

khysanth
Jun 10, 2009

Still love you, Homar

Married, almost 30. Wife and I both have Roth IRAs:

90% stocks (70/30 US/International)
64% large cap
28% mid cap
8% small cap
International breakdown:
45% Europe
28% Pacific
7% Canada

10% bonds

spf3million
Sep 27, 2007

hit 'em with the rhythm

GoGoGadgetChris posted:

What are everyone's target allocations, anyway?

Saint Fu posted:

I just went through all of my accounts and compiled my splits:

Stocks - 75%
Bonds - 15%
REITs - 9%
Commodities - 1%

Stocks are split into:
US - 82%
Intl - 14%
Emerging - 4%

Bonds are:
US - 99%
Intl - 1%

REITs are:
US - 80%
Intl - 20%

Murgos
Oct 21, 2010
70% stocks 60/40 split in VTI and TIAA S&P 500 index fund
10% bonds with again 60/40 split BND and TIAA Bond fund
20% with 80/20 split VNQ and TIAA REIT

Probably should do something international but, eh.

How about that VNQ? 28% YTD return. It's pretty much all commercial property rents right (only 16% residential)? Owning buildings seems pretty lucrative.

So, what do you do when you need to start withdrawing and being on a fixed income? Move everything to high dividend funds and then make up shortfalls by selling? Leave it the way it is and then just sell off evenly every month/quarter to cover expenses?

Not that I have to worry about it for 20 years but I should probably think about it. Is there a generally well accepted guide or paper on how to handle that phase of your investment life?

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

crazyphil posted:

:
Option 1: Increase large cap holding
Option 2: Increase mid cap holding
Option 3: Open up a small cap fund
Option 4: Open up an international fund
Option 5: Open up a bond fund

Thanks for input

It always helps to add other area, I would make some international investments and bonds.

Given the historical returns, having at least 20-30% overseas stocks increases long term returns and also reduces risks due to country bias.

etalian fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Jan 1, 2015

Missing Donut
Apr 24, 2003

Trying to lead a middle-aged life. Well, it's either that or drop dead.

crazyphil posted:

I'm 28, so I am comfortable with a 100% stock allocation.

It's really easy to say that you are comfortable with a 100% stock allocation, but how much did you lose in 2008? You're 28 now, meaning you were 21-22 in 2008, so you are likely to not have lost much, if anything at all, in the last major stock market tumble. Not everyone who says that they're comfortable with 100% stocks actually are comfortable with losing 50% of their retirement value.

quote:

My 401k (Thrift Savings Plan) is split 60/20/20 between the C/S/I funds (Stocks of large and medium-sized U.S. companies/Stocks of small to medium-sized U.S. companies (not included in the C Fund/International stocks of 21 developed countries). I have more than 2x as much there as my IRA.

I was really leaning in a few directions with where to put the $5,500:

Option 1: Increase large cap holding
Option 2: Increase mid cap holding
Option 3: Open up a small cap fund
Option 4: Open up an international fund
Option 5: Open up a bond fund

Thanks for input

Piecing together your total investments, you are roughly 57% in S&P 500, 29% smaller companies, and 14% international. Compared to something like the stock portion of a Vanguard retirement fund, you are overweighted in smaller companies and underweighted in international. Do you have any specific reasoning behind where you have in the past decided where to invest, or any reasoning behind where you want to invest going forward, aside from your comfort with 100% stocks?

Missing Donut fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Jan 1, 2015

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Missing Donut posted:

It's really easy to say that you are comfortable with a 100% stock allocation, but how much did you lose in 2008? You're 28 now, meaning you were 21-22 in 2008, so you are likely to not have lost much, if anything at all, in the last major stock market tumble. Not everyone who says that they're comfortable with 100% stocks actually are comfortable with losing 50% of their retirement value.

It's why the 4 Pillars recommends some bond allocation, at least 20% given the unpredictable nature of the stock market.

People have a rosy view of the stock market given the big bull market after the 2009 recession and also under-estimate their real risk tolerance.



You can see from the above history in which the US had luckluster returns over a full decade such as 1970s.

SiGmA_X
May 3, 2004
SiGmA_X
I just rebalanced to the following, spread across my IRA/401k (thanks Excel!) I'm 28, also.

70/30 US/International on all classes
85% stock, with a 65/35 large/mid cap split of US stock
7.5% bond
7.5% REIT (I considered upping this but didn't, both REIT and bonds may go up to 10%/ea in July. Or it may stay till 2017)

E:

Personal Capital shows the following:
pre:
Cash			0.97%
Intl Bonds		2.52%
U.S. Bonds		4.89%
Intl Stocks		25.17%
U.S. Stocks		55.78%
Alternatives		10.67%
From my spreadsheet with fund share/dollar balances as of 12/31/14:
pre:
		Target		Actual
Cash		0.00%		0.35%
VO		20.83%		21.00%
VOO		38.68%		37.34%
VXF		0.00%		0.28%
VXUS		25.50%		25.33%
BND		5.25%		5.74%
BNDX		2.25%		1.99%
VNQ		5.25%		5.63%
VNQI		2.25%		2.34%
And the M* Xray

SiGmA_X fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Jan 1, 2015

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

My wife and I are 40. We have no kids.

31.44% Total Bond Market VBMPX
42.22% S&P 500 VIIIX
15.78% US rest-of-market VEMPX
10.56% International stock VTSNX

I haven't rebalanced since Jan 30. My target is 30/40/15/15 or something like that? We can see I have not drifted very far from that balance over the past 11 months. I forget if I meant to have 15 in international or if it was 10, and i'm missing 5% in a different category. Maybe VIIIX is supposed to be 45%. I don't think it matters a huge deal if I'm off in one category by less than 5%.

I also own my home. We refinanced in June; based on that appraisal, I also have equity in my home roughly equal to about 110% the total value of my retirement fund above. We have additional illiquid assets worth perhaps five percent of the retirement account or so, and liquid assets worth another maybe five to eight percent of that retirement account. My housing market is hot enough that I'm confident I could sell within 60 days of listing for at least the appraised amount, paying 6% transaction costs plus probably another 1-2% in repairs/staging/concessions to the buyer.

I also have a substantial life insurance policy through my work; if I die, my wife will get sufficient benefits to pay off her student loans and the house completely, plus roughly double what's in my retirement account. This insurance policy is subsidized by my work so it's much cheaper than what I'd have to pay on the open market, which is why I bothered to put it at the highest option available (6x my trailing annual gross salary).

I consider myself behind on retirement savings. We have been aggressively paying off debt the last couple of years, and in three years my wife's student loans (now under $20k) will finally be paid off. At that point I will at least double my savings rate. I expect to stay in my current career through the rest of my working life; I expect it to be reliable, I can easily get another job at similar or higher pay if I am laid off in the current business climate, and I have reasonable expectation that - barring total economic collapse in this country - I will remain employable through retirement age.

My wife is an artist. She has a little bit more savings I haven't included above, but it's less than 10% of my total so I just mostly ignore it. She also expects to work for the rest of her life, but at the typically low income expected by artists.

I know I gave a lot more information than just my allocation, but I strongly feel that an allocation absent this sort of information is worse than useless. Your allocation must be based on more than just your age and some vague feeling of what your risk tolerance might be: it should be based on your current and prospective future financial situation, your retirement plans and needs, your career prospects and whatever risk those prospects may face, and of course, the rest of your financial picture including especially large investments like real estate.

Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Jan 1, 2015

KILLALLNERDS.EXE
Oct 12, 2009
Anybody using virtualbrokers.com? Are the portfolio tools all hosed up for you too?

crazyphil
Feb 18, 2011

etalian posted:

It always helps to add other area, I would make some international investments and bonds.

Given the historical returns, having at least 20-30% overseas stocks increases long term returns and also reduces risks due to country bias.

20% sounds good

Missing Donut posted:

Piecing together your total investments, you are roughly 57% in S&P 500, 29% smaller companies, and 14% international. Compared to something like the stock portion of a Vanguard retirement fund, you are overweighted in smaller companies and underweighted in international. Do you have any specific reasoning behind where you have in the past decided where to invest, or any reasoning behind where you want to invest going forward, aside from your comfort with 100% stocks?

I've heard the 60/20/20 is a good split, and judging by the end of year individual fund performance (16.96%/9.87%/0.30% ) I'd say it worked out well. I really liked those two Vanguard funds, but they had each had a 10k minimum investment, hence the 50/50 split.

Thanks again for everybody's help! I think picking up a decent bond fund would be a good move to help round-out the portfolio.

SiGmA_X
May 3, 2004
SiGmA_X
You can also use ETF's in your IRA, which only require a single share to be purchased.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

crazyphil posted:

I've heard the 60/20/20 is a good split, and judging by the end of year individual fund performance (16.96%/9.87%/0.30% ) I'd say it worked out well. I really liked those two Vanguard funds, but they had each had a 10k minimum investment, hence the 50/50 split.

Thanks again for everybody's help! I think picking up a decent bond fund would be a good move to help round-out the portfolio.

The Three fund portfolio is a really simple elegant solution to diversification.

Also not having piles of different stocks makes it much easier to rebalance when you get significant >5% drift.

Only slight change to the concept is I like adding in a small 10-15% REIT exposure, with a 70-30 US-international split.

Similar to plain stocks international REITs make sense given how right now they have much better value given all the uncertainty in overseas markets.

Common retirement mistakes people make IMO are:
-Using high expense ratio funds, becomes a big problem once you get a big account, e.g 1% ER costs you 1000 per year for a 100,000 total account
-Not making enough contributions, at the least always go for the free money match
-Home country bias, thinking US stocks are the only good "safe" investment
-Not enough asset class diversification such as going for 100% stovcks "since i can handle risk". Even a small helping
of 10% bond or REIT stocks helps reduce risk
-Not understanding the 401k plan options, biggest thing in this respect is checking if you have a self-directed option
such as Fidelity Brokerage link. It basically solves the lovely ER and lack of good investments problem.

etalian fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Jan 2, 2015

obi_ant
Apr 8, 2005

Just maxed out my Roth. Remember guys, it's a new year and you can contribute a maximum of $5,500. Get it done early before you spend all of it.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

obi_ant posted:

Just maxed out my Roth. Remember guys, it's a new year and you can contribute a maximum of $5,500. Get it done early before you spend all of it.

Also remember you have a grace period in the next year in April to make a Roth contribution to the previous year if you didn't max it out.

Just make sure to categorize it as a 2014 not 2015 tax year contribution with your IRA provider.

etalian fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Jan 2, 2015

tentish klown
Apr 3, 2011
So guys, I'm 26 and as financial targets go, I am all sorted on the housing front and don't drive (so no big ticket items coming up). I have about £60k in various funds, and £30k in single stocks.
Given that my next big target (as far as savings go) would be school fees for my potential children (no small matter, they're about £30k/year for private education in the UK) and I have, lets say, 10 years to try and save up for that, what would my best bet be for the £10k that I've have to add to my investments this month? I currently earn about £35k from the day job and about £15k from rental income, and in general I save the rent money and my work income goes to normal day to day spending, paying tax on the rental income, and holidays/treats/whatever.

I do want to make my savings work for me, so I'm contemplating buying a buy-to-let property to turn it into a passive income stream.
In general, with the rich dad/poor dad stuff I heavily favour things that provide steady income that can be built up - ideally I'd eventually be able to live off my passive income sources and save everything I earn from actual, you know, work.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

tentish klown posted:

So guys, I'm 26 and as financial targets go, I am all sorted on the housing front and don't drive (so no big ticket items coming up). I have about £60k in various funds, and £30k in single stocks.
Given that my next big target (as far as savings go) would be school fees for my potential children (no small matter, they're about £30k/year for private education in the UK) and I have, lets say, 10 years to try and save up for that, what would my best bet be for the £10k that I've have to add to my investments this month? I currently earn about £35k from the day job and about £15k from rental income, and in general I save the rent money and my work income goes to normal day to day spending, paying tax on the rental income, and holidays/treats/whatever.

I do want to make my savings work for me, so I'm contemplating buying a buy-to-let property to turn it into a passive income stream.
In general, with the rich dad/poor dad stuff I heavily favour things that provide steady income that can be built up - ideally I'd eventually be able to live off my passive income sources and save everything I earn from actual, you know, work.

Buy to let is a somewhat hight risk investment scheme given all the factors especially how it's interest rate sensitive, has higher costs such as bigger down payment for the property and also most of the more depressed discount properties would requires lots of of fix up money before being ready for a renter.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-1596759/Ten-tips-buy-let.html

Other movesto consider would be moving over all your £30k over to index stocks, single stocks never have some diversification of good index funds.

For your extra monthly £10k, just sock it away in well balanced investment portfolio. Also make sure to max your contribution for the UK NEST retirement program.

Just investing £10k each month in simple stocks and Bonds over a 10 year period will yield good results:

tentish klown
Apr 3, 2011

etalian posted:

Buy to let is a somewhat hight risk investment scheme given all the factors especially how it's interest rate sensitive, has higher costs such as bigger down payment for the property and also most of the more depressed discount properties would requires lots of of fix up money before being ready for a renter.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-1596759/Ten-tips-buy-let.html

Other movesto consider would be moving over all your £30k over to index stocks, single stocks never have some diversification of good index funds.

For your extra monthly £10k, just sock it away in well balanced investment portfolio. Also make sure to max your contribution for the UK NEST retirement program.

Just investing £10k each month in simple stocks and Bonds over a 10 year period will yield good results:


I wish I had 10k each month. It's just this month as it's coming up to the tax deadline and I get my annual share of the rent income.
Yeah, I think it's going to top off my ISA contribution limits for this year into an index tracker, I'll also investigate NEST as this is the first I've heard of it. Thanks!

LemonDrizzle
Mar 28, 2012

neoliberal shithead
Can't see how NEST would be useful to you since it's a pension thing and you're presumably going to need this money before you turn 55.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

tentish klown posted:

I wish I had 10k each month. It's just this month as it's coming up to the tax deadline and I get my annual share of the rent income.
Yeah, I think it's going to top off my ISA contribution limits for this year into an index tracker, I'll also investigate NEST as this is the first I've heard of it. Thanks!

Yeah always check your retirement options whether NEST or ISA since it provides a handy way to shield your earning from taxes, then invest leftover money in taxable index tracker type investments.

Similar to US social security the state pension only covers a small portion of retirement living costs, so it's really important investigate or utilize any pre-tax type retirement accounts. Due to the math the best time to invest is when you are young and don't have as many life expenses. Money your invest now means you will not need a bigger contribution later on in life due to the math of compounding. For more flexible spending for near term needs you can use taxable accounts ideally with index tracker funds.

Real estate can be rewarding too in terms of improving monthly cash flow but remember things like buy to let are very risky due to various factors.


etalian fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Jan 3, 2015

District Selectman
Jan 22, 2012

by Lowtax

District Selectman posted:

My 401k doesn't offer an REIT option, and it's occurred to me that this is a hole in my portfolio I should plug, so I'm looking to grab an REIT ETF and buy it in my Roth IRA. Any suggestions?

I am a big dumb idiot and my 401k DOES offer an REIT option. It was just hidden way in the international equity section despite being a solid 60/40 US/Intl split. So now I have a 15/10/35/40 split between Bonds/REIT/US Equities/Intl Equities. I purposely adjusted my split to be +5 Bonds and -5 US Equities from where I've been for the last few years and it feels good.

I decided to buy $6k worth of the Vanguard REITs for my personal IRA anyway though.

District Selectman fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Jan 3, 2015

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

District Selectman posted:

I am a big dumb idiot and my 401k DOES offer an REIT option. It was just hidden way in the international equity section despite being a solid 60/40 US/Intl split. So now I have a 15/10/35/40 split between Bonds/REIT/US Equities/Intl Equities. I purposely adjusted my split to be +5 Bonds and -5 US Equities from where I've been for the last few years and it feels good.

I decided to buy $6k worth of the Vanguard REITs for my personal IRA anyway though.

For Vanguard also make sure you don't leave out VNQI since it covers Ex US areas.

401Ks tend to have bad REIT options, I know my Fidelity plan had 1% ER REIT from JP Morgan.

District Selectman
Jan 22, 2012

by Lowtax

etalian posted:

For Vanguard also make sure you don't leave out VNQI since it covers Ex US areas.

401Ks tend to have bad REIT options, I know my Fidelity plan had 1% ER REIT from JP Morgan.

Yup, did a 50/50 split between VNQ and VNQI based on the advice from this thread. The ER on my REIT option is pretty poo poo too (0.5%), but I can stomach it at 10% of my portfolio I guess.

Now I feel like I've sperged hard enough on my 401k and IRA for the year. Cheers thread

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

District Selectman posted:

Yup, did a 50/50 split between VNQ and VNQI based on the advice from this thread. The ER on my REIT option is pretty poo poo too (0.5%), but I can stomach it at 10% of my portfolio I guess.

Now I feel like I've sperged hard enough on my 401k and IRA for the year. Cheers thread

The other advantage of avoiding country basis even for REITs, is the nature of the market means you always have value ETFs people are avoiding.

Right now US markets have a fair valuation but due uncertainly overseas lots of ETFs in developed/emerging markets are trading at 20%-40% discount in terms of things like price to book/PE.

Investing globally means you force yourself to invest in the above discounted equities instead of timing the market by just chasing US equities, "Only US stock will go big over the next few years!"

Gripen5
Nov 3, 2003

'Startocaster' is more fun to say than I expected.

etalian posted:

For Vanguard also make sure you don't leave out VNQI since it covers Ex US areas.

401Ks tend to have bad REIT options, I know my Fidelity plan had 1% ER REIT from JP Morgan.

That brings up a question I had recently. How important is diversifying versus expense ratio differences.

My 401k through Lincoln Financial has 3 US index funds (small, mid cap, and s&p 500) for ERs of between 0.52 and 0.54. Meanwhile all the international funds are between 0.8 and 1.61 (the highest is an Oppenheimer emerging markets all others are below 1.21) and a real estate fund of 1.12 that is a 50/50 split of US and International.

Right now I have an allocation of 25% bonds, 45% S&P 500, and 15% each of the Russell 2000 and mid cap index I mentioned above.

I know I am missing out on foreign investments, but those super high expense ratios make it seem like it might not be worth it.

I also have the option of vanguard target funds for an ER of 0.68, if that works out better.

obi_ant
Apr 8, 2005

I have about $2,000 I wanna place somewhere that's not a 401k, Roth or a CD. Where can I place this money to basically "play" with?

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Gripen5 posted:

That brings up a question I had recently. How important is diversifying versus expense ratio differences.

My 401k through Lincoln Financial has 3 US index funds (small, mid cap, and s&p 500) for ERs of between 0.52 and 0.54. Meanwhile all the international funds are between 0.8 and 1.61 (the highest is an Oppenheimer emerging markets all others are below 1.21) and a real estate fund of 1.12 that is a 50/50 split of US and International.

Right now I have an allocation of 25% bonds, 45% S&P 500, and 15% each of the Russell 2000 and mid cap index I mentioned above.

I know I am missing out on foreign investments, but those super high expense ratios make it seem like it might not be worth it.

I also have the option of vanguard target funds for an ER of 0.68, if that works out better.

International 401k options tend to be lovely like those Oppenheimer funds, basically funds so bad the company Oppenheimer getting sued for the inflated costs and bad performance.

Best option would be to stick to the lower cost ERs and then use your Roth IRA to buy lower cost ETFs to cover the international/REIT exposure.

Another option is check to see if your 401k has a self-directed option that allows you to transfer most of your vested balance to external brokerage type account.

MickeyFinn
May 8, 2007
Biggie Smalls and Junior Mafia some mark ass bitches

Gripen5 posted:

That brings up a question I had recently. How important is diversifying versus expense ratio differences.

My 401k through Lincoln Financial has 3 US index funds (small, mid cap, and s&p 500) for ERs of between 0.52 and 0.54. Meanwhile all the international funds are between 0.8 and 1.61 (the highest is an Oppenheimer emerging markets all others are below 1.21) and a real estate fund of 1.12 that is a 50/50 split of US and International.

Right now I have an allocation of 25% bonds, 45% S&P 500, and 15% each of the Russell 2000 and mid cap index I mentioned above.

I know I am missing out on foreign investments, but those super high expense ratios make it seem like it might not be worth it.

I also have the option of vanguard target funds for an ER of 0.68, if that works out better.

Well, some naive math would say that a 65/35 US/Intl split with a mean expense ratio in the international funds of 1% ends up being (0.65*0.53 + 0.35*1 = ) 0.69% expense ratio. So, if you can manage the expense ratios on the international funds you can maybe do a few hundredths of a percent better than the Vanguard Target funds by diversifying your account yourself. Or you can pay those few hundredths of a percent and have Vanguard do it all for you. I'd do the latter.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

It's strange since if you could get the target fund directly from Vanguard the ER is 0.18%

Gripen5
Nov 3, 2003

'Startocaster' is more fun to say than I expected.

etalian posted:

It's strange since if you could get the target fund directly from Vanguard the ER is 0.18%


Yeah. My 401k is kinda crappy but I need to do something with it. I can't spare any in my budget for a separate IRA at the moment. But hopefully by the end of this year I will be able to free up some to open a vanguard account.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Gripen5 posted:

Yeah. My 401k is kinda crappy but I need to do something with it. I can't spare any in my budget for a separate IRA at the moment. But hopefully by the end of this year I will be able to free up some to open a vanguard account.

Well the nice thing about ETFs is they have a smaller minimum investment compared to mutual funds, it's $1000 for a new Roth IRA account at Vanguard.

The minimum amount for additional investment deposits is $100.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiem...an-six-figures/

MickeyFinn
May 8, 2007
Biggie Smalls and Junior Mafia some mark ass bitches

etalian posted:

It's strange since if you could get the target fund directly from Vanguard the ER is 0.18%


It isn't strange at all, the 401k custodian (?) is skimming something on the order of 0.5% for doing nothing. Seems totally normal for the financial industry.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

MickeyFinn posted:

It isn't strange at all, the 401k custodian (?) is skimming something on the order of 0.5% for doing nothing. Seems totally normal for the financial industry.

Basically the 401k concept made Wall Street even richer, especially when you work for a smaller company that can't afford the institutional level mutual funds.

By comparison in government plans like TSP the plans cost 0.02%.



On a side note the other distraction of ETFs/ETN is how they cover everything from MLPs ETNs, preferred stock, commodities, precious metals and even private equities. I regard a lot of the more niche investments as somewhat dubious since commodities is basically betting on a random process which has more volatility than stocks and really niche things like private equity/MLP tend to have sky high/hidden expense ratios.

There's also country specific ETFs for people who thing they can time the market and guess that a certain country will go big in the future.

Broad market ETFs are the best bet given how they provide low cost long term investments and more importantly have much more stringent regulation than some of the more gimmicky new ETF/ETN concepts.

Bhodi
Dec 9, 2007

Oh, it's just a cat.
Pillbug
I thought fidelity was OK until I switched companies and now have a 401k with them. My 401k options are pretty mediocre except for a single stock fund and bond fund.
0.75%? Really fidelity? I thought you were better than that :( I particularly like the .06% fee for simply holding my money because the "Stock fund" is just literally the single NYSE company stock.

code:
JPMC TARGET 20XX                Blended Fund      N/A           0.29%	
STOCK FUND           03/27/2009 Stock Investments Company Stock	0.0646%
S&P 500 INDEX        09/26/2005 Stock Investments Large Cap	0.05%
SMALL CAP BLEND      09/26/2005 Stock Investments Mid-Cap	0.7468%
TMPL INTL EQUITY     03/31/2011 Stock Investments International 0.7266%
CAPITAL PRESERVATION 12/30/1988 Bond/Managed      Income Stable 0.3566%
BOND INDEX           09/26/2005 Bond/Managed Income Income	0.06%
If all those big investing words confuse the client, fear not because they also have something called a "Portfolio Advisory Service" which I assume is simply a novel way to funnel money out of people's retirement accounts and into fidelity's:
code:
This is a managed account that puts Fidelity's investment professionals in charge of managing your workplace savings.
While you are enrolled in the service, we will make all decisions regarding the investment selections for your account,
using our experience and in-depth research methods. This service provides discretionary money management for a fee.

For the first $100,000 or portion thereof               0.45%
For the next  $100,000 to $250,000, or portion thereof  0.35%
All additional assets over $250,000                     0.20%
Yeah... needless to say I went 80% S&P, 10% bond and 10% stock. (This also isn't my only investment, I'm diversified more elsewhere including a IRA and traditional investments)

Bhodi fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Jan 4, 2015

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Bhodi posted:

I thought fidelity was OK until I switched companies and now have a 401k with them. My 401k options are pretty mediocre except for a single stock fund and bond fund.
0.75%? Really fidelity? I thought you were better than that :( I particularly like the .06% fee for simply holding my money because the "Stock fund" is just literally the single NYSE company stock.

Check to see if the 401k account has something called Brokeragelink, which is a self-directed investment option.

If not you already took the best option which was going for the SP500 and Bond low expense ratio mutual funds.

It's also not so much fidelity, it's mainly your HR/benefits people only allowing lovely investment options in the plan.



I often wonder how companies even pick the horrible menageries of available investments for their 401k plans.

MickeyFinn
May 8, 2007
Biggie Smalls and Junior Mafia some mark ass bitches

Bhodi posted:

I thought fidelity was OK until I switched companies and now have a 401k with them. My 401k options are pretty mediocre except for a single stock fund and bond fund.
0.75%? Really fidelity? I thought you were better than that :( I particularly like the .06% fee for simply holding my money because the "Stock fund" is just literally the single NYSE company stock.

*snip*

Fidelity Spartan funds are great, get your HR department to add them to your 401k plan. Like everything else HR touches, someone else has to do it so it gets done correctly!

Dead Pressed
Nov 11, 2009

etalian posted:

I often wonder how companies even pick the horrible menageries of available investments for their 401k plans.

I always kind of rolled my eyes when people mentioned reaching out to your hr group about benefits, but after some changes in my 401k plan (Jp Morgan retirement sold to some brand I have never heard of, then started undergoing a branding change) I wrote to a rep to bitch about it. Long story short, she said they were happy to hear my comments (changes were unexpected and unannounced to them) and that they take the comments to the advisory meetings (coo, ceo, and ee members) every three months.

I thought that was pretty cool, hopefully my begging for vanguard will go noticed. Shortly after this contact they upped our match by 2% at least.

Vilgan
Dec 30, 2012

Dead Pressed posted:

I always kind of rolled my eyes when people mentioned reaching out to your hr group about benefits, but after some changes in my 401k plan (Jp Morgan retirement sold to some brand I have never heard of, then started undergoing a branding change) I wrote to a rep to bitch about it. Long story short, she said they were happy to hear my comments (changes were unexpected and unannounced to them) and that they take the comments to the advisory meetings (coo, ceo, and ee members) every three months.

I thought that was pretty cool, hopefully my begging for vanguard will go noticed. Shortly after this contact they upped our match by 2% at least.

Yeah, this is the case in a lot of companies. Pretty much every company of any size will have a 401k committee that is supposed to act in the interests of the employees and keep fees low, have good fund options, etc. The issue in many places is that the committee ends up being made up of HR people who don't really know very much and get information on what to do from any number of bad sources. This is made worse because VERY few employees ever reach out with comments, questions, etc. In my company of 3k+ highly paid professionals, I asked some questions about our 401k and I was apparently the first in over a year to reach out like that.

In most cases, the people on the 401k committee WANT to do right by the employees, they just don't have the financial knowledge to do so effectively. The people on the committee are people in your same company and they don't make a dime off of all kickback stuff. If your options suck, ask HR or your benefits department how to provide feedback and reach out and engage with them. In many cases, they will love the feedback and they have the power to act on it and replace expensive funds with better funds.

Note: sometimes you will see funds (like Gripen5 did) that are more expensive than they would be on the open market. This is usually because a plan has recordkeeping fees for doing all the administration related to the plan. This is charged by the fund provider and the company can either pay it out of pocket (which many do), assess an annual fixed fee of $40 to $75 (this is what my company does now) or pay the fee by essentially adding an extra slice to each fund available to employees (this is what my company used to do). That being said, the 'extra slice' approach should work out to somewhere between 10 basis points and 25 basis points depending on the size of your company and plan. 50 basis points like Gripen5 quoted is absurdly ridiculously high. Either they were convinced to load most of the recordkeeping cost into the cheaper Vanguard funds for some reason (which is unfair and absurd) or they are not getting a competitive cost for recordkeeping. Either way, it should definitely result in a query to your 401k committee as to what is going on because if you really are paying 50 basis points for recordkeeping then they are doing a bad job but they might not know it.

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moodyhank31
Aug 29, 2012
I would like some advice for my parents. I've been reading (and benefiting from) this forum a substantial amount so I talked to my Dad about his financial situation and told him I'd give him some advice if he gave me the concrete numbers to what I'm already mostly familiar with.

My Dad's 56 and Mom is 52. They both plan on retiring in 2024, as that will be my Dad's 30th year of service for the USPS. He is looking at a pension equal to 33% of his three highest pay years (should be around 25k a year). My Mom is a healthcare factory worker. So I'm just going to throw their other numbers out:

Retirement Savings (I can get you their fund allocations if needed)
D (TSP 401k) 282k
M (WF 401k) 141k

Income
D-~70k (depends on his OT)
M- 30k

Stocks
M- 10k in her former employer's stock purchase plan

Savings-
11k in a bank account

Cash value of variable life Insurance policy from Prudential (no idea if this was ever a good thing)
Dad 26.5k
Mom 4.7k
Lil bro (16)- 5.1k

Debt
-169k Mortgage- 15 year @ 2.83% (House value ~475k) My Dad tells me he pays 1k towards the principal every month.
-8k in CC in a 0% promo account for the next year
-11k left on a 2012 Camry (0% apr)

What should they do? My Dad's planning on maxing 401k contributions this year plus the catchup. Mom isn't permanent yet in her new job. Not sure what the situation is in regards to her retirement benefits right now. Just looking for some guidance as they want to retire in about 10 years.

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