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H110Hawk posted:It's fairly clumsy but given over half my net worth is with them it's fine. I can see all my credit card balances, some faux value of my house, my mortgage, car loan balance, and cash accounts in one pane. I don't really care about how my (3) fidelity mutual funds are doing, I just keep an eye on my 401k annual returns which is representative of my IRAs as well. If you're interested in trying to match a total stock market index like VTSAX, this page has a good guide on how different indices approximate it. Otherwise it'd depend on risk tolerance, time to retirement and any other holdings to determine what you'd want for a bond allocation or if you wanted to overweight a certain part of the market.
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Aug 21, 2017 20:35
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Ixian posted:I'm cleaning up a taxable mutual fund brokerage account. Am I correct in assuming holding both VFIAX and VTSAX is somewhat pointless? Having both VTSAX and VFIAX just means you own the whole stock market plus you have a tilt to the large companies in the S&P 500. It's not pointless if that is your investment goal. Diversifying into bonds or other fixed income investments is tricky here. Bonds are tax inefficient unless you buy munis, which might not make sense in your tax bracket. Plus, if you would have to sell VTSAX or VFIAX to get into bonds that is a capital gain/loss event. If you have a 401(k) or an IRA, it might be best to overweight bonds there to make up for your stock-heavy taxable account. Otherwise bite the tax bullet.
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Aug 22, 2017 02:33
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Acceptableloss posted:Can anyone here recommend some cheap software or internet site / app for investment tracking? I already use the basic version of Quicken for tracking spending and budgeting, but the version that allows tracking of investments is $100. I have retirement savings $ in several different accounts with 3 different banks and would like to be able to track them all in one place. I use quicken too and I paid $50 through Amazon for full-blown Quicken that tracks investments as well. https://www.amazon.com/Quicken-Pers...eywords=quicken
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Aug 22, 2017 15:26
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Silly question that I haven't been able to figure out: How do I actually buy funds with my Roth IRA? I opened one with Vanguard last November, and it's giving me dividends, but I'm not sure how. I THOUGHT I was getting a target date fund, but looking at the breakdown 100% of the money is in "short-term reserves" in an account labeled "Federal Money Market (Settlement Fund)". When I look into buying EFTs (I'd like some set-it-and-forget-it fund, like VTSAX), Vanguard tells me I need a brokerage account, but isn't my IRA already a brokerage account? What am I buying when I contribute to my IRA, where are the current dividends coming from, and how do I actually get some stocks and bonds up in here?
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Aug 22, 2017 18:10
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Etuni posted:Silly question that I haven't been able to figure out: How do I actually buy funds with my Roth IRA? I opened one with Vanguard last November, and it's giving me dividends, but I'm not sure how. I THOUGHT I was getting a target date fund, but looking at the breakdown 100% of the money is in "short-term reserves" in an account labeled "Federal Money Market (Settlement Fund)". When I look into buying EFTs (I'd like some set-it-and-forget-it fund, like VTSAX), Vanguard tells me I need a brokerage account, but isn't my IRA already a brokerage account? What am I buying when I contribute to my IRA, where are the current dividends coming from, and how do I actually get some stocks and bonds up in here? You're putting all of your money into a Money Market account. It's similar to a savings account, the dividends you're getting are just interest payments. There should be a section on your Roth IRA page that says "Buy and Sell". Click on that, and you should be able to buy shares of funds with the money in your Money Market account. If you try to buy ETF or mutual funds from just about anywhere else on the site, it will assume you mean a taxable brokerage account. 
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Aug 22, 2017 18:19
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Etuni posted:Silly question that I haven't been able to figure out: How do I actually buy funds with my Roth IRA? I opened one with Vanguard last November, and it's giving me dividends, but I'm not sure how. I THOUGHT I was getting a target date fund, but looking at the breakdown 100% of the money is in "short-term reserves" in an account labeled "Federal Money Market (Settlement Fund)". When I look into buying EFTs (I'd like some set-it-and-forget-it fund, like VTSAX), Vanguard tells me I need a brokerage account, but isn't my IRA already a brokerage account? What am I buying when I contribute to my IRA, where are the current dividends coming from, and how do I actually get some stocks and bonds up in here?  e: ah beaten Xaris fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Aug 22, 2017 |
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Aug 22, 2017 18:21
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Awesome, thank you!!! I had been tripped up by the option to "add another mutual fund", but that's exactly what I wanted to do all along! I don't have the $10k minimum to buy into VTSAX yet, so I'll just move my money into the target date fund I wanted from the beginning. I assume when I have more money and am ready to do more research on particular indexes, it'll be just as easy to move money back and forth between them? Also, when I make my next transfer into the IRA, everything will go into the settlement fund again and I can choose where to send it from there in the same way, correct?
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Aug 22, 2017 18:37
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Etuni posted:Awesome, thank you!!! I had been tripped up by the option to "add another mutual fund", but that's exactly what I wanted to do all along! I don't have the $10k minimum to buy into VTSAX yet, so I'll just move my money into the target date fund I wanted from the beginning. I assume when I have more money and am ready to do more research on particular indexes, it'll be just as easy to move money back and forth between them? If you don't have money to buy VSTAX, buy the investor-class VTSMX which is only a 3k min. Expense ratio is a little higher but honestly it's still peanuts and functionally you won't notice. Or you can buy the ETF equivalent VT (or VOO could be even better) under Trade Vanguard ETFs. There's no minimum for the ETF equivalent but you may have some remainder left over that you can't spend. Xaris fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Aug 22, 2017 |
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Aug 22, 2017 18:39
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Etuni posted:Also, when I make my next transfer into the IRA, everything will go into the settlement fund again and I can choose where to send it from there in the same way, correct? You shouldn't have to do that after the first time. After that, you can purchase more shares directly from your bank account (provided you haven't contributed more than the annual limit of $5500).
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Aug 22, 2017 18:42
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Etuni posted:Awesome, thank you!!! I had been tripped up by the option to "add another mutual fund", but that's exactly what I wanted to do all along! I don't have the $10k minimum to buy into VTSAX yet, so I'll just move my money into the target date fund I wanted from the beginning. I assume when I have more money and am ready to do more research on particular indexes, it'll be just as easy to move money back and forth between them? Yeah but make sure to check the fund prospectuses and also Vanguard's fee policy to see what the timing restrictions are. Something typical would be requiring you to wait 30 days after buying before selling as per the fund and the brokerage may have a 60 day requirement for a no-fee program or something.
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Aug 22, 2017 19:11
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Couldn't he just buy VTSMX until it hits 10k then it will auto convert to Admiral?
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Aug 22, 2017 22:20
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Hello thread, I'm a total investing newbie and I need some advise. I have no idea what I am doing so, if I sound lost or I am making dumb decisions, it's probably because I am. Also, I really apologies if this is not the right thread to ask! So recently I had some inheritance money come my way. It's not a life changing amount, but it's enough that I want to put some towards retirement, and some towards a future house. The total inheritance came to be about $80.000 for reference. I have a Roth IRA through TRowe Price that I set up in college. Currently that has about $10,000 in it and I put in about $1200 a year I also have a 401 through Voya that my company offers. That also has about $10,000 in it and i contribute 4% per pay period. Now I have some big expenses coming up. 1) I'm getting married next year. Our current budget for this wedding is $20,000. We have everything already booked, just need to pay it off. 2) My fiance and I are hoping to buy a house in the next 5 years. Our housing market is ridiculous (DC metro area) but we're trying to buy something under $400,000. 3) honey moon! That will be later next year to Europe. We're trying to budget $5,000 for it. Hoping we'll get some help from family as its our main wedding gift. Now combine, my fiance and I make about $180K a year. I have no student debt loans, however hers are substantial (med school and poor family) and is close to $200K. We also have her mother living with us, since she hurt her knees and can no longer work (at least full time. Her English also isn't great which makes finding work even more difficult for her). Anyway I realize that is a lot of info, but I'm trying to figure out the best way to manage my money. I have done a ton of research over the last month, and talked to various family, friends, financial advisers. I think investing in Index Funds is the obvious choice, but picking the right one(s) is hard. I signed up for TD Ameritrade, and have been using their extensive teaching tools but am still lost. Currently, I'm looking at the following Vanguard funds: VFINX VBINX VTI Best suggestions? Solaris 2.0 fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Aug 22, 2017 |
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Aug 22, 2017 23:21
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Solaris 2.0 posted:Hello thread, Don't bother with TD Ameritrade, just open a Vanguard account and you can buy all the Vanguard funds for no trading cost. At your income (and presumably it's going up from here if the fiance is a doctor), get those 401k's and Roth IRAs maxed ASAP. Your budgeted big ticket items seem pretty reasonable, but you'll want to get around $130k saved up outside of retirement accounts as a focus in order to get 20% down on the house, a little cushion, and pay for your other planned items.
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Aug 22, 2017 23:29
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baquerd posted:Don't bother with TD Ameritrade, just open a Vanguard account and you can buy all the Vanguard funds for no trading cost. At your income (and presumably it's going up from here if the fiance is a doctor), get those 401k's and Roth IRAs maxed ASAP. Your budgeted big ticket items seem pretty reasonable, but you'll want to get around $130k saved up outside of retirement accounts as a focus in order to get 20% down on the house, a little cushion, and pay for your other planned items. I suppose this is the big question, but which Vanguard funds should I be purchasing? Also funnily enough my income is the one that will go up ( work in IT, sysadmin and service desk) and not hers unfortunately (she is an optometrist and went to optometry school, I shouldn't have said med school). But your point still stands! Also just maxed out my Roth IRA because, as I was writing my post, I realized I hadn't done that yet! Solaris 2.0 fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Aug 22, 2017 |
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Aug 22, 2017 23:34
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Solaris 2.0 posted:I suppose this is the big question, but which Vanguard funds should I be purchasing? Something like this is about 90/10, it's on the more risky side that way but you can adjust more % of bonds as you get older and want less risk, but you seem to be in good income and shape right now anyways. VOO (SP 500) @ 40% + VXF (Extended Market) 20% (or just do VTI @ 60%) VSUX (Int Stock Market ) @ 20% VNQ (REIT) @ 10% BND (Total Bond) @ 10% Or you can just do a Target Retirement 2050/2055 if you just want to forget about it.
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Aug 23, 2017 02:43
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Syrinxx posted:Couldn't he just buy VTSMX until it hits 10k then it will auto convert to Admiral? It didn't autoconvert for me when I hit that point, if I remember correctly. You have to exchange for Admiral funds like you would anything else, but I think it at least prompts you to do so with a "There's Literally No Reason Not To" message when you log in.
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Aug 23, 2017 04:01
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MockingQuantum posted:It didn't autoconvert for me when I hit that point, if I remember correctly. You have to exchange for Admiral funds like you would anything else, but I think it at least prompts you to do so with a "There's Literally No Reason Not To" message when you log in.
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Aug 23, 2017 05:07
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Hoodwinker posted:The exchange occurs once a year, in November. I don't think that's true. I just exchanged for Admiral shares on VBIAX in June. Once you hit the threshold, you're good to go.
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Aug 23, 2017 12:18
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I don't think that's true. I just exchanged for Admiral shares on VBIAX in June. Once you hit the threshold, you're good to go.
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Aug 23, 2017 13:15
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Hoodwinker posted:No, I mean it automatically happens in November. You can choose to do it anytime, but they will do it automatically specifically in November. This is what I was told by a Vanguard rep. Oh, interesting. I didn't know there was an automatic conversion. There's no benefit to waiting, though.
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Aug 23, 2017 13:28
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Xaris posted:I think it's easy to get overwhelmed but really just keep it simple. Read up on Bogleheads wiki for portfolios and do your own due dilligence first. This is awesome, thanks! I'm going to ask a really stupid question. When you guys mention VTI 60%, VSUX 20, and BND 10 . This means if I invest $30,000, I should divvy it up among those shares by 60/20/10? But also just using the Target Retirement 2050/2055 is sounding nice too!
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Aug 23, 2017 14:05
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Yep. If you want to go Target Retirement, 2055's breakdown (for example) is pretty close in the following: Rank Fund % of fund 1 Total Stock Market Index Fund Investor Shares 53.90% 2 Total International Stock Index Fund Investor Shares 36.10% 3 Total Bond Market II Index Fund Investor Shares 7.00% 4 Total International Bond Index Fund Investor Shares 3.00% Total 100.00% https://institutional.vanguard.com/VGApp/iip/site/institutional/investments/productoverview?fundId=1487 These adjust "automatically" as time goes on to include TIPs and more bonds and less stocks as they get closer to target date. For example, Target 2020 (3 years away) is about 56% stocks, 40% bonds, 4% TIPs. There's some Boglehead debates of if you even want that much bonds still close to or at retirement but there you go. I personally think Targets hold a little too much International Stocks for my taste, which is why I'd suggest VXUS (got that wrong before) at more like 20% but whatever, it's all about the same for the most part and don't give yourself a headache over trying to optimize it because it won't appreciably matter. The problem with those is they charge about 0.16% expense ratio vs 0.04% +/- for just buying a big base fund like VTI/VOO. ~0.12% difference isn't a huge amount, but over a 30-year timeline on just a 30k principle that could be between 5k difference (in theory anyways). Though some other base funds are more like 0.11% so it's not a bad deal by any means. Anyways that's over a p big timeline so it's really not a big concern compared to some 1% expense ratio funds out there (yikes!) Xaris fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Aug 23, 2017 |
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Aug 23, 2017 17:06
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For high dividends and low volatility, can I do better than something like $PFF? It's a preferred shares index ETF that's good for ~5.5% with monthly dividends. It pays out better than my bond fund and with only slightly worse volatility. It seems perfectly intermediate. My IRA's three-funding it at 40/20/40 domestic/international/bonds. Thinking about putting PFF in there for 30/20/20/30.
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Aug 24, 2017 08:32
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Accretionist posted:It pays out better than my bond fund and with only slightly worse volatility. It seems perfectly intermediate. PFF went from $50 to $19 per share during the 2008 crash.
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Aug 24, 2017 08:44
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Roth IRA and VFIFX a good set it and forget it combo?
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Aug 24, 2017 08:52
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Droo posted:PFF went from $50 to $19 per share during the 2008 crash. Well, I don't think we'll see another like it* but maybe I should account for that more We did just elect Trump after all. Edit: * For the foreseeable future, anyways
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Aug 24, 2017 08:57
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Accretionist posted:Well, I don't think we'll see another like it* but maybe I should account for that more Think more about interest rates. Preferred Stocks act more similarly to bonds than common stocks. We are at absurdly low interest rates right now. If rates increase in the near future, which they do not have much room to go lower, than the price of preferred stocks are likely to decline as their fixed dividend will be less valuable.
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Aug 24, 2017 11:46
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Are you saying it would drop and stay there as opposed to a bond fund dropping but creeping back up?
Accretionist fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Aug 24, 2017 |
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Aug 24, 2017 15:33
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So far in my career all of my jobs have offered me Fidelity to handle my 401k and I have a bunch of different accounts with them all in various targeted retirement funds. It seems like the best thing to do is to move that over to a Vanguard index to take advantage of the way lower management fees. How do I do this rollover? Also- I'm assuming that with my current employer I'm stuck with Fidelity until I leave at which point I can roll the funds over to Vanguard? How does this work?
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Aug 24, 2017 15:40
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Accretionist posted:Are you saying it would drop and stay there as opposed to a bond fund dropping but creeping back up? I'm saying that a major part of the pricing of a preferred stock is going to be dependent on interest rates, the rest mostly has to do with the underlying company. If the risk free rate is 2% (roughly 10-year treasury), and the preferred stock pays out at 7% it may be priced at the $60 you see based on all of its other factors. If interest rates rise, the dividend above the risk free rate will be smaller (7% against the 2%), which means it has less value. Investors will only be receiving 4% over the risk free versus 5%. That will put pressure on the price.
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Aug 24, 2017 15:45
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Rex-Goliath posted:So far in my career all of my jobs have offered me Fidelity to handle my 401k and I have a bunch of different accounts with them all in various targeted retirement funds. It seems like the best thing to do is to move that over to a Vanguard index to take advantage of the way lower management fees. How do I do this rollover? Also- I'm assuming that with my current employer I'm stuck with Fidelity until I leave at which point I can roll the funds over to Vanguard? How does this work? You are stuck with fidelity with your current employer, you can't transfer or roll over 401ks until termination. If you're looking at consolidation or simply prefer vanguard (I do!), start the process with vanguard directly (they literally have an online wizard) and they'll largely handle it for you. I don't think fidelity requires anything special, they are pretty good about giving up your funds and all you might have to do is fax or mail an official request. Fidelity will mail Vanguard a check and your funds show up in a IRA a few business days later, allocated 100% to a "holding" money market account and from there you can just invest in whatever you like (which should be target date funds unless you are a lot more comfortable with this stuff) e: holy poo poo this isn't cjs loooool better capitalize everything Bhodi fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Aug 24, 2017 |
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Aug 24, 2017 15:52
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Rex-Goliath posted:So far in my career all of my jobs have offered me Fidelity to handle my 401k and I have a bunch of different accounts with them all in various targeted retirement funds. It seems like the best thing to do is to move that over to a Vanguard index to take advantage of the way lower management fees. How do I do this rollover? Also- I'm assuming that with my current employer I'm stuck with Fidelity until I leave at which point I can roll the funds over to Vanguard? How does this work? Rolling over to a Fidelity IRA for your prior 401ks is super easy and takes literally 24 hours based on prior experience. FUSVX is the ticker you're looking for in your IRA once your shares land. I prefer having it all in one pane. You can do it all online through a wizard.
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Aug 24, 2017 16:23
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Yeah just gave Vanguard a call and they basically handled everything for me. That was way less painful than I was expecting.
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Aug 24, 2017 16:32
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I've just hit 'Submit' on the online ISA transfer form - moving everything from Nutmeg direct to Vanguard. Here's to slightly fewer leaves being clipped from my money tree 
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Aug 24, 2017 18:50
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so I could say that I finally figured out what this god damned cube is doing. Get well Lowtax.
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I don't want to bring anything political to this thread, but what are the consequences of even a late payment, much less a default? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...n-debt-ceiling/ I had been shrugging this off (I assume, as have most people) but now I am getting concerned. Should I wait until after September when everyone (hopefully) comes to their senses before investing more? I didn't have any money in the market in 2008 (being in college and working retail helps prevent that) but I remember a lot of people's 401K and IRAs took a huge hit as a result of the mortgage crises and resulting bank collapses/bailouts. Could something similar happen with a default?
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Aug 24, 2017 19:31
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Solaris 2.0 posted:I don't want to bring anything political to this thread, but what are the consequences of even a late payment, much less a default? it sounds like you're trying to time the market. are you planning on retiring in September?
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Aug 24, 2017 19:36
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If the US economy collapses, you've got way more problems to worry about than the immediate value of your retirement fund.
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Aug 24, 2017 20:07
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totalnewbie posted:If the US economy collapses, you've got way more problems to worry about than the immediate value of your retirement fund. At least I will know when to make my annual IRA deposit.
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Aug 24, 2017 20:15
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H110Hawk posted:At least I will know when to make my annual IRA deposit. I'm already maxed out for the year 
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Aug 24, 2017 22:15
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Rex-Goliath posted:Yeah just gave Vanguard a call and they basically handled everything for me. That was way less painful than I was expecting. Not to be a downer, but you may have just bitten off a few more account closing fees at fidelity than you would otherwise have. Or maybe not.
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Aug 24, 2017 22:51
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