final mix from money magazine makeover

[mathjak107]

after fine tuning our mix based on the portfolio makeover tips we got from being evaluated in this months money magazine ,heres our final mix...it was pretty balanced the way i had it and all they felt we had to do is fine tune a little.the article is still up on cnn money magazine website as well as the magaine itself..(my wife hates her pic,* ha ha ha )for those that havent seen it..anyway here we go
the mix consists of both ira/401k and taxable accounts all rolled into one total mix

* *long term money
aim capital development 2.2%
fidelity export & multinational 10.5%
fidelity growth company* 5.9%
fidelity internatinal growth & income 4.20%
merrill lynch eurofund 2.25%
fidelity pacific basin* 1.00%* * * * * * * * * *
fidelity small company japan .16% just bought as its being closed to new money
fidelity natural resources 1.1%
fidelity select gold .50%
pimco commodities fund 1.80%
fidelity strategic real return 9.20%
fidelity value 6.15%
fidelity small cap stock 1.50%
fidelity small cap value 4.33%
merrill lynch s&p index fund 2.15%

* *medium term money

fidelity asset manager income 7.22%
fidelity balanced 5.67%
fidelity floating rate loans 2.5%
fidelity puritan 3.20%
fidelity strategic dividend 4.5%

* *short term
fidelity ultra short term bond 2.05%
fidelity money markets and bank 22.5%

[dex]

What are the goals for this allocation?

Did you research the top 10 holdings of each fund to see how different they are in practice?

[REWahoo]

22 funds/accounts, but 11 funds hold only 16% of your portfolio, an average of 1.5% of per fund. I'm a big fan of simplicity (call me lazy ), this seems overly complex.

Why so many funds with very small allocations?

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Whats the overall expense ratio?

[mathjak107]

its really not alot of funds considering its 3 seperate portfolios,each geared for a specific time frame..1-3 years 3-5 years and 5years until i die....the volitility at this point has been reduced drastically.i used to see 20,000 a day swings when i was all stock...my return isnt much less because the drops are way less and the volitility is 1/2 of what it was.each fund in each catagory has been matched to the others as best as i could..very little overlap of holdings as well as style.. there is really only 4 funds i wouldnt have if i had the choice as i dont need them as they are duplicates of others but they are in my 401k and i dont have much selection...aim development,,,the s&p 500 index ,merrill euro are 401k,,,the fidelity japan small company is a speculative play really which is now a closed fund and i put the bare minimum in before it closed so when i feel its time again i can utalize it...

[mathjak107]

overall expenses are about 9,000 a year on 1.6 million

[Nords]

Originally Posted by mathjak107

overall expenses are about 9,000 a year on 1.6 million

Does that sound better than 0.56%?

$9000 is also 22.5% of a first year's 4% SWR...

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Not to sound terribly critical, but you could get nearly the same functional bang for your buck with about half the funds, at about half the expenses.

An extra 4000-5000 a year in your pocket to spend or compound is a lot.

I have three separate portfolio segments for three different time frames too. 7 funds, and one of those is a money market. .18-.19% ER. When I sliced and diced to nearly the level you're showing, I had 12 funds, .26 ER.

Hope it works out for you though. That was a lot of work.

[mathjak107]

well the performance is the bottom line,,,,,
last few years are
the long term mix

1999 +29
2000 -10.8
2001 -6.4
2002 -17.1
2003 +46.1
2004 +12.4
2005 +11.2
2006 +3.1




medium term portfolio

1999 +12.2
2000 +2.7
2001 +1.3
2002 -6.4
2003 +33
2004 +11.5
2005 +8.2
2006 +3.1

i actually use 2 seperate newsletters for the 3 portfolios and try to keep them different from each other which so far has been working well for me....i track a hypothetical mix of index and etf's id thought about buying because of the expense issues but performance hasnt been close to my mix so for now im sticking with it

[modhatter]

Just curious, if you don't mind sharing, what newsletters do you subscribe to?