Year End 2005 Asset Allocations

[JohnP]

28% Fixed Assets and Cash
20% International (TSP-I, VEIEX, VHGEX, VEURX)
22% US Mid Cap (VASVX, VSEQX, VHCOX)
30% US Large Cap (VFINX, VTSMX, VWNFX, VWELX, VGHCX)

Mostly Vanguard - not factoring equivalent fixed assets for pensions.

JohnP

 

[wildcat]

Without doing the actual %'s I am right around:

25% small cap
25% international
10% cash
10% commodities
30% mid-large cap (including a few individual stocks)

 

[haha]

I may have missed someone, but it appears that the only posters so far with => 50% fixed are Grumpy including his capitalized pension, SWR, and me. Interesting for a bunch of mostly retired or near retired people.

Ha

 

[BigMoneyJim]

This info is repeated as a new post and as an edit to my first post in this thread.

After playing around with Vanguard's features I came up with this allocation breakout. It throws my 11.9% REIT in with U.S. Stock...not sure if it counts is as large or mid/small:

39.0% Large U.S. Stocks
22.9% Bonds
22.0% Mid/Small U.S. Stocks
9.0% International Stocks
7.1% Short-Term Reserves

The cash % will shrink as the rest of the port grows. I'd like to put more bonds in. The rest is pretty close to my intended target; REIT and Int'l should each be 10%. I accidentally overweighted REIT when I bought but am not adding to it.

 

[BigMoneyJim]

I may have missed someone, but it appears that the only posters so far with => 50% fixed are Grumpy including his capitalized pension, SWR, and me. Interesting for a bunch of mostly retired or near retired people.

Unless I go Terhorstian I'm many years from retirement, but my current plan is to maintain about the allocation I have now throughout retirement. I have a lot of time to change my mind, though.

 

[Dry Socks]

The CA house is probably about 80% of our net worth.
The rest is:

36% US stocks
23% foreign stocks
20% bonds
15% money market
5% other (PCRDX, GLD, ...)

I'd like to diversify out of CA real estate but there are other factors.

 

[MJ]

I may have missed someone, but it appears that the only posters so far with => 50% fixed are Grumpy including his capitalized pension, SWR, and me. Interesting for a bunch of mostly retired or near retired people.

11% MM
69% Fixed
20% Equity

I hope to educate myself more next year to increase the Equity portion to 30% especially after I sell my house.

MJ

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

()

Any reason for leaving Wellesley and Wellington?

Yepper doodles. Look for the thread "pimp my ride" for the gory details, but here's the short answer.

When I was single, needed stability and limited volatility, good growth and high current income, and had no other income sources to jack up the taxes, wellesley and wellington nicely fit the bill.

When I was married with a working wife who has a good income, hers pays the bills, and she doesnt want to quit working for some time (ten years is a common time frame she throws out), I didnt need as much stability or low volatility, I could 'shoot the moon' with a little less anxiety, and the last thing I needed was a buttload of nonqualified dividends jacking up my tax rate.

In the new scenario, we get lots of volatility, something in the 3% range for payouts, about 2.4% of which is qualified dividends. We're going to pay zero taxes this year. I still have money coming out of my ears.

If the 5/15% deal on qualified dividends didnt exist and they were taxed at a higher rate, or as ordinary income, i'd probably have stuck with the old mix.

As it is, by the time the wife quits, we'll have plausibly doubled our nest egg while living fairly high on the hog.

 

[lswswein]

10% VTSMX - Total Stock Mkt
10% VISVX - Small Value
10% VTMGX+VPACX (7%+3%) - Tax Mgd Intl + Pacific Indx
10% TBGVX - Intl Mid/Small Value
10% VEIEX - EM Index

08% VIPSX - TIPS
08% VBISX - Short Term Bonds
09% PTTRX+PEBIX(6%+3%) - Total Ret + EM bonds

10% VGSIX - REIT Idx
05% PCRIX - Commodities
05% MERFX - Merger Fund
05% BRK.B  - Berkshire Hathaway 

50% Equities, 25% Bonds, 25% Other. I overweighted my equity exposure to Intl as most of the Bonds and Other is in Dollars.
All rebalancing done using new contributions
-h

 

[Chris24]

My portfolio is still taking shape, but am about solidify it this spring. I have noticed most have a small portion in Intl. My intial target allocation is going to be a 70 equity/30 fixed income bond ratio. (=/-5%) My plan is to have at least 40% of the equity portion in International funds.

I'm not smhat enough, (or have the confidence), to work my assests outside of mutual funds, so they will be tied up between VG, Dodge and Cox and maybe some Fidelity.

Thanks for sharing your allocations.

Christopher

 

[Spanky]

I'm not smhat enough, (or have the confidence), to work my assests outside of mutual funds, so they will be tied up between VG, Dodge and Cox and maybe some Fidelity.
Christopher

Chris,

All my holdings are in mutual funds except for the company stock. Mutual funds and ETFs are all you will need to build a solid portfolio.

Spanky

 

[REWahoo]

23% Cash
38% Bonds
26% US stocks
13% International stocks

The non-cash holdings are primarily in three funds:
Vanguard Wellesley
Dodge & Cox Balanced
Dodge & Cox International

 

[BUM]

What is your allocation going into 2006? Here is mine:

Cash & I-Bonds 52%
Energy 18%
Foreign Stk 11%
US Stk 7%
Foreign Fixed 6%
Gold 5%
REIT 1%
​

Ha

HiHi HaHa,

Except for the gold (my PCRIX) your allocation looks like mine. I'll be reallocating next week...details to follow

Merry Christmas

BUM

 

[Retire Soon]

Dreyfus Basic S&P 500 15%
Vanguard Value Index 8%
Vanguard Asset Allocation 2%
Vanguard Mid-Cap Index 14%
Vanguard Small Cap Value Index 5%
Vanguard International Value 6%   
Vanguard European Index  7%
Vanguard Pacific Index  7%
Vanguard Emerging Markets Index 5%
Vanguard Prime Money Market 31%

RS

 

[Spanky]

I am thinking about adding commodity and Japan for 2006.

 

[charlie]

Season's Greetings to All,

My AA has not changed much since the last time I posted.

My wife's IRA is in Wellington compounding nicely.  She is 5
years from RMD. Her IRA is about 17% of our total financial
resources.

Our taxable mix is 50/50 with the equity split equally between
Vanguard's Tax Managed G & I, Tax Managed Small Cap and
Tax managed International.  The FI is in Intermediate Term Bond
index and a CD with PenFed.  Total taxable is also about 17%
of the grand total. 

My IRA, which we are drawing down at about 6% per year, is
40/60 equity to FI.  The equity is split equally among 7 VG
funds a la "coffeehouse" ...... Large Cap Index, Small Cap Index,
Small Cap Value Index, REIT, International Explorer, Total International and Windsor II. 

The FI part of my IRA is committed to GIM (unhedged foreign bond ETF),
several intermediate term corporate bonds that pay CPI + 2-2.38%.
and a MM to collect income and pay a monthly draw.  I keep about
10% of my total IRA in the MM to act as a buffer in bad equity years.

My most recent addition was a short term bond paying 3 Mo T-Bill +
2.05% .  With T-Bills at about 4% this pays about 6% monthly.

As you can see, I am still betting on a falling dollar (at some point),
but GIM pays a nice 6% monthly dividend while waiting.  I might add
more if the price dips below $8 again.  The floating bond strategy
seems to be working OK so far with recent divs at better than 6%.

I hope you all have a prosperous new year!

Cheers,

Charlie   

 

[bpp]

Spanky writes:

I am thinking about adding commodity and Japan for 2006.

2003 would have been better...

Then again, for a permanent allocation shift, there is no time like the present.

Bpp