Poll: Number of Mutual Funds in Your Portfolio

[Midpack]

Seems like the logical third leg to the other two AA holdings threads.

Most lazy portfolios I've seen have between 3 and 10 stock mutual funds and I believe that's all most people need. https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Lazy_portfolios

Though some here only hold mutual funds, some (also) have individual stocks, bonds, cash and/or other. To avoid confusion for this poll, I'd respectfully suggest you count individual stocks and 401k's as one other holding category (e.g. an 'equity fund' you manage), individual bonds as another, all real estate as another and all cash vehicles as another one. For example if you have 5 mutual funds, 10 individual stocks, 3 individual bonds and various cash holdings (CD's, 2 savings accounts, iBonds, a mattress full of bills, and a bag of gold coins buried in the back yard) - that would be 8 funds & other holding categories.

We have 11 funds, DW's 401k and various cash instruments. We'd probably be fine with half as many holdings or fewer...

 

[bUU]

I'd have to put a whole bunch of exceptions in... I have money in my current employer 401k and they only offer company proprietary funds so obviously that money has to be invested in those funds ... it's not my choice. The same with this other account and this other account over here. If I eliminate the exceptions and focus on just the accounts I have full control over I think I've got it down to seven Holdings or maybe eight. I'm not enamored with getting down to three. If I had my choice my domestic large cap Index Fund would be at Vanguard. I have that holding yes, but I have a much older holding in an almost equally good domestic large-cap Index Fund at Fidelity. That's actually pretty useful to me to have a relationship with Fidelity as well as one with Vanguard and the two holding is might as well be one. They perform the same and have roughly the same expenses and so on. And converting the Fidelity into Vanguard would incur capital gains that I don't want to pay the taxes on right now. It's best to leave well enough alone sometimes. And I think I also still have both the Vanguard 500 Index Fund and the Vanguard Total market Index Fund. They're comparable to each other and converting one into the other just to have purity would incur capital gains that again I don't want to pay taxes on this time.

 

[W2R]

I had some questions about how they should be counted, but it turned out that no matter what answers I got mine would still fit into the 4-7 category.

 

[DrRoy]

4 to 7. I lumped together several S&P 500 equivalents.

 

[scrabbler1]

Six funds here. In my IRA I have 1 stock fund and 1 bond fund. Outside my IRA I have 4 funds, 1 stock fund and 3 bond funds. Together, that is 2 stock funds and 4 bond funds.

 

[Alan]

5 Vanguard mutual funds/ETFs.

 

[Walt34]

I have an IRA at Vanguard with three funds, DW has a Thrift Savings Plan account, and I guess one would count the two savings accounts for a cash position.

 

[Ronstar]

I don't know if I calculated this right, but I came up with more than 21. I have a VG IRA with 8 funds, FA managed IRA with 10 funds, a taxable VG account with 5 funds, an annuity, and a single issue stock.

 

[Corporateburnout]

We have 10 funds. 78% of the holdings are in three funds.

Over the next two years we plan to reduce all holdings to 4 funds (domestic stocks, int'l stocks, Bonds, cash) and possibly simplifying it further by going to a one target index fund 10 years down the road when I may no longer have the desire to deal with rebalancing and monitoring my investments.

 

[euro]

I'm still quite high as I have not yet consolidated all of the various IRAs, 401k, 403b etc that my wife and I have running. Once that consolidation is complete, I expect to make do with <8 funds. I do have a collection of individual DRIP stocks also.

 

[Fedup]

Maybe 6 or 7 total.

 

[kcowan]

10 out of 50 holdings, mostly for diversity into sectors not held individually.

 

[UnrealizedPotential]

I have 8 funds total. A total of 3 of those are bond funds. I don't plan on adding anymore. That is plenty for me to keep track of.

 

[sengsational]

15, but accidentally voted in the next slot up.

I combined all cash into one. I combined all individually held equities into one. I combined exact matches where I had the same holding in different accounts (ie HSA, Roth, 401k Rollover). But still, there's no possibility for exact matches across 529, 401k, Treasury Direct, and others, so that's why the number is high.

 

[dr watson]

2.
Vanguard target 2035 in tax deferred
Vanguard NJ Muni fund for taxable

 

[Cobra9777]

14

All ETFs plus some cash. The ETFs are mainly Vanguard and iShares. There are various reasons for the high number, mostly tax-related and a desire to tilt one way or another at various times.

 

[pb4uski]

10 after lumping together 3 High-Yield Bulletshare funds that mature in 2018, 2019 and 2020.... otherwise would be 12 (excluding PenFed IRA CD and online savings).

1 of the 10 is my brokerage fund sweep account. The least that I could get down to is 8... one for each asset class that I target.... domestic equities, developed international equities, emerging market equities, domestic investment grade bonds, domestic high-yield bond, developed international bonds, emerging market bonds and sweep account.

 

[Midpack]

Good, but not surprising, to me to find the majority here are smarter than I am. We/I have 13 holdings and other where we would be just as well served with half that. I insisted on a few tilts (value, small, emerging markets, bond duration, munis) that added to my choices. I will pare them down, but over many years to spread out the income tax impact. If not for taxes, I'd happily pare down now...

 

[donheff]

I have 10 but several are similars in DW's 401Ks that I can't replicate with the same funds as we hold at Vanguard. In terms of actual diversity it is more like 6.

 

[1-31-18]

I hold about 12 positions, maybe 20 if I were to count DW's, which is about 12 or 15 too many. Like others, I treat BRK as a fund, and it's now the only common stock I own. A year ago, while seizing control of my own portfolio from an FA whom I fired, I held maybe 50 positions, many paying excellent revenue streams to the FA. So, progress, but I still have a way to go. Hope to complete it before I retire, but might retire first and then finish the job.

 

[Totoro]

Two ETFs and one regulated pension fund I can't get out of (30k). One cash/CD ladder, and one account which has my individual shares + cash covered puts.

If we get creative, I also have an LLC with some assets in it.

 

[phil1ben]

No mutual funds.

All individual stocks and individual bonds plus real estate.

 

[6miths]

For DW and I, no mutual funds. No stocks. 7 index ETFs - 5 equity and 2 bond.

 

[ownyourfuture]

3 in my taxable brokerage account.
0 In my IRA
5 in my 401-k

 

[OldShooter]

Main holdings, 6 funds but really only three categories: Total US Market 42%, Total International Market 35%, US Small Cap. 23% as of 6/30.

Probably I will increase the International when we rebalance at the end of the year; I have become convinced that a roughly equal weighting of all stocks worldwide is better than the home country bias the portfolio now has. But there will still only be basically 3 holdings.

I also have a $100K test portfolio with DFA, 3 funds. A $100K test portfolio with the Schwab robot, which has insanely bought 12 funds!