At 25, I have seen the light after about three years of stock picking.
When I started, I made sure to set up a "comparison" account in Google finance. Since I started, I am up over that benchmark by a (very) small amount, so I do consider myself lucky. My mentality was that if I ever started lagging the index I would stop, and I think I'm reaching that point over 2017.
I took this chance to diversify my holdings from mostly Canadian companies to include a lot more international stocks. Basically, I'm targeting:
35% US - XUU
25% International Developed - XEF
20% CDN - XIC (I'm still unloading some individual stocks as the DRIPs come through)
10% Emerging Markets
10% REITs
Everything is in a (about 75% full) TFSA. Other accounts are detailed below.
In addition to that, I have a 6 months EF in a savings account earning 0.75%.
My defined contribution plan and RRSP through work are both 80/20 equities/bonds. A bit heavy on the Canadian stocks for my taste, but I don't have much control and the pension match is great (>100%). The RRSP balance is still too low to switch over to my brokerage (low contribution limits due to the high amounts going to the pension fund), but I plan on replicating the AA above in it once it crosses about 20 000$, which should be mid-to-late 2018..
Any thoughts/oversights you've noticed? Any particular tips? Would you keep the same AA in taxable accounts when I max the tax-sheltered accounts next year? Should different components go in different types of accounts?
Thank you!