I just thought of another question as I was reading through some posts... I'm curious to know how most folks do their asset allocation -- by account, or based on your entire portfolio? In other words, for simplicity, let's say you were going with 80% stocks / 20% bonds. Do you do the 80/20 in each account (Regular IRA, Roth IRA, 401K, taxable, etc), or do you consider your ENTIRE portfolio as one big pile of money and then allocate that 80/20. This means you could end up with a particular account that has all (or mostly) bonds, and another account that might be all stock funds or ETFs.
Make sense? This is just a curiosity of mine. I basically treat each account separately, so I would have an 80/20 allocation in each one regardless of whether it's taxable or tax-advantaged. I know this isn't the best way for tax purposes, but it seem to be the easiest to think about and manage since I handle my accounts and the wife's accounts as well.
Dave