So I've decided on an asset allocation that I'm happy with. I'm going with 50% Vanguard Total Stock Market (fee within our plan is .05%) and 50% international. My gut reaction is to go with the one with the lowest fee, but I'm not sure I'm making the right choice. The funds available in our plan are these:
AF Capital World G&I R4 0.60% 0.25% -0.06% 0.79% 0.00% 0.79% .35
AF EuroPacific Grth R4 0.69% 0.25% -0.10% 0.84% 0.00% 0.84% .35
Drey Intl Stk Indx -- 0.35% 0.00% 0.25% 0.60% 0.00% 0.60% .35
MFS Intl Value R3 0.90% 0.25% -0.08% 1.07% 0.00% 1.07% .63
Oppenheimer Dev Mkts Y 1.00% 0.00% 0.07% 1.07% 0.00% 1.07% .3
Oppenheimer Intl Gr A 0.80% 0.25% 0.09% 1.14% 0.00% 1.14% .55
The numbers after the fund name are :Underlying Fund Share Class, Invest Mgmt Fee, 12b-1 Fee, Other Exp, Total Annual Underlying F.O.E., Mortality, Expense and Admin Charge, Total Fees & Charge, Fees/Payments We Receive from the Funds.
I've been paying attention to the second to last number, the total fees and charge and the Dreyfus International Stock Index has the lowest at .6%.
Should I also be paying attention to the performance of these fund or should I ignore that because "past perfomance does not guarantee future results?" The Dreyfus fund seems to not perform as well as others, such as the AF Capital World G&I, which has better performance for the last year as well as 3, 5, and 10 years. It also has fees that are .19% higher.
My other option is to put all of my 457 money into the Vanguard Total Stock Market and invest our IRA money into the Vanguard Total International Stock Index fund with a 0.14% fee. The only issue with this is that we have so much more money in the 457 than the IRAs that the split would be more like 90% domestic, 10% international.