Since I have tackled many of my financial goals in the last 6 months, I am now working toward getting my portfolio straightened out. I have been looking at using the "core four" philosophy (with a lower bond ratio since I am currently accumulating money). The idea is you set your stock / bond ratio and then, of the stocks, you have 60% domestic, 30% international and 10% REIT. This is a variation on the three fund lazy portfolio. Here is my target ratio:
Domestic stock VTSMX / VTSAX 48.0%
Mixed bonds VBMFX / VBTLX 20.0%
Euro stock VEURX / VEUSX 9.6%
Pacific stock VPACX / VPADX 9.6%
REIT VGSIX / VGSLX 8.0%
Emerging Mkt VEIEX / VEMAX 4.8%
Is anyone else using this strategy? Any thoughts?
My situation is a bit of a mess because I have my money in 3 different accounts -- a Schwab 457k (the other option is much, much worse), a Vanguard Roth IRA and a Vanguard Brokerage account. The difficulty arises because I cannot simply get the Vanguard funds I want in the Schwab account without paying transaction fees, eating into my precious capital. So, I am picking similar Schwab index funds and then, once in a great while, making a large purchase to the slightly superior Vanguard funds to minimize fees. I plan on rebalancing with new purchases (unless it gets too far out of sync at which point I will sell a winner to repurchase a loser).
Here are links to the topics on bogleheads:
http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Lazy_Portfolios#Core_four_portfolioshttp://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10413