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After a brief hiatus to sync up our buy schedule to most people’s paydays (1st and 15th), we will now be putting in our 2nd buy orders in our ETF DCA strategy. New readers, please click here to start from the beginning.
Now, the nice thing about dollar cost averaging is that not only do you get practice putting in orders and buying ETF’s, you get practice with the absolutely critical process of rebalancing your portfolio. Let me explain.
To recap, once you set up a balanced portfolio of low-cost Index ETFs like this, you decide target allocations for each of your asset classes. Over time, these allocations will drift off target, and you need to rebalance back to your original targets. This process is actually a MAJOR advantage of investing using a balanced portfolio of low-cost Index ETFs because it avoids what I like to call Single-Asset-Freakout.
I’m sure there’s a more complicated-sounding Wall Street for this, but fuck it I’m going to call it Single-Asset-Freakout.
So what is Single-Asset-Freakout? Everyone knows the old saying “Buy Low, Sell High.” That’s how you make money in the stock market, and if you think about it, it’s like “Duh, Well YEAH, that’s obvious.” But if you buy only a single asset (or single asset allocation like going 100% stocks), this doesn’t actually work that well on the ground.
Imagine you ploughed all your money, like $100k into a single stock like Apple. You get in at $10 and a year later it’s at $30. Woohoo! You just tripled your money! So you should sell, right?
“Hmmmm…but what if I’m selling too early? There’s rumours of a new product coming around the corner, so I could be missing out on some BIG money if I sell now…”
“But without Steve Jobs at the helm, that new product could be a dud, and then the stock would go DOWN. If I don’t sell now I won’t be able to lock in my gain…”
See? Not so clear about what to do, is it? And this is classic Single-Asset-Freakout. By the way, this also happens if you plough all your money into a house.
“Wow! My house doubled in value over the last 5 years! I should sell it and lock in those gains!”
“Hmm…but then I’ll just have to buy another house, which is also now super expensive, so I should stay put.”
“Hmm…but then again I heard they’re going to raise interest rates so my house could start dropping in value! I don’t want to lose money! What do I do? What do I do?”
Result: FREAKOUT.
Because when you invest your assets in a single asset, the saying “Buy Low, Sell High” doesn’t actually apply. It becomes more like “Buy Low, but not TOO low in case that asset is about to go to zero, and Sell High, but only if there’s a downturn coming around the corner that will eat up your gains.”
In short, if you invest in a single asset you will constantly be trying to outguess the market, and history has shown that this tends to destroy people’s wealth over time. That’s why I don’t recommend people go much above 80% equity 20% fixed income, even if they’re super aggressive.
But when you have a balanced portfolio, you just rebalance your ETF’s when your asset allocation starts to drift outside of your target ranges. There is no guessing involved, and no market timing. This typically happens in three scenarios.
1. Market Performance
In a rising environment like the one we’ve experienced over the past few years, equity ETF’s will run ahead in price while fixed income assets will lag behind. This will eventually cause your equity allocation to drift higher than your target, and your fixed income allocation to drop. Even if your total portfolio value goes up, often one asset will be charging higher than the others which messes up your percentages. In this case, rebalancing will force you to sell assets that have gone up too quickly, and buy ones that are lagging. In other words, it forces you to do the exact OPPOSITE of what your instincts tell you do, which is to hang on to your winners and ditch the losers. In other words, it forces you to “Buy Low, Sell High.”
This also happens in tanking markets, like the one we saw in 2008/2009. Equities get crushed and throw your allocation out of whack, while fixed income ETF’s rise in value as money seeks safety. Rebalancing in this environment means selling assets that haven’t collapsed while throwing money into plummeting equity markets. “Buy Low, Sell High.” This, by the way, feels absolutely terrifying in a market crash like the one we experienced, and is also absolutely the correct thing to do. It’s the reason we didn’t lose any money in the Great Financial Crisis.
2. Adding/Removing Cash
Cash is an asset class just like any other, so when you add or withdraw money into/from your investment account, you mess with your portfolio’s asset allocation since your target cash allocation is probably 0%. If the impact is large enough, you will likely have to rebalance.
3. Rounding Error
This happens mostly at the beginning if your portfolio building process. Because unlike mutual funds, you can’t buy fractional shares of ETF’s, so at the beginning when your balance is relatively small, being only able to buy 1 share vs the 1.8 shares your target allocation demands will have cause your allocation to be off. This problem, however, naturally goes away as you add more money to the system.
Let’s Do It!
During the building process, we will mostly be affected by issues #2 or #3 above (unless the stock market starts swinging REALLY wildly, which may happen under President Trump), but the process of actually rebalancing is the same. So let’s do it! We will do this 2 separate times for our Canadian Portfolio and our American Portfolio, and I will document exactly how I make my decisions so you guys/gals can replicate it.
Canadian ETF Portfolio
Right now on Dec 14th before the market opens, our portfolio asset allocation is this:
| Asset | Ticker | Unit Price | Units | Market Value | Allocation | Target Allocation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canadian Bonds | VAB | $25.25 | 8 | $202.00 | 40.23% | 40% |
| Canadian Index | VCN | $31.29 | 3 | $93.87 | 18.69% | 20% |
| US Index | VUN | $41.90 | 2 | $83.80 | 16.69% | 20% |
| EAFE Index | XEF | $26.47 | 3 | $79.41 | 15.81% | 16% |
| Emerging Markets Index | XEC | $22.55 | 1 | $22.55 | 4.49% | 4% |
| Cash | – | $1 | 20.5 | $20.50 | 4.08% | 0% |
OK, so you can see how we’re pretty close in terms of target allocation, though there are a few off-target assets (VUN being the most obvious) due to rounding errors and a little bit of leftover cash we had from the last buy. Again, this will naturally get fixed as we add more money into the system.
Now let’s add our next $500 of cash into the system and see what that does to your portfolio.
| Asset | Ticker | Unit Price | Units | Market Value | Allocation | Target Allocation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canadian Bonds | VAB | $25.25 | 8 | $202.00 | 20.16% | 40% |
| Canadian Index | VCN | $31.29 | 3 | $93.87 | 9.37% | 20% |
| US Index | VUN | $41.90 | 2 | $83.80 | 8.36% | 20% |
| EAFE Index | XEF | $26.47 | 3 | $79.41 | 7.92% | 16% |
| Emerging Markets Index | XEC | $22.55 | 1 | $22.55 | 2.25% | 4% |
| Cash | – | $1 | 520.5 | $520.50 | 51.94% | 0% |
OK, so now we are WAY off target, which is expected when you add cash to your account. Clearly it is time to rebalance.
To do this, we create our rebalancing table, which tells us many units of each ETF we have, how many ETF units we want to be back on target, and from there we can figure out how many assets to buy/sell. Let’s do it!
| Asset | Ticker | Target Allocation | Unit Price | Current Market Value | Target Market Value | Current Units | Target Units | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canadian Bonds | VAB | 40.00% | $25.25 | $202.00 | $400.85 | 8 | 15.87532673 | 7.9 |
| Canadian Index | VCN | 20.00% | $31.29 | $93.87 | $200.43 | 3 | 6.405433046 | 3.4 |
| US Index | VUN | 20.00% | $41.90 | $83.80 | $200.43 | 2 | 4.783436754 | 2.8 |
| EAFE Index | XEF | 16.00% | $26.47 | $79.41 | $160.34 | 3 | 6.057453721 | 3.1 |
| Emerging Markets Index | XEC | 4.00% | $22.55 | $22.55 | $40.09 | 1 | 1.777614191 | 0.8 |
| Cash | – | 0.00% | $1 | $520.50 | $0.00 | 520.5 | 0 | -520.5 |
Note: We calculate Target Market Value by simply taking our total Portfolio Value (including the new cash we jammed in) and multiplying by our Target Allocation. So in this case, I had $1002.12 in there, and for VAB my target was 40%, so my TMV is $400.85.
OK, so what is this table telling us? Well basically, we need to do this:
| Asset | Ticker | Unit Price | Action | Units | Proceeds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canadian Bonds | VAB | $25.25 | BUY | 7 | $176.75 |
| Canadian Index | VCN | $31.29 | BUY | 3 | $93.87 |
| US Index | VUN | $41.90 | BUY | 3 | $125.70 |
| EAFE Index | XEF | $26.47 | BUY | 3 | $79.41 |
| Emerging Markets Index | XEC | $22.55 | BUY | 1 | $22.55 |
| Total | $498.28 |
And I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, make sure your total buy orders don’t exceed the actual cash you have in the account. If you go over by even a little, your cash balance will become negative which will trigger margin trading. Here, I’ve decided to round down the VAB buy from 7.9 to 7 units to avoid this. And again, over time as our portfolio gets bigger these rounding errors will have less and less effect.
So there you have it. We now have the orders we want to execute and we can now enter them into the system.
American ETF Portfolio
And now we move onto our American portfolio. Here’s our current asset allocation. All figures are in USD.
| Asset | Ticker | Unit Price | Units | Market Value | Allocation | Target Allocation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bonds | BND | $80.60 | 2 | $161.20 | 31.64% | 40% |
| US Index | VTI | $117.53 | 1 | $117.53 | 23.07% | 30% |
| International Index | VEU | $45.29 | 3 | $135.87 | 26.67% | 30% |
| Cash | – | $1 | 94.91 | $94.91 | 18.63% | 0% |
So right away we can see our rounding error drift is a LOT more pronounced that the Canadian one, and this is mostly caused by how Goddamned expensive each unit of each ETF is. $113.72 for a single unit? Split the shares, people!
And here’s what happens when we add another $500 to the system.
| Asset | Ticker | Unit Price | Units | Market Value | Allocation | Target Allocation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bonds | BND | $80.60 | 2 | $161.20 | 15.97% | 40% |
| US Index | VTI | $117.53 | 1 | $117.53 | 11.64% | 30% |
| International Index | VEU | $45.29 | 3 | $135.87 | 13.46% | 30% |
| Cash | – | $1 | 594.91 | $594.91 | 58.93% | 0% |
WAY off target now, so we create our rebalancing table as before.
| Asset | Ticker | Target Allocation | Unit Price | Current Market Value | Target Market Value | Current Units | Target Units | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bonds | BND | 40% | $80.60 | $161.20 | $403.80 | 2 | 5.0 | 3.0 |
| US Index | VTI | 30% | $117.53 | $117.53 | $302.85 | 1 | 2.6 | 1.6 |
| International Index | VEU | 30% | $45.29 | $135.87 | $302.85 | 3 | 6.7 | 3.7 |
| Cash | – | 0% | $1 | $594.91 | $0.00 | 594.91 | 0 | -594.91 |
So now we come up with our orders.
| Asset | Ticker | Unit Price | Action | Units | Proceeds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bonds | BND | $80.60 | BUY | 3 | $241.80 |
| US Index | VTI | $117.53 | BUY | 1 | $117.53 |
| International Index | VEU | $45.29 | BUY | 4 | $181.16 |
| Total | $540.49 |
Again, fiddle with your buy orders and make sure you don’t buy more assets than your cash balance. Here, I’ve chosen to round down the VTI buy but round up the VEU buy to stay under our cash assets.
And that’s it! We have just done our 2nd ETF buy, and first pseudo-rebalancing. Good job everyone!
And as always, if you have any questions let us hear in the comments below.
Or…continue onto the next article!
WORKSHOP TOOLS
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Disclaimer: The views expressed is provided as a general source of information only and should not be considered to be personal investment advice or solicitation to buy or sell securities. Investors considering any investment should consult with their investment advisor to ensure that it is suitable for the investor’s circumstances and risk tolerance before making any investment decisions. The information contained in this blog was obtained from sources believe to be reliable, however, we cannot represent that it is accurate or complete.
Interesting points regarding the inability to re-balance when above an 80/20 portfolio. To some extent it is true, but only if you hold a restricted amount of equities. Sure, it’s not very easy to re-balance if you hold 90% in one US stock ETF and 10% in a Bond ETF.
However, if you hold different kinds of equities, like US stocks, Canadian Stocks, International Stocks, Emerging Markets etc. in your 90% equity section, then various fixed income/alternative stocks in your other 10%, like bonds, REIT’s, Gold, Preferred Shares etc. you can maintain an allocation above 80/20 quite comfortably and still be able to re-balance. Your equities won’t always move in the same direction if they are diversified, and neither will your fixed income.
I recently moved to a 90/10 portfolio and so far re-balancing has been fine, but admittedly there hasn’t been a market crash and my portfolio isn’t very large. I think another key is that you are investing in your account frequently. If you only re-balance once a year it may become difficult to maintain the correct balance with a 90/10 portfolio.
Also, if your portfolio is large, you can’t really rely on your additional cash investments to re-balance very easily. Assuming you have a $1,000,000 portfolio, investing $1,000 a month won’t do much in terms of being able to re-balance it during a 20% market swing haha.
It’s actually something I’d be intrigued to delve further into since I am planning on holding a 90/10 portfolio for a long time, would be good to perform some sort of stress test on whether you can cope.
True, but I’d argue when the shit hits the fan all your equities would fall at about the same rate meaning there wouldn’t be much good rebalancing would do.
There is an argument for starting off aggressive when each cash infusion is still a relatively large percentage of your portfolio since you can “rebalance” simply with your cash buys. Once your portfolio gets bigger though, you may want to back off at that point and pivot more towards fixed income. You naturally do this anyway as your needs shift from going after capital appreciation towards needing the income, so that’s one option.
Just know what you’re getting into if you go over 80% equity: a wild bumpy ride that will return higher over time, but when a downturn hits there will be very little you can do to cushion the fall.
Have you guys explained before the rationale behind holding 40% in bonds… in your early 30s?
Yes, many times throughout the blog. We may be in our 30s but we’re also retired so having a 60/40 split makes sense because we need the fixed income. Read this answer on “How Will You Survive a Stock Market Crash?” in our FAQ: https://www.millennial-revolution.com/faq/
If you’re not near retirement, you can pick an allocation that suits your risk profile.
What about Betterment or Wealthfront instead of manual rebalancing?
We’ll be evaluating robo-advisors in the future, BUT before you use them you should know how manual rebalancing works. That way you can check their work. No one will care more about your money than you do.
Great. Thanks for these wonderful articles by the way. Very informative.
We have a very unusual environment right now. Both stocks and bonds are close to all time highs. In previous years, when stocks fell, bonds rose to offset some losses in the equity portion. There is a chance that during then next recession both stocks and bonds will fall at the same time and bonds will not offset your equity losses. Have you thought about this possibility? I think that holding 40% in bonds, when rate are so low is very risky.
I think bonds are a pretty terrible asset to be holding right now, as evidenced by the astronomical sell off that is taking place ever since Donald got elected. I was very fortunate to have sold all of my bonds just before he got elected, moving them to equity. The negative correlation between the two since has been incredible.
Now interest rates are set to keep rising, there is only one way bonds are going and it ain’t up. If Donald follows through with his pre-election promises, we’re set for years of a declining bond market.
There’s a reason Warren Buffet has reduced Berkshire Hathaways Bond Holdings for the past 6 years straight. As he says, they should come with a warning.
Yes bonds have a long-term negative outlook but when the equity markets get whacked, money flows from risky to safe assets, dropping bond yields and increasing bond prices. That being said when things are scary enough that even bonds are considered risky, money will flee into cash/gold, etc, but we saw in the last economic downturn central banks aggressively dropping interest rates and then going into QE to keep the bond markets afloat. I have no reason to believe they won’t do that again if shit hits the fan.
You’re essentially market timing. Someone who picks an asset allocation and sticks with it over time will likelier do better than someone who tries to time the market / interest rates etc.
How did you figure out the Target Market Value? Would you explain the math behind it?
Sure, I answered in the post in case other people had the same question.
Great article! I’ve been trying to set up my portfolio to meet my target asset allocation and it’s been super complicated to try to reach my target allocation between the taxable accounts, pending IRAs contributions for both me and my husband, and me having a new job with a new 401k and an old 401K that i’m trying to rollover, since I’m trying to view everything as one big portfolio. Right now I’m in like a waiting period because the 401(k) rollover won’t mail me the check until end of this month, then I got to mail the checks I receive to my new 401(k) provider (such a freaking hassle). So I have no idea what the market value will be by end of year or mid January when all this happens. Also waiting for my sign-on bonus check with my new job so I can finish contributing to our IRAs
I can’t wait until everything is set up and all I have to do is rebalancing every 6 months or so! I don’t have that much in my portfolio anyway so I don’t think it’ll go out of whack that much monthly or quarterly.
Thanks for this workshop, it is great! Question: all these purchases are in regularly scheduled intervals based on when you make deposits (biweekly or so), instead of in large lump sums. I agree with this; trying to time the market in larger purchases 1-2 times a year generally does not work out well. But what if you also come into a lump sum? e.g. if you have an individual stock taking up a large percentage or your current portfolio, and want to sell it with the intention of using the proceeds to purchase the diversified collection of ETFs instead? After selling the stock, would you purchase the ETFs all at once, or spread it out over a few intervals?
I’d spread it out over a few months. With large lump sums people tend to sit on it waiting for “the perfect buying opportunity” since they don’t want to screw up, and as a result sit for way too long paralyzed by fear. When I was in this situation, I set up a yearlong buy period and invested every month until it was all in.
Have you considered not rebalancing until your percentages are off by greater than a certain percentage, like 5-10%? I recall looking through some numbers and the it wasn’t worth it to micro-manage my indices if it wasn’t already automated. That being said, if you are still in the growth phase of your portfolio (I am), you can just redirect your contributions–it is exactly like what you’re doing above, except that I would expect that most people in the ‘retirement’ phase of their career to not have a significant amount of disposable cash to rebalance with.
Great analysis, btw.
Correct. Once you’re invested, it’s generally not good to micromanage. Setting drift targets is one way to do this, but I think just an annual rebalance is fine too. That’s what I do.
50 bucks in transaction fees for purchasing shares for the Canadian profile, still as not as bad as owning a house.
I remember the recommended of re-balancing is twice a year otherwise if you keep re balancing you will be spending hundreds in fees unless your portfolio is a 7 figure number
50 bucks? Buying ETFs should be free. Are you using Questrade?
Free to sell and buy ? No I’m using another platform.
Can you guys explain what an accredited investor is and what benefits it bestows? You would qualify as accredited investors. Has this allowed you to take advantage of any special privileges while investing as a result? Thx!
Privileges? What privileges?
The Index ETFs we’re using are heavily regulated and have to file disclosures, prospectus, etc. to make sure we know they’re actually investing in the indexes we think they are.
Other, sketchier investments exist and are called “exempt market issues” because they’re exempt from all these reporting requirements. They don’t have to tell you what they’re investing in. And the catch these can only be sold to “Accredited Investors,” which are people with over $1M in assets. The idea is that these guys are more sophisticated and can take on riskier investments.
In reality, though, this is how people lose their life savings. Fraudsters trick morons who want to make money but don’t understand investing to sign forms certifying they are “Accredited Investors.” They then put their money into exempt market issues that they create. Then they just steal the money while lying to them. This is what happened with First Leaside.
http://cawidgets.morningstar.ca/ArticleTemplate/ArticleGL.aspx?id=553695
So no, there is no privileges to being an “Accredited Investor,” other than acquiring the “right” to invest in unregulated exempt market instruments. Yay?
Awesome. That’s all I needed to know! 🙂
What are your thoughts about Mark Cuban’s comments about diversification and holding long term? He suggests holding in cash and only dropping money into the stock market when there are clear ‘opportunities’ such as when certain stocks plunge or the stock market plunges. This is opposite to Warren Buffet’s view of which yours is more closely aligned.
Is Cuban speaking from wisdom or hubris because he has enough money to afford this style of investing? Isn’t his approach a huge pitfall for Joe and Jane investor by being akin to trying to beat the market? Maybe he’s only referring to investors that choose “diverse” stocks in a portfolio rather than index investors which is ‘true’ diversity because it’s so vast (at least as far as ETFs such as VUN which span an entire market).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTMqvHt7rmg
With this manual rebalancing, are you using software to do this or did you create your own template? Love this series. Found you guys through the Mad Fientist podcast.
We are calculating it manually. Get some practice doing it yourself so you understand how things work under the hood.
Just a quick FYI, in the US, when trading BND, VEU and VTI through Ameritrade, make sure you’re enrolled in the commission-free program otherwise they will take commission off each trade. I learned that this morning on my first trade. There’s no fee to enroll and it’s just a click of a button but necessary to be trading them commission-free.
That’s great to know, and I’ve gone back and added to the workshop articles.
This is a very helpful article. Thank you for the seven part series. I have a question about your selection of Index Funds in your CANADIAN Account:
1. For the Canadian Index fund, why did you chose VCN over VCE? They both have the same MER, but VCE has a higher yield and covers a broader market of stocks. Also, over the past 5 years it has had a better return rate.
2. For the American Index, why did you choose VUN over VFV (S&P 500)? VFV has half the MER (0.08 vs 0.16), the dividend yield is higher and based on your Canadian Index purchase it would be closer to VCN, wouldn’t it? (Essentially VCN and VFV are both “All Cap Indexes – no?).
I am in the process of making my purchase decisions for indexes in my RRSPs / TFSAs etc and really like your strategy in this article, however I just wanted to understand your thoughts around purchasing these two indexes. I was leaning towards purchasing VCE and VFV instead of the two you chose. Ultimately the differences are quite small and won’t be a significant difference, I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something.
Thank you in advance.
Kent
VCN is total market vs VCE which is large and midcap stocks. Similarly, VUN is total market while VFV is large and midcap stocks. I chose to go with broader diversification, but you’re right at the end of the day it doesn’t make a huge difference which one you pick as long as the fees are low and they implement a passive index investing methodology.
This will be such a newbie question… so forgive me. In other articles you talk about making your investments tax free… using TFSA to buy Cdn/Int equities and RRSP to buy bonds/US equities… but how does that translate to the actual act of purchasing on Questrade? Are the funds going through the workshop all cash? If so, how do you suggest maximizing tax free purchasing on this platform? I am still in the debt repayment phase of getting ready to invest… so I’m trying to learn what I can for the next steps. Thanks!
In Questrade you can open up an RRSP and TFSA accounts and transfer your money into it. For the workshop, we’re not keeping the investments in RRSPs and TFSAs because our limits has been used up. However, feel free to do it in your own account.
Keep in mind that the existing financial institution you are keeping your RRSPs in may charge you for moving money out, but Questrade may reimburse you for the fees they charge.
Found your blog this year and I am sooo happy I did! Question regarding opening multiple accounts with Questrade… If you were planning to use both an RRSP and TFSA Questrade account and you are maxing out your limits each year to invest, would you hold the 60/40 equally in both the TFSA/RRSP? I know when looking to keep it all tax sheltered different investments should be specifically in RRSP vs TFSA vs a non registered taxable account (when you run out of contribution room) but if you’re not holding 60/40 in each registered account, when you rebalance are you able to look at the portfolio as a whole with the separate accounts and just put the total cash into your TFSA and RRSP (ideally your limit per year divided into bi-monthly payments)? How do you combine rebalancing between the two accounts overall if you have a limit on contribution room? Maybe that’s a stupid question but I’m just starting to plan my FIRE strategy and want to make sure I understand this concept. Thanks so much!!
Achieving and maintaining a certain asset mix seems to be complicated by the fact that our money is in separate accounts: RRSP, a non-registered account, and, for me, a LIRA. The relative proportions of each asset class don’t match with contribution limits in each of these accounts. What do you guys do? Reproduce your asset mix in each account, or mix and match to try to find the best fit? I assume a proliferation of funds is a pain to rebalance and makes tracking performance difficult.
Very sorry. I now see you covered the issue of asset allocation in multiple accounts in the chapter on keeping investments tax-free.
Feel free to delete my question from earlier today on this topic.
Thanks for the fantasticly useful info, and I love the irreverent style.
Phil
This may be obvious, but could you please tell me how you calculate your Target Units?
Duh! Figured it out. Target Market Value / Unit Price = Target Units.
Could you please share a template for rebalancing?
We are in the process of streamlining the workshop spreadsheet and making it into a user-friendly tool. We’ll let you know when it’s ready.
I just did my first buy through Questrade following your free workshop but I might have gone slightly over in my purchasing. WHAT is margin trading?
Hi Wanderer, big fan of you guys and the book. One of my favorite reads of the year. I just want to clarify, when you are adding cash in Vanguard, is that just transferring funds to the Vanguard settlement account? Also, how do you get the table view which shows all the re-calculated percentages? All I see on personal capital under allocations is the blocky multicolor allocation view.
Thanks!
Sam
FACK. I’ve become one of these people!!
“With large lump sums people tend to sit on it waiting for “the perfect buying opportunity” since they don’t want to screw up, and as a result sit for way too long paralyzed by fear.”
I started along with this workshop and created my Vanguard account in February of 2018. I haven’t purchased VTI, VEU or BND for months now because it is just SO HIGH.
I bought VTI in Dec of 2018 for just $119 a share and now it is at $164. That’s a $45 difference on just one share!
Anyone else paralyzed by fear on here?! Y’all just buying in DCA style and turning a blind eye?
I want to trust the system and put in every month, but also want to control it a little when the swing is this intense… But i’m starting to miss playing, and it is not as fun to simply put my investment money into savings every month hoping it will come down soon.
Great Article.Thank you for putting it all together for newbies like me.Highly appreciate!
Can you please describe in this allocation ,if you have money available in both rrsp and tfsa to be invested,how would you invest each ETF?Would you go with all etf in tfsa or do you go with VCN in TFSA and all other in RRSP?Trying get the returns tax free here.
I did have a few questions about rebalancing. I just opened my vanguard account today. I’m way later than everybody else cuz I didn’t know that this was from a while ago. I looked at personal capital with some of the things I already have set up with my 401k and my robo investor right now. For one I’m not certain what the best way to rebalance my portfolio correctly. on personal capital it says I have a lot of international stocks so I thought I would put my vanguard account I just opened up and mostly US stocks. I know in the book that I’ve read that I should put most of my 401k in bonds and then my IRA and I’m assuming my other robo account which is just a regular account which won’t save me on taxes unfortunately. The IRA I put mostly in US index funds. The ones that are actually on This web page. The one thing I’m confused about is how do you balance between three different accounts and trying to keep my 401k in mostly bonds especially when the maximum I can contribute is $19, 000 and the IRA you can contribute only $6,000. and then the robo investing I just let it do its thing. Which I’m thinking about maybe moving over to my IRA account eventually here maybe maybe to max that out before the end of the year. I’m not certain that I’ll be doing that. At least that money I can actually take out if I need it which I’m not planning on taking out.
The other question is about the vanguard account. I see buy and I see sell options on the web page but I don’t see anything about transferring from one type of ETF versus another or index fund. So when you rebalance are you supposed to transfer it somehow or are you supposed to sell and then rebuy the other ETFs that you’re wanting to fund in your IRA. I was just worried if I sell my ETFs in my IRA would that make it a taxable event versus just transferring it from one to the other. Cuz I don’t see anything about transferring it all on the website. Any help that you guys can provide would be grateful. I’m sure there’s a lot of people on here that have been dealing with us a lot longer and can answer the question just as easily.
The only thing is with personal capital is saying that I have a certain amount of my assets in cash which it doesn’t look that way and I don’t know how to figure out which account this large amount of cash is in. I think what it is is in the middle of being transferred in my robo advisor and it’s just not showing on their site but it is shown on personal capital. So I guess I’ll wait and see on that I’m just not sure how to tell what account that that money is in.
I’m trying to do an 80/20 on my stocks the bonds right now because I’m way behind because I am 47 I would like to retire by 55 but I don’t think that’s going to happen. Cuz I still have a car payment my house payment and a few credit card bills unfortunately that I wasn’t planning on happening for some unforeseen circumstances. If not I will just keep on plugging away paying off my bills and trying to invest as much as I possibly can in 401k in my IRA each year.
Plus one more thing is there any sites that everybody talks on about the fire movement and this type of investing with the Trinity study. That way if I have any questions I can answer it there like a message board or something. I think that’s all my questions that I have I have a lot sorry.
Hey guys! I’m in the U.S. (for reference purposes), and I have a question about the portfolio breakdown in this article. It’s currently 2020, and the max IRA contribution is $6,000 for an individual, which works out to $500/month if you dollar cost average.
So my question is, if I have left over money after purchasing my units (say I can only buy 2 units of BND, even though the math works out to 2.4 units or whatever), what do I do with that extra money that would’ve went to 0.40 units? I cant add another $500 to my account because of the IRS limits. Any ideas? Hopefully, that wasnt too confusing!
Hello, I am Sonia and I am very new to investing. Thank you for this very interesting read. I might be the only person who doesn’t understand this but I am having difficulty grasping how this manual rebalancing work. Could you direct me toward a book or blog that explain the math that goes into this and why?-Thanks!
Hi,
Is there a copy of the excel sheet template anywhere in the blog to download?
Hello everyone, I am very new to this and so I apologize for my question, but also thank you for your help. I am concerned about bond allocation, because when I look at the trend for BND, it is negative for the 1 yr, 5yr and MAX time periods. If I put 30 or 40% of my portfolio allocation in bonds, wouldn’t I expect to lose money?