Out-of-College Lazy Fidelity Portfolio

[UCLAseetoK]

I know threads like this are a dime-a-dozen to people in this forum, so apologies from me [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

This is the portfolio I was going to set up. Index based and lazy.

Spartan 500 Index Fund - Investor Class (FSMKX)
Spartan International Index Fund - Investor Class (FSIIX)
Spartan Extended Market Index Fund - Investor Class (FSEMX)

Current financial status is being out of college with zero remaining debt, about 60k in savings, a 60k/yr (pre-tax) job, and most expenses (food, gas, gf/fun/etc) covered by my crapass grind it out winrate at ssnl. The idea was to move the minimum required of 10k into each of the aforementioned funds, and then take another 10k and use it as a more speculative, discretionary individual stock (or sector) based allocation.

Thoughts?

[jively]

It's not bad. A small cap index would be a little better than the extended market index which is really a mid cap fund. And being into totally index / non-forecasting investing, I wouldn't recommend 10k into your speculative investment. Use 13.3K on the other 3. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

-Tom

[gull]

Looks fine. What's the point of using 10k for speculation?

[UCLAseetoK]

I do a fair amount (about 2 hours a day) of various sector related study, as well as rather donkish technical studies. I call it donkish because I realize I am an obvious noob to the game, but I am reading and learning through books, online, and various reports and publications, so I felt like giving it a go (in regards to the spec).

Perhaps I should only spec like 5k and use the other 5k amongst the index funds?

[UCLAseetoK]

[ QUOTE ]
It's not bad. A small cap index would be a little better than the extended market index which is really a mid cap fund. And being into totally index / non-forecasting investing, I wouldn't recommend 10k into your speculative investment. Use 13.3K on the other 3. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

-Tom

[/ QUOTE ]

So would you suggest individual, separate mid and small cap index funds instead of the extended market index fund? This is under the assumption that I want to diversify through large, mid, and small cap domestic equities

[jively]

[ QUOTE ]
So would you suggest individual, separate mid and small cap index funds instead of the extended market index fund? This is under the assumption that I want to diversify through large, mid, and small cap domestic equities

[/ QUOTE ]
You want to be diversified, but the expected return is related to the amount of small cap exposure you have. Plus you want to have fewer funds so that you have less turnover.

So I think the large fund and the small fund would work well. In fact, instead of using an S&P 500 fund, use a total stock market fund (which has less turnover and more small co exposure).

-Tom

[gull]

What's your reason for selecting Fidelity?

[UCLAseetoK]

[ QUOTE ]
What's your reason for selecting Fidelity?

[/ QUOTE ]

To be honest, I don't have a great personal reason. My friend that played mid and high stakes limit and NL also got me more interested into investing and personal finance, and he had recommended it to me.

He gave me further explanation about why he chose Fidelity and why he would recommend it to me, but I can't immediately remember atm =/

[PokerTheorist]

This is roughly the same portfolio recommended by Kiplinger Personal Finance Magazine for passive (index) investing. Do a search on their site or buy their magazine to find out more info. You may also want to consider Fidelity Total Market as it will get you exposure to the small/extended market that you are looking for. Fidelity has among the lowest fees around for these funds. Pay attention to your asset allocation as well. For example the International Index has a 10k mininum. To have a balanced portfolio you will need to invest about 50k. If you are not looking to invest so much consider ETF. For example Vanguard has an international fund similar to Fidelity except in an ETF.