Comments on my prospective portfolio?

[She]

Ok, I'm 23 so I've got 37-42 until I want to retire, so I want my portfolio to be moderately aggressive. I'd also prefer something a little heavier on the Intl/Small/Value side of things than avg. (35-40% Intl, pref)
I'm pretty new to this (all I have so far in experience is $500 in AGTHX, which is the ONLY reason it's even in my prospective portfolio).
I talked to a financial adviser, and he suggested that I allocate my funds somewhere along the lines of:

International (45%):
- Small Value and Blend 28%
- Large Value and Blend 17%

US (55%):
- Split equally 4 ways between small value, small blend, large value, and large blend.

I'm about to mail out a check to Schwab to start an account with them, and I'm trying to put together some idea of where I want to be at the end of this year.

I'm thinking something like this:




I understand the basic concept of keeping your expenses low, but I'm not really sure how to interprete a couple of the stock stats, or what type of allocation I should be trying to achieve in the stock type and sector.

Comments on this? Suggestions?
Much thanks! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]



Edit: Oh, and this porfolio consists of:

AGTHX - $500
DIISX - $1000
DISSX - $1000
UMBIX - $1500
LZOEX - $1000
NOSGX - $1500
LZSMX - $1000

[ilikeaces86_]

Use vanguard. Lower expense ratio tho you may find it hard to get small cap international from them.

[TheMetetron]

[ QUOTE ]
Use vanguard. Lower expense ratio tho you may find it hard to get small cap international from them.

[/ QUOTE ]

I use Vanguard, but there are two shortcomings:

1) No small cap international. I'm going to have to look into fixing this in the future, not sure how though.

2) The $3,000 minimum for each fund is going to cause some problems for this poster when trying to diversify. You need about $36k to diversify like this in Vanguard.

[She]

Yeah, I saw that... I am hesitant to go w/ Vangaurd right now because the minimum initial deposit is $3k, and that's about what I have atm. So I would have to put it in a single fund, and I would not be able to diversify as quickly as I want or in that way that I would like to (even if it was a fund of funds).

I'm definitely keeping them in mind for later on tho. Any suggestions on the allocation?

Edit: And Happy Birthday! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Another edit: Metetron, I should have read your post before responding as you pretty much nailed it (including the small intl fund).

[Misfire]

[ QUOTE ]
all I have so far in experience is $500 in AGTHX

[/ QUOTE ]

[NickNick]

Sorry, don't have much to add....I know very little really. Looks fairly well diversified though. I'd be tempted to put a bit more into bonds if you can; and to focus more on Growth and income rather than pure growth. - Different risk attitudes tho!

Where did you get this calculator from?
Thanks a lot!

[She]

My bad, I meant to post in the OP, thanks for reminding me.

Morningstar Instant X-Ray

[ilikeaces86_]

You could just start off with the Total Stock Market fund at vanguard and then once you want to put in more the total international fund and as you get more and more you could re-allocated and diversify more if you like.

[Jeff W]

I am not a big believer in active management. Your funds have to beat market returns by quite a lot just to break even with passive (index) funds.

Is this for taxable? If so, you need to look at the tax efficiency of each of the funds. Active funds are often very tax inefficient because of higher turnover.

[She]

You may have a good point. For some reason I was thinking that I had more index funds in here than I do (2/7). I think that is because I didn't like the options I had for small cap and large value indexes as much. (I was comparing UMBIX to LVPIX and PDOWX, both of which have a turnover rate 270%+ and a higher expense ratio.. NOSGX to SVPIX and RYAZX, which have a turnover rate of 443% and 806%(?!), and again a higher expense ratio... and Schwab doesn't offer no-fee Intl Sm Cap, or Emerg Mkt index funds. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img])

Are you saying that actively managed funds generally don't do as well as index funds because of the expense ratios, or are there other reasons as well?

This is for a Roth IRA, although I am still trying to keep the turnover rate as low as possible (without sacrificing aggressiveness and stability), because of the expense ratio.

Edit: Oh, UMBIX has a turnover of 12% and NOSGX has a turnover of 32%. Again, I would prefer index funds in general so if there's something I'm missing here I would really like to know. Thanks.