I feel like we might have had a thread similar to this a few months back, but AF search doesn’t succeed often so here we are…
I recently received my 401k fee and performance notice in the mail and thought that it would be interesting to see how we all direct our 401ks. Lets limit this to people that are forced into funds and not the lucky people with self directed accounts.
A couple of the people in my office throw 100% in the S&P index fund. A couple others say they like to keep it all in growth funds. I don’t particularly enjoy discussing stocks with people in my office so I try to not get too involved. I have mine spread across abour 3-4 fund types. My contributions are split pretty much equally between the S&P, a large cap value fund, a mid cap value fund, and a mid cap growth fund. I haven’t had any exposure to bonds this year.
I have 5% in bonds. The next 30 years will be no where close to the last 30 years for bond returns. Who knows when rates will start creeping up. We’ve been at 0% for 5 years now (December 2008). Who would have thought that 5 years later we would still be at emergency level rates?
As for equities, 100% in index funds (US, canadian, european, emerging markets).
i have 45,10,20,20,5 in large cap, mid cap, int’l, small, and company stock. YTD i am doing very well and i just received notice that our company now matches up to 6%, bingo bango.
I have some other money at my prior job in their account in which they made the transfer impossibly difficult to do. I have it in some 6% guaranteed investment (i was a huge reader of ZH at the time).
13%, though that’s not quite YTD since my account wasn’t open until March 1 due to the job change.
My vested portion is gonna get a big bump in the next three months though. Year end 401k bonus comes in January. Also since we have a 3 year vesting for the match, 1/3 of that will come in February.
For some reason I can’t access my account this morning, but about 40% of my 401k is self directed, so I’ll leave that out per OP instructions. Just looking at the 60% that’s in funds:
40% is in a target date 2050 fund that’s up 20% YTD
I have two 401Ks. One doesn’t have many options, so it’s mostly just S&P index. This is my second one.
3 Month: 5.30%
YTD: 21.27%
1 Year 25.13%
Current Elections
International Value - 14%
2055 - 10%
PIMCO All Asset - 10%
S&P Index - 20%
Value Fund - 12%
Small Cap Fund - 12%
High Yield Fund - 5%
Balance Fund - 5%
Asset Allocation
Stocks – 80.72
Bonds – 15.25
Other is the rest
I’m planning on reducing some of the fixed incomes and increasing the equity funds. Just don’t want to do it right now when things seem like they are overvalued.
I’m mostly cash/short bonds stuff right now, pending the collapse of this big bubble. Started winding down a couple months ago, early I know. The TSX has been an awful laggard this year compared to the S&P500 anyway, so Canadian market returns certainly haven’t been paying for the risk.
So I’m about 40% money market, 20% shortish bonds (ETF) and preferred shares, 20% Healthcare ETF and 20% MSCI EAFE ETF. Pretty conservative I know. Also have some physical silver in the bank. That’s across all my accounts.
My foreign fund (called foreign growth) just killed me since it’s down 4% from March to now. I think I’m going to rebalance to something like 50% index, 25% large value, 25% mid cap. I don’t want any exposure to bonds for the near term. I’ll probably tinker with it a bit next month and get my elections set for January when more $$ hit.
The TSX reminds me of an emerging market stock exchange. It isn’t diversified enough. It’s top heavy in resources and banking. If these sectors don’t outperform, you won’t get good returns.
It’s really auto-rebalancing I don’t like. I manage my accounts to reflect my views on my investment choices at that particular time. Right now I’m still a little more bullish on domestic equities than EM and International so I’m okay with my current allocation. If/when my views change and I like EM/Intl more than domestic, I’ll reallocate accordingly. That’s basically rebalancing, I just do it manually.
I also like to adjust my future contributions. I do that just as often as manually rebalancing. I’ll probably stop making contributions to mid growth, for example, and amp up my EM contributions to gain more exposure there without selling something I still like.
Does your 401K not allow you to rebalance with your contiburtions? Mine I can do it with contributions or actually sell/buy things to rebelance. And I can rebalance differently than the mix I choose to invest in (I could invest 20% in equities but rebalance to 30% every year). Is this not common?