So, after 10+ years, I kept my job, but had to leave my employer. That doesn’t make sense, does it? It is a long story that is explained here. I was OK with it. I didn’t like them much and they didn’t like me. See ya’ old company and thanks for all the fish 401(k) match!
One of the great benefits of moving on was that I was able to finally move away from the former employer’s crappy 401(k). It was filled with funds that had ridiculous fees. 2%/year? Come on now. The best choice was the Fidelity Contrafund. This fund isn’t as terrible as some, but it isn’t great either. The chart below shows that the Contrafund has been thoroughly torched by the S&P 500. Good-bye Contrafund. Better luck to you.
UPDATE: Dividend Growth Investor pointed out in the comments that I may have unfairly dissed the Contrafund. Apparently, the chart I used from Yahoo Finance doesn’t account for dividend reinvestments. Check out this chart instead. This article from the Wall Street Journal supports what he is saying. The only fair thing to do is to include the Contrafund in my experiment. Update tomorrow.
Vanguard
If you have read personal finance blogs for any amount of time, you know that Vanguard is a great choice. Actively managed funds have a very difficult time beating their low fee, index counterparts that were popularized by Vanguard. Furthermore, the choice of a Vanguard fund is simple as well; the total market fund or VTI (ETF version of VTSAX) is the way to go. Mr. Collins does a nice job of explaining it all, so I’ll leave that to him.
$275,000 experiment
Normal people may think twice about experimenting with $275,000. Not me. If I was completely sane, I’d just throw the whole thing into VTI and not look back. (I also wouldn’t be 41 and playing with dinosaurs.) What fun would that be? Besides, I like a little excitement in my life. Let’s do a little experiment.
I have put $40,000 into each of these 6 funds:
- VGT (Vanguard Information Technology): I’m a nerd at heart. I love computers. I love gadgets. I love cars. I also love taking all of those things apart and experimenting with them. I am buying VGT because I love technology. Yes, I love technology:
- VBR (Vanguard Small-Cap): I have frequently read that small caps beat the bigger guys over time. The chart below gives a little credence to that rumor. Besides, Betterment also has this in its portfolio and the folks who work there are sharp.
- VNQ (Vanguard REIT): I love real estate. Not as much as I love technology, but I still love it. So far, I’ve been wildly unsuccessful in my attempts to purchase any income property, so I’ll pick up some real estate through this REIT. I also think that U.S. real estate will do well in the near and distant future. The U.S. has no shortage of issues, but I am bullish on my beautiful land of opportunity.
- VXUS (Vanguard International Stock): This provides exposure to investments outside of the U.S.
- VIG* (Vanguard Dividend Appreciation): Dividend lovers (Hi Jason! Hello Mr. Pipeline!! Hi Dividend Ladder!!!) I didn’t forget about you! There is no shortage of folks obsessed with dividends. I’m not a dividend investor, but I think it’s a relevant strategy for a particular mindset. I also readily admit that my heart rate quickens and a huge smile blooms across my face when my account statements show dividend disbursements.
- VTI (Vanguard Total Stock Market): This is the gold standard and measuring stick. If I had more sense, I’d just throw it all in here.
Of course, we all know that historical performance isn’t a great predictor of future returns, but it’s still fun to look at. VGT is the big winner with VXUS stinking up the place over the past 10 years:
Rules
- I’ll show you how this portfolio is performing frequently. I will try to do it monthly in my performance updates.
- All dividends will be reinvested.
- These 6 funds will be treated equally. If I take money out or add more, I will do the exact same with all 6 funds.
- I will keep this portfolio for as long as I’m blogging.
- This account is separate from my Solo 401(k). In that account ($50,000!!!), everything is going to VTI. See, maybe I’m not so crazy after all.
- The above investments add up to $240,000. The remaining money will be dumped into a bond fund. That is almost too boring to even mention. I’m getting sleepy just thinking about it. I may redistribute that money down the road.
Parting thoughts
I expect VTI to win over the very long term. Think decades. Over the short term (less than 10 years), VGT (technology) or VBR (small-cap) have a reasonable chance of winning.
VXUS (international) scares me. The U.S. has its issues, but some of the stuff going on in the Eurozone (Hello Greece!), the Middle East (Hello CNN!) and the Ukraine (Greetings comrades!) makes us pale in comparison.
Warning, lawyer talk ahead!
Please don’t follow in my footsteps. This post is not advice, just a fun experiment that I want to watch play out over the years at my own expense. If it goes bad, you have the joy of pointing fingers and laughing. I’ll try not to cry.
However, I think it will be entertaining, even though it isn’t very sensible. Sensible means no dangerous hikes, no fast motorcycles and no drama. Sensible is boring. Full speed ahead!
One other thing: Gen Y Finance Guy wrote me an interesting comment last week. Read it here. His main point was that the market valuations are high now, so he is hesitant about deploying money.
Gen Y is a sharp guy and I agree with him. One need look no further than here to see that if you buy now, you’ll be paying a premium for equities. However, I’m still going full in. My thoughts on this are:
- I don’t like the idea of timing markets. Valuations will return to normal some day, but no one really knows when.
- My time horizon is long, even if I do leave the workforce soon. While a correction will surely happen in the next 10 years, it will be even longer before I look to sell these assets.
- After I leave work, I’ll have an active withdrawal strategy. I’ll have at least 3 years worth of cash in the bank. In high times like now, I’ll live off stock sales. In times of recession, I’ll live off cash. Since I have 2 more years of work to go, it will be at least 5 years until I have to sell a stock. If my portfolio is way down in 5 years, I’d probably go back to work. This topic will have its own post.
I’d love to see a pullback. I do think my portfolio will sink back into the $800’s at some point and that will be just fine. I hope it happens while I’m still working though so I can pick up equities at more reasonable valuations.
For more on market valuations over the long term, see this article. Hat tip to Mr. Frugalwoods for sending it my way a while back.
*I reached out to Jason from Dividend Mantra about my choice of VIG as a dividend growth investment. It turns out that he isn’t a fan and even wrote a post about it. For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to stick with it, although this will surely make some people angry. Hell hath no fury like a dividend growth investor scorned!
On a related note, folks tend to get into holy wars about dividend versus growth investing. I do not wish to engage in these wars. While my preference is growth, I’d never try to tell anyone what they should or should not be doing (except my own family). Everyone is different. Some investors forgo the stock market completely in favor of other strategies like real estate. Everything doesn’t have to come down to numbers. Personality and your level of comfort should have a say in the matter too. If you’re going to worry about pesky tenants or market volatility, you probably shouldn’t be a landlord or growth investor respectively. Find the investment that allows you to sleep well at night and go with it.
Join the 10s who have signed up already!
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What’s the expense ratio on all of them? I wonder if over the (very) long haul that will be the biggest determinant in the fund’s success or failure in your portfolio.
Mrs. PoP recently posted…Reflections on Building Inspectors and Code Enforcement
Your comment that FCNTX was torched by the S&P 500 is incorrect
This is because you forgot to account for the power of reinvested dividends and just look at price returns.
Check the morningstar TR page: http://bit.ly/1CUEIDZ
And dividend growth ETFs are not really following the principles that dividend growth investors use:
http://www.dividendgrowthinvestor.com/2014/04/dividend-etfs-are-bad-for-investors.html
Dividend Growth Investor recently posted…Dividend Investing Knowledge Accumulates Like Compound Interest
Hi DGI-
So, the Yahoo charts are incorrect then? The index funds also pay a dividend, so I’m not fully understanding what is going on here. I’d like to know how the Morningstar charts differ from the Yahoo ones. If you have time, I’d appreciate a longer explanation. Thank you!
Ahhh, nevermind. I think I see what you are saying. Stupid Yahoo charts. I updated the post and will write a follow up for tomorrow.
Hi Mr 1500,
No worries on the charts. I wasn’t trying to be rude or anything, I just really think dividends are underappreciated :-). It actually sucks that indexes only show prices, and not prices + dividends (total returns). As investors, we get both 🙂
Actually I have found that Morningstar is really nice at showing long-term total returns on funds going as far back as the 1920s. For example, a $10K investment in the Pioneer Fund in 1928 is now worth something like $168 million, after accounting for dividends (but not taking into account taxes or inflation). http://bit.ly/1HoQA7u
Good luck in your journey!
DGI
Thanks again DGI! I didn’t think you were rude at all and would much rather be corrected when I’m wrong instead of continuing down the wrong path.
I’m going to stick to Morningstar charts from now on. I’ve also added the Contrafund back into my portfolio. More on that tomorrow.
They are all Vanguard so the expenses are very low. I think it will be a non-issue here.
Mr. 1500,
This should be a fun experiment. I own both VTI and VNQ in my retirement accounts, plus some Fidelity Contrafund leftover from a long-time-ago job. Wow that chart is disheartening. I also added VDE energy when oil was way down, and VWO for emerging markets.
I too have been employed for about 10 years by a so-so company with a BAD 401k that uses high-fee American Funds. Since I still work for them, I can’t move my money out. I’ve considered leaving the employer for this reason alone because the numbers are getting high. I recently rebalanced to add risk to the portfolio. International stocks are finally starting to recover so I think it’s a good time to put money into the VXUS’s of the world. But I’m mostly in domestic stocks.
-RBD
Retire Before Dad recently posted…Reject The Assertion You’ll Work Longer Than Your Parents
Yeah, doesn’t it suck being stuck with bad funds? A while ago, I asked my company if I could quit, rollover the funds and then be rehired. They did NOT like that idea.
I agree with what you say about VXUS. The rest of the world has been in a bad way for a while and everything is cyclical…
For a passive investing approach that looks really solid. Wide diversification and you cover a lot of different asset classes. Should be interesting to see how this plays out. My mom asked me the other day what she should do with her 401k, just retired at the end of January. I told her if she wants it to be pretty much completely hands off then go with mutual funds at Vanguard. This looks like a pretty solid mix to get her started with, although the allocations will probably change a bit for her.
JC recently posted…Can Becton, Dickinson & Company Cure Your Portfolio?
Can’t go wrong with Vanguard. Bogle is just great! Right up there with Buffett/Munger.
When I left my job of 22 years for something different I too rolled my 401k and pension contributions over to a self-directed IRA. It gave me so much freedom for investing. I started out with a couple of Vanguard funds as well. Love Vanguard. After the account grew we dipped our toes into their brokerage service by buying individual bonds. Purchasing very high quality bonds at a discount created a really nice yield. After a few years, we were confident enough to go into equities that paid dividends which added to the yield in the IRA. We never buy a stock that doesn’t pay a dividend and in fact stayed away from Apple until it started paying one. Our strategy has worked well and so far, after 10 years into retirement, we still haven’t taken anything out of the IRAs. We live on hubby’s pension and are letting the earnings on these accounts just keep on accumulating.
I probably should say that doing individual stocks and bonds are probably not for everyone, especially if still working. It does take time to research and monitor them and even though we plan to hold most of them for years, sometimes you do have to jump in and sell something. Fortunately, my husband loves doing this and has become quite the investment wizard. Lucky me!
“We never buy a stock that doesn’t pay a dividend and in fact stayed away from Apple until it started paying one.”
I’m pretty much the exact opposite, but to each his or her own! 🙂
Sounds like you’ve very comfortable with the strategy and that is pretty important. It’s not worth it if you can’t sleep at night.
Thanks for the mention…I am blushing 🙂
Given a long enough time frame I am sure you will come out ahead. But one of these days we will meet up and we will eat pizza and geek out about options. When we are done I will twist your arm to dip your toes into selling options as a way to at least enhance returns in your portfolio.
It will be fun to track your progress in this new portfolio.
By the way…what brokerage did you go with?
Cheers!
Gen Y Finance Guy recently posted…The First 6 Months of Blogging – By The Numbers
Hey Gen Y, I’ll probably pursue other strategies when I have more time, but for now, I’m keeping it simple.
I use Vanguard for everything.
What a fun experiment… no worries, it’s just a quarter of a million dollars. You’ve got this! I am curious to watch the VIG. We are firmly settled in the passive index fund camp, but seeing others employ the strategy of dividend growth is certainly enticing. Thanks for sharing the details!
Mrs. Maroon recently posted…Like Bills Through the Breeze… This is the Money of Our Lives
“What a fun experiment… no worries, it’s just a quarter of a million dollars.”
I know, right? What could possible go wrong! 🙂
Jason from Dividend Mantra told me that SCHD is a lot better than VIG, so I switched it up.
Before you mentioned it I was like “WHERE IS THE OTHER $35k!?!?!? Used Tesla???”
Why do you prefer the ETFs rather than the mutual fund counterparts?
Fervent Finance recently posted…My Millionaire To-Do List!
Funny you mentioned this, I was thinking the same! Did he just put down $35K for the Tesla? The Bonds were a bit of an anticlimax…..
Mr. FSF recently posted…Motorcycles and Expenses
Ha, a Tesla would be awesome, but the answer to that is ‘No.’ Perhaps when the portfolio hits 1.5 million…
Thanks for experimenting on yourself for us 🙂 A couple small thoughts – maybe your benchmark should be the Fidelity Contrafund, since that’s where the 401k would’ve been (and I find that it’s always best to pick the crappiest benchmark). Also, since you have some potentially volatile funds, you might do well to set up a rebalance program (e.g. annual, or based on asset allocation percentages). This might mess up your experiment (give you an ‘unfair’ advantage), but it’s usually a good idea in a tax-sheltered account like this.
Steve@EscapeVelocity2020 recently posted…Couch Surfing / Skiing
“maybe your benchmark should be the Fidelity Contrafund”
Point taken! I’ve added it! Tune in tomorrow…
Yeah, I don’t to rebalance. I really want to see how these do over the long term. without touching a thing.
That’s a great list of funds. I am a big fan of low cost funds from Vanguard and others and have few on my portfolio as well like (VPU, VWO, SCHD and XLK). These all have low expenses and even the non-vanguard ones have comparable low-expenses.
All the very best with your portfolio.
Dividend Growth Journey recently posted…Goals update – March 2015
Thanks DGJ!
I highly recommend Vanguard Health Care.
Hmmmm, I’ll think about it. Perhaps with the leftover $$$.
I was curious what you were going to do with the money, I just figured with all those individual stocks you might need some action. I’m a firm believer in the Small Cap stocks part of my retirement strategy, seems logical to go with historical data on this one.
I’m also going to update the Financial Independence Day page with your date/link, although come to think of it, I wonder when your FI Date is?
Even Steven recently posted…Financial Independence Motivation-1 Year Anniversary
Thanks Even! No more stocks. I’m a fund guy all the way unless I can make a VERY strong case for something.
My freedom date will stay 2./17 for now, although I may tweak some things in November…
Disappointed you didn’t invest in any Dinosaurs.
Kate@GoodnightDebt recently posted…Where’d all the money go?? Part 1
I thought about it, but the Vanguard Sauropod ETF has too much risk, even for me.
Great experiment idea!
And a ballsy amount of money to be doing it with, although all the lines seem to be going up anyway so sure you’ll come out winning at the end of it either way. Just depends by how much!
Thanks for the link to the DM article. He makes a damn good case for dividend growth investing. I never considered the ongoing charges vs potential zero charges of a DGI portfolio.
theFIREstarter recently posted…Making a DIY Compost Bin
Thanks FIREstarter, can’t wait to see where this ends up…
As a European I can only shake my head and agree with the fear you have in the international fund. There are still a lot of issues that needs to be sorted in the Euro zone before we are in the clear, but of course I have confidence that it will all turn around for the better. That, or I need to learn speaking russian…..
I really like the portfolio and will follow it closely. Best of Luck Mr 1500.
Thanks FtiL! Stay away from that Putin guy; he’s up to no good!
I think Europe will right itself and I’d also guess it will happen soon. Everything is cyclical…
1500,
Nice experiment. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out for you guys! 🙂
If I weren’t investing the way I do now, I’d probably just have most of my wealth either in VTSAX or VFINX. Super easy.
I hope VIG does well for you. As I mentioned, I think SCHD is a superior “dividend growth” fund, though, as DGI said, these ETFs don’t really capture all of the benefits of dividend growth investing. But SCHD has lower fees, a higher yield, and a better track record for distribution growth. Just seems like the superior fund to VIG on all counts.
Lastly:
“On a related note, folks tend to get into holy wars about dividend versus growth investing. I do not wish to engage in these wars. While my preference is growth, I’d never try to tell anyone what they should or should not be doing (except my own family). Everyone is different. Some investors forgo the stock market completely in favor of other strategies like real estate. Everything doesn’t have to come down to numbers. Personality and your level of comfort should have a say in the matter too. If you’re going to worry about pesky tenants or market volatility, you probably shouldn’t be a landlord or growth investor respectively. Find the investment that allows you to sleep well at night and go with it.”
Couldn’t agree more!
Thanks for the mention. 🙂
Best wishes.
Dividend Mantra recently posted…Dividend Growth Update – First Quarter 2015
Hi Jason, since you feel so strongly about SCHD over VIG, I switched it out. Thanks again for being my DG consultant! More on that tomorrow…
I actually like your choices. I also own the Vanguard Small-Cap and am quite happy (although over the life of the fund it doesn’t beat the S&P). However, I might quibble with the current P/E ratio. If you use Schiller’s trailing earnings I think you could say that we are quite frothy, but if you use forward earnings as guidance we are at about 20. Still over valued, but nothing like Schiller’s 27 reading. Besides we are due for a correction/bear market. So I get why GYFinance Guy doesn’t want to deploy money, but I actually don’t think it is that bad and you will earn more in the long-run. I think we will see another bear market by the end of 2016 and that will either mean the end of the Secular Bear or we are still in the early stages of the Secular Bull. Either way we have a long way to go and probably at least a decade or so of building one’s portfolio.
Jason recently posted…Reflecting on What I Have
That Shiller dude sure says some scary stuff. He is at least partially right, but if you’re in it for the very long term, I think you’ll be fine.
Great “experiment”, I hope it works out well! Will certainly be following along going forward.
Love the article and the comments, great feedback and reasoning on various investment vehicles. Food for thought!
Mr. FSF recently posted…Motorcycles and Expenses
Thanks FSF!
PS: I’m just a little sorry to see your motorcycle go…
Great article! Lots of good suggestions and debate. I am personally a huge fan of all Schwab ETF’s as I can trade in and out of these with no fees and they provide me with much of the diversification I need (SCHD, SCHF, SCHE, etc) and then supplement as needed. I do my best to avoid frothy sectors and simply put new money into undervalued asset classes.
Schwab doesn’t get discussed much, but they have very low fees on their ETFs and too (part of the low cost ETF wars). Don’t get me wrong I love vanguard, I just find it odd no one ever discusses the benefits Schwab has.
I swapped out VIG for SCHD. Thanks for the vote of confidence with Schwab!
For passive investing I think it’s a good idea to go with Vanguard ETF’s.
Yikes, 2%?!
It really is a shame that so many 401k plans are held places where you can only get into terrible and expensive funds. I think this will be a good move for you, interested to see how it turns out. Vanguard is and always will be awesome,
Debtless in Texas recently posted…The Refrigerator Repair Episode
Nicely done 1500, sounds like a really solid strategy, and especially like the rules around treating all 6 portfolios the same – really keeps the plan nice and simple!
Kip’s wedding song just cracks me up, even without having to watch that clip again!
Look forward to seeing how it all plays out, wishing you all the best!
Cheers,
Jason
Jason@Islands of Investing recently posted…That liberating feeling of selling your bad investments
…you are a genius Mr. 1500 ! Very interesting.
Sylvain
Sylvain recently posted…Comment investir
I like it. I would’ve done the same thing, pretty much, if I had to invest six figures all at once. Something about putting it in one fund, even a huge index fund, feels wrong. We are invested in four out of those six funds, Dividend Appreciation and Info. Tech. being the outliers. I would be a little worried about the concentration in one industry with the Tech one, but since you’ve got so much diversity otherwise, it should make a fun little diversion. Overall, pretty risk-averse for an “experiment!”
I wouldn’t worry about market timing either. Isn’t all this money coming from stocks being sold anyway? So if you’re just trading equity for equity, and they’re probably all either over- or under-priced at the same time, there shouldn’t be a big difference.
Norm recently posted…Ridinkulous Quarterly Expenses: Q1 2015
Not shabby. I have something similar in my 401k but that’s because I can’t do VTSAX. You’re diversifying, even if it’s actually less diverse than just VTSAX if that makes any sense. It’s in the right direction and it’s under your control now!
Chris @ Flipping A Dollar recently posted…White and gold? Blue and black?
Oh, I forgot. Any reason for the ETFs instead of just mutual funds?
Chris @ Flipping A Dollar recently posted…White and gold? Blue and black?
As far as I can tell, ETFs are the exact same as MFs as far as fees, capital gains and everything else that matters. So, I went with them because it is shorter to type out VTI than VTSAX.
I don’t really have anything to add, just wanted to say that I am looking forward to following along with the updates to this!