My Money Blog Portfolio Asset Allocation Update, June 2019 (Q2)

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Here’s my portfolio update for the second quarter of 2019. Most of my dividends arrive on a quarterly basis, and this helps me determine where to reinvest them. These are my real-world holdings, including 401k/403b/IRAs, taxable brokerage accounts, and savings bonds but excluding our house, cash reserves, and a few side investments. The goal of this portfolio is to create sustainable income that keeps up with inflation to cover our household expenses for the next (hopefully) 40+ years.

Actual Asset Allocation and Holdings

I use both Personal Capital and a custom Google Spreadsheet to track my investment holdings. The Personal Capital financial tracking app (free, my review) automatically logs into my accounts, adds up my balances, tracks my performance, and calculates my asset allocation. I still use my manual Google Spreadsheet (free, instructions) because it helps me calculate how much I need in each asset class to rebalance back towards my target asset allocation.

Here are my YTD performance and current asset allocation visually, per the “Holdings” and “Allocation” tabs of my Personal Capital account, respectively:

Stock Holdings
Vanguard Total Stock Market Fund (VTI, VTSAX)
Vanguard Total International Stock Market Fund (VXUS, VTIAX)
WisdomTree SmallCap Dividend ETF (DES)
Vanguard Small Value ETF (VBR)
Vanguard Emerging Markets ETF (VWO)
Vanguard REIT Index Fund (VNQ, VGSLX)

Bond Holdings
Vanguard Limited-Term Tax-Exempt Fund (VMLTX, VMLUX)
Vanguard Intermediate-Term Tax-Exempt Fund (VWITX, VWIUX)
Vanguard Intermediate-Term Treasury Fund (VFITX, VFIUX)
Vanguard Inflation-Protected Securities Fund (VIPSX, VAIPX)
Fidelity Inflation-Protected Bond Index Fund (FIPDX)
iShares Barclays TIPS Bond ETF (TIP)
Individual TIPS securities
U.S. Savings Bonds (Series I)

Target Asset Allocation. Our overall goal is to include asset classes that will provide long-term returns above inflation, distribute income via dividends and interest, and finally offer some historical tendencies to balance each other out. I make a small bet that US Small Value and Emerging Markets will have higher future long-term returns (along with some higher volatility) than the more large and broad indexes, although I could be wrong. I don’t hold commodities, gold, or bitcoin as they don’t provide any income and I don’t believe they’ll outpace inflation significantly.

I believe that it is important to imagine an asset class doing poorly for a long time, with bad news constantly surrounding it, and only hold the ones where you still think you can maintain faith based on a solid foundation of knowledge and experience.

Stocks Breakdown

  • 38% US Total Market
  • 7% US Small-Cap Value
  • 38% International Total Market
  • 7% Emerging Markets
  • 10% US Real Estate (REIT)

Bonds Breakdown

  • 50% High-quality, Intermediate-Term Bonds
  • 50% US Treasury Inflation-Protected Bonds

I have settled into a long-term target ratio of 67% stocks and 33% bonds (2:1 ratio) within our investment strategy of buy, hold, and occasionally rebalance. I will use the dividends and interest to rebalance whenever possible in order to avoid taxable gains. (I’m fine with it drifting a bit either way.) With a self-managed, simple portfolio of low-cost funds, we minimize management fees, commissions, and taxes.

Holdings commentary. On the stocks side, everything has had a nice bounce back up since the drop in late 2018. I know that US stocks have beaten international stocks for a while, but I remain satisfied with my mix, knowing that I will own whatever successful businesses come out of the US, China, or wherever in the future.

On the bond side, my primary objective is to hold high-quality bonds with a short-to-intermediate duration of under 5 years or so. This means US Treasuries, TIPS, or investment-grade municipal bonds. I don’t want to worry about my bonds “blowing up”. I then tweak the specific breakdown based on my tax-deferred space available, the tax-effective rates of muni bonds, and the real interest rates of TIPS. Right now, it is roughly 1/3rd Treasuries, 1/3 Muni bonds, and 1/3rd TIPS.

Performance commentary and benchmarks. According to Personal Capital, my portfolio went up 9.9% so far in 2019. I see that during the same period the S&P 500 has gone up over 15%, Foreign Developed stocks up nearly 11%, and the US Aggregate bond index was up nearly 5%.

An alternative benchmark for my portfolio is 50% Vanguard LifeStrategy Growth Fund and 50% Vanguard LifeStrategy Moderate Growth Fund – one is 60/40 and the other is 80/20 so it also works out to 70% stocks and 30% bonds. That benchmark would have a total return of +10.97% for 2019 YTD.

I’ll share about more about the income in a separate post.

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Comments

  1. I think you have too many holdings. I would cut back on at least 1 TIPs fund (your iBonds have you covered) and combine some of the Vanguard intermediate funds. Also, drop the REIT and combine with total US market.

    • He probably can’t. Unrealized gains on all of these as he’s been running with this portfolio for over a decade.

    • It can be hard to reduce number of funds when your money is split between two 401ks, two IRAs, etc. I like REITs and think they are a different asset class, but understand that others don’t.

      I am working on simplifying the bond side, but yes there are some tax concerns.

  2. I just took a position in VTC which is a Vanguard fund of funds….all corporates (short, medium and long term) which you seem to avoid. But a decent yield around 3.5% and pays monthly. Though low volume.

    • Well, I just think there is a tiny bit of shadiness in all these companies that are barely rated investment-grade, but so few are junk-rated. Many ETFs and mutual funds can only buy investment-grade bonds, even though this is just decided by the rating agencies which are paid by the bond issuers. I would personally rather buy some Treasuries and add in the Vanguard High-Yield fund where they are free to pick out whatever they want.

      Really, in the big picture, owning a low-cost index fund of investment grade corporates like VTC is probably fine if you hold them long-term. I like Total Bond as well. We’re just talking slight preferences.

  3. Jonathan,
    Its interesting (for me ) that you club savings bonds and individual TIP as part of bond portfolio. In such a case, don’t we need to add the cash holdings also to the bond section right? Maybe you already explained that bit and I missed it.

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