1. Identify Your Goals for the Money

The first thing to do is identify your goals. What will the money be used for? Figure out why you are investing. You can have multiple goals if you want, creating a different portfolio for each goal. Investing can help you reach a number of goals, from buying a home, to retirement, to saving for your child’s college, to creating a stable income stream. Decide what you want your money to accomplish.

2. Decide on a Realistic Time Frame

When do you think you will need the money? You will need a time frame to proceed, if you want to meet your goals. A retirement portfolio might have a time frame of 20 or 30 years, while your income portfolio might need a time frame of seven to 10 years to build up to the point where it provides a regular, substantial revenue stream.

3. Figure Out the Best Asset Allocation

Next, it’s time to research your investment options, and decide on an asset allocation that will help you reach your goals within your specified time frame. If you are looking to use your investments to buy a home in five years, you might want a more aggressive choice, to build up your fund as quickly as possible. An income portfolio would focus a great deal on dividend stocks, with some long term bonds to help matters. Your retirement account, or a college savings investment fund, might start out with heavy allocation in stocks and then shift to bonds.

You can also include cash products, real estate, commodities and currencies in your investment plan, provided you understand how they work, and how they might fit into your risk tolerance. Realize, too, that part of asset allocation is adjusting your allocation as you approach your goals so that you retain the appropriate amount of risk for your situation.

4. Determine How Much Money You Need to Invest

There are numerous calculators online that can help you figure out how much money you will need to invest each month in order to reach your goals. Using your asset allocation, and your time frame, estimate how much you will need to set aside each month to reach your goals. You have this money deducted from your paycheck, or automatically debited from a checking or savings account.

You can also integrate your other financial goals with your investing plan. You can plan to pay down debt while investing, and then, when your debt is paid off, take the payments you were making and invest the month.

5. Stick to Your Plan

Every investing plan will need some tweaking as you go along. You might even need to make substantial changes if something major and unexpected should happen with your finances. However, by and large, you should try to stick to your plan. Don’t stray from your plan when panic sets in; keeping with your plan during tough times, and not letting fear push you into discarding your plan will help you avoid making big mistakes that could negatively impact you later.

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• 2011 Financial Goals
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• Monitoring Your Financial Independence
• The 7 Steps to Starting a Business

5 Steps to Creating a Successful Financial Plan is from Investor Junkie Copyright © Empowering Media, Inc.

The allocation is from September 30th, 2010. Some may notice the totals do not equal 100%.  Equities under 0.5% are not mentioned because they are statistically insignificant, and in most cases is cash within the account.

Account Breakdown

We’ve decided not to convert our two rollover IRA accounts at this time.  We might convert them over in another year where our tax burden is lower.  Otherwise from my estimates it’s not worth paying the taxes now.  I’m also concerned about government deficits, and would they somehow start taxing Roth IRAs.

We only recently created Roth IRA accounts, and something I wish we did 10 years ago.  With my tax efficient investing roadmap we now plan on maxing out our Roth IRAs every year.

403b #1 (Fidelity)

My wife’s has two 403b plans.  Both are through her current employer.  The first one is through Fidelity (see Fidelity review), which is a great plan administrator.  Their funds have low administration fees, and offer a wide selection of funds.  At some point during my wife’s employment they decided to change plan administrators, so no additional money can be added to this account.  I contacted my wife’s HR department, and they explained to me we can’t perform an IRA rollover because she is an active employee.

403b #2 (Metlife)

The MetLife account is where all new money from my wife’s salary, and unfortunately the weakest retirement account in our portfolio.  It’s something out of a spaghetti western:

• The Good – Their core funds are Vanguard index funds.  S&P 500 (VINIX) and Total Bond Market (VBTIX)  They also have a fixed rate fund that returns 3.5% until March of 2011.
• The Bad – Most of the the funds they offer are the brain-dead Vanguard target retirement funds.
• The Ugly – Actively managed integrated funds with no transparency.

The actively managed integrated funds merge two funds into one fund option available within the 403b.  This means no stock symbol (unless you want to figure out how they are merged), and lacks transparency with fees.   In addition, the funds they merged together are average at best.  For example they offer a REIT fund that merges Cohen & Steers with Morgan Stanley’s Global REIT fund. Same applies to their international fund, and growth fund.  So for these parts of our asset allocation we look towards our other accounts. We will then fill up this account last to meet our allocation with their poor choice in funds.  The one positive thing I can say about MetLife is they offer is a decent (3.5% APY) fixed rate fund that will stay that way until March 31st, 2011.  I’ve allocated some our money into this fund since there is no interest rate risk, or the other issues associated with bonds vs. bond funds.  What you see is what you get.  Even though it’s below my 4% rule to investing, I’m investing in it since it’s in a tax differed account, and would be approximately equal to 4%+ return in a taxable account.

Roth IRA #1 (Fidelity)

I have moved most of our portfolio to Fidelity.  I did this because of a number of reasons.

• Originally many of these accounts were with E*Trade. At the time I was concerned about their viability (2007-2008)
• Fidelity has low commission fees. In some cases as low as $7.95 per trade. Fidelity also offers a decent amount of commission free ETFs.
• Has a large selection of investment options available.  CDs, bonds, mutual funds, and stocks, etc.
• Wanted one location in which I can better monitor our portfolio than having to go to multiple web sites.
• Offers a Fidelity Visa card with cash back that gets directly deposited into one of our investment accounts.

I picked the Oppenheimer Int Bond Class A for my international bond allocation. I have yet to find a decent ETF or mutual fund that allocates into international bonds. From my research this was so far the best I could find, and dislike the 4.75% upfront fee, and the annual 1.0% fee that comes with it.

Roth IRA #2 (Fidelity)

As part of our allocation for value stocks, I decided to pick specific dividend aristocrat stocks. It will be a small portion of asset allocation, but the goal of these stocks is to offer a considerable amount of annual income. Since it will live within our Roth IRA accounts, it will grow tax free.

We currently have some dividend stocks in our taxable accounts, and will slowly start transferring them to our retirement accounts. This is because the Bush tax cuts will end this year, and will more than likely end the current 15% dividend tax rate.

Dividend aristocrats are constantly raising their dividend, and haven’t missed (or lowered) a dividend payment in over 25 years. As the dividends increase, so does your annual income. By using this strategy it’s reported that Warren Buffett now earns over 25% APY with the Coca-Cola Company (KO) stock he bought in the 80′s and 90′s.

Rollover IRA #1 (Fidelity)

Rollover IRA #2 (Vanguard)

I wanted to keep some money with Vanguard (see Vanguard review.  They have some of the lowest cost and best index based funds around. If I had them within a Fidelity account, I would incur a fee with any transaction (ie buy or sell). In the future we may additional Roth IRA accounts with Vanguard if I need to meet our asset allocation requirements with Vanguard funds.

My Company

I currently do not have any retirement plans within the company I own.  Though in the future may setup a SEP IRA account through Fidelity.  At the moment I’ve been maxing out our Roth IRA accounts every year as a substitute. All other free cash goes into either our children’s 529 accounts or taxable investments.

• Asset Allocation for Retirement
• Correlation: The Reason For Asset Allocation
• Smart Money 2011 Broker Survey
• Vanguard Review
• ShareBuilder Review

Asset Allocation for Retirement (The Details) is from Investor Junkie Copyright © Empowering Media, Inc.

With the interactive graphs from the WSJ article, it shows what other research papers have shown and what anecdotally people have suspected.  We are becoming increasing an interconnected world.  Not only with things like the Internet, cell phones and Facebook, but with commerce.  The commerce that occurs in the United States affects China, as China also affects the United States.  It was said at one point (as late as the early 90′s) that if you invest in the European stock market (MSCI index) that you would be somewhat insulated from shocks in the US stock market.  This is definitely no longer the case.  In addition, their interactive graph shows, unless you held cash 2007-2009, you took a hit on your investments.  Typical investments that had either inverse or zero correlation to the S&P 500 shot up to close to 0.50 correlation.  A 1.00 correlation means the asset class moves lock-step as if you invested in a single asset.  A negative 1.00 correlation means it move in the reverse direction, and a 0.00 correlation means it’s independent of the asset.  Some may say this shows MPT is dead because of the correlation and I disagree.  My observations are:

The Past Does Not Equal the Future

You’ve heard this standard investment disclaimer: “Past performance do not equal future returns”. One lesson to learn from the article is to understand what once had a zero or inverse correlation, may not in the future. Stocks, no matter the country of origin are increasing becoming related.  I suspect this trend will continue, but you cannot be so sure.  It is a compelling argument for investing in Europe and emerging markers.  Though they should be part of your total stock allocation.  Other assets (like bonds) that increased correlation in the 2007-09 years, I suspect will revert back to their long term trends. Correlation among asset classes change over time, and it’s important to understand this.

Invest in All Asset Classes

The second lesson to learn is you must not only be invested in the traditional stocks and bonds, but you should also include alternative investments.  This includes real estate, commodities, and yes even buying gold. Regardless if you think gold is a bubble, there is a very strong reason to own at least a small portion in your portfolio.  According to Morningstar, gold stocks have have correlation to the S&P 500 of only 0.12 – meaning almost no relation.  Look at the past 10 years as an example.  The DOW and S&P 500 pretty much had a net return of zero, while gold increased an average of 17% per year. During the 1990′s we all knew stocks saw unprecedented returns, while gold was negative during this time.

You Won’t Become Bill Gates

Keep in mind diversification does not prevent you from a net loss on a a daily, monthly and even yearly basis.  It does help minimize your losses, and smooth out your returns for the long haul.  When investing in different asset classes you hope to lose less than investing in a single asset class, but you will never make a ‘killing’ with your investments.  You’ll never blow up your investments via this ‘boring’ way, but you’ll never become the next Bill Gates either.  You do have some options to spice it up a little. If you feel so inclined, you can take a portion of your portfolio (no more than 20%) and take on risky investments. That way, if the investments you select blow up, you won’t be eating cat food in your retirement years.  If you do make an investment and hit it big, it’s a big enough percentage to be statistically significant.  What else can you can you do to strike it rich?  Invest in yourself by starting a business.  Typically owners have a significant portion of their net worth within their business.  Since you have more control over a business you own – this is the primary method to decrease your risk, yet also can increase your returns.

• Asset Allocation for Retirement
• Asset Allocation for Retirement (The Details)
• The Real Reason You Should Be Bullish On Stocks
• 5 Steps to Creating a Successful Financial Plan
• What is a Master Limited Partnership (MLP)?

Correlation: The Reason For Asset Allocation is from Investor Junkie Copyright © Empowering Media, Inc.

• The Intelligent Asset Allocator – William Bernstein
• The Four Pillars of Investing – William Bernstein
• The Investor’s Manifesto – William Bernstein
• A Random Walk Down Wall Street – Burton G. Malkiel

I will mention that good asset allocation is based upon the modern portfolio theory (or MPT for short), using indexed based funds, buy-and-hold, and minimizing expenses. During the 2008 – 2009 crisis, it was said that buy-and-hold was dead. During this period pretty much all assets went down in value; stocks, bonds, commodities, sectors, regions, etc. MPT has its disadvantages, and it’s critics. 

Other investment strategies are available, but the topic of another discussion. For now it’s best to assume, while it won’t give you outstanding returns, you’ll lose less than most other professional investors during the long run. I will say our allocation is mostly index based, where we do have a percentage (under 20%) that is actively managed by me. If you feel you can do better than the market, it’s recommended to allocate no more than 20% for active investing (i.e. picking specific stocks). This means 80% of your investments are kept to the plan of proper asset allocation and buying index based funds.

A little background on our financials. I’m 40 years old, and have 3 children (5 years, 26 months and 14 months old). The asset allocation discussed in this post only includes our retirement accounts. It does not include any of our taxable accounts, our children’s 529 accounts, or other assets (i.e. rental property). Each has their own investment objectives and time lines, so in my opinion should be treated separately. As we approach retirement age (mid 50′s and early 60′s) I do plan on incorporating more of our taxable investments into our asset allocation.  For now they are separate.

High Level Asset Allocation

• 62% Stocks
• 25% Bonds
• 7% Commodities
• 3% Real Estate (does not include primary residence or rental properties)
• 3% Cash

Often in financial planning literature they recommend to allocate your bonds based upon your age. Meaning if you are 39 years old, you should allocate approximately 40% to bonds. I’ve decided to keep the stock allocation based upon our age, but add other investments such as commodities, real estate and some cash, which takes away from the bond allocation.  This was based upon a few factors from my research:

• Commodities and real estate have a much different correlation than stocks or bonds.
• Commodities and real estate have a higher beta than bonds, so therefore have higher returns for the long run
• I wanted to have some cash on hand to help in adjustments and for possible purchases when markets are cheap

The allocation will vary slightly over time, but this is the bird’s eye view of how the money is invested. As we get older I plan on adjusting our allocation, though stocks will be always at least 50% of our portfolio. Within the high level allocation of stocks and bonds, I sub divide the allocation into specific sectors.

Depending upon the amount you invest, it may or may not make sense to sub divide your allocations. The reason is simply because of statistical significance, and in some cases the minimum amounts required to invest. If you have only $10,000 to invest allocating 3% to international bonds means you would invest $300.00. On the other hand if you have $1,000,000 to invest, $30,000 of international bonds is a decent amount generate some returns.

Stock Allocation

Within stocks we divvy up the 62% into:

• 32% Domestic (52%)
• 20% Foreign (32%)
• 10% Emerging Markets (16%)

The percentages in parentheses represent their total allocation within stocks only. A common mistake for US investors is to think the world revolves around us. This is no different than an employee owning too much stock of the company they work for. You have too much invested into one asset class.

Based upon trends, and my opinion, our economic power is decreasing. We represent 27% of the world GDP that has decreased since the 2006 data. Since this is the case, I have increased my emerging market allocation, to a higher percentage (initially it was 0%), but kept our foreign allocation pretty much the same.

The other aspect is we are truly living in a global economy. It was generally accepted notion if the USA was in a recession, other parts of the world be thriving during that same period. Some studies have shown in the past 20 – 10 years, correlation between international and domestic stocks has increased. This was also shown anecdotally during the 2008-2009 recession. Based upon this, I’ve decided it’s best to spread my stock investments throughout the world.

Mind you, it’s almost impossible with today’s multinational companies to get completely accurate percentages invested in each of these areas. For example, companies like Coca-Cola (KO) have operations in all parts of the world. They in fact, have business is in each of the sectors mentioned. So when owning an S&P 500 fund, most people consider it domestic only. When in fact, over the past 10 years S&P 500 stocks have dramatically increased into international and emerging markets. Like I mention in my Morningstar review, I recommend their X-Ray service to determine if your asset allocation is on target. Not just your bond/stock ratio, but also geographic regions and sectors.

Bond Allocation

Most books on asset allocation discuss stocks only. Little is mentioned about bond allocation (I guess because most consider bonds ‘boring’). The questions I’ve had with bond allocation:

• How much do you allocate for inflation-based bonds (i.e. TIPS)?
• How much for corporate bonds or foreign bonds?

William Bernstein in his latest book “The Investor’s Manifesto” mentions total bond allocation, but did not go into much detail. He does state when investing in bonds, you should be mostly short-term (i.e. 5-10 years or less). Very little of your asset allocation should be in long-term bonds. Based upon his research, I’ve setup our bond allocation as follows:

• 10% U.S. Long Term Bonds.  5 – 10 year maturity (40%)
• 10% U.S. Short-Term Bonds. 1 – 5 year and includes TIPS (40%)
• 2% U.S. Short-Term Corp Bonds (8%)
• 3% International Bonds – 3% (12%)

I’ve recently added a small percentage to international bonds, for the same reason I’ve increased my stocks into emerging markets.

Commodity Allocation

With commodities, since it’s only 7% of the allocation I currently do not subdivide into other asset classes. At the moment it’s comprised of only metals and mining stocks. Mutual funds and ETFs that own things like gold, silver and copper. I currently do not own agriculture, oil, natural gas, or soft commodities. This may be adjusted in the future as the portfolio grows in value, but don’t plan adjusting the overall 7% allocation.

Real Estate Allocation

3% is allocated to real estate, and it is not divided into sub categories. This part of the allocation is invested in REIT funds that cover the entire market. Real estate does not have a strong correlation to stocks or bonds, and should be part of your asset allocation. Often times, your personal residence is a big part of your net worth, and should be taken into consideration how much to invest in REITs. In our case we have a primary residence and a rental property, so our allocation into real estate is small. I did want some coverage in commercial real estate by owning REITs. I suspect in the next year I will increase this to 5% while decreasing overall stock allocation to 60%. Others may want to increase/decrease their allocation accordingly.

Cash

This allocation may range from 0% – 10%, but no higher. This is somewhat of a misnomer as it’s not really cash, but investments in cash-like equivalents. They are short-term instruments that don’t vary. Things like money market accounts, short term CDs, etc.

It’s meant to keep some reserve for rebalancing. Should a major stock market correction occur use it to add to stock investments. I’m not really timing the market per se; I’m simply increasing our stock funds when stock corrections of 10-20% occur. When these do occur it becomes more obvious stocks are a bargain, and use to increase our allocation.

Rebalancing Rules

Common questions I had with MPT: when do you adjust; how often do you adjust?  Based upon some research, and my own opinion I’ve setup the following:

• Adjust once or twice a year. This is based upon the size of our portfolio, and how much your portfolio has gotten out of whack.
• Adjust if the allocation is greater than 3% different than what you are shooting for.
• Over the years we have somewhat modified our allocation of stock/bond ratio but plan on doing it birthdays of the youngest in the couple (that’s me). Then only adjust the ratio on birthday’s that end in zero (i.e. my soon to be 40th birthday)
• I sometimes tweak the bond, and stock ratios slightly to increase the amount of cash.

• Asset Allocation for Retirement (The Details)
• Correlation: The Reason For Asset Allocation
• 5 Steps to Creating a Successful Financial Plan
• Tax Efficient Investing
• Why I Sold Stocks In My Taxable Account Today

Asset Allocation for Retirement is from Investor Junkie Copyright © Empowering Media, Inc.

Tax Efficient Investing Order

When investing on an annual basis, it’s best to fill up your accounts in the following order:

1. Your employer’s 401k/403b up to matching amount
2. Invest the maximum into a Roth IRA
3. Back fill your 401k/403b to the maximum amount
4. Invest in a 529 Account
5. US I Savings Bonds
6. MLP and Muni Bonds
7. Taxable Investments

If you have a spouse, you would also do the same order to their accounts (if all options are available) as you would do for yourself.  Based upon your needs and goals, this order may slightly vary.  The basic gist from this list is to invest first in items that give you the greatest tax reduction or tax delay. Let’s go over the list one by one.

1. 401k/403b up to employer’s matching amount

With a 401k you usually get two forms of “free” money.  Your AGI (Adjusted Gross Income) is lowered which effectively lowers your income at least for federal taxes.  The other factor is most companies match 3-4% of what you invest.   This is the reason to invest in these first and contribute at least up to what the employer matches.  Granted some employer retirement plans suck.  Some plans do not have cheap and indexed based mutual funds (i.e. Vanguard), or have only a limited selection of funds.

2. Invest the maximum into a Roth IRA

As of 2010 the maximum for a Roth IRA is $5,000 per year.  Invest the maximum amount.  Open up an account with a firm that offers low transaction fees like ShareBuilder.  Roth IRAs have quite a few advantages over a 401k/403b or traditional IRA.  A traditional IRA reduces your AGI, but must pay taxes when you withdraw.   A Roth IRA on the other hand, is invested after tax, but withdrawals are currently tax-free.   The other nice aspect of any IRA is the potential to invest in pretty much any type of investment.  From physical gold, to real estate (not REITs!), to Lending Club, and of course more traditional investments.   A Roth IRA is much more flexible than any 401k or 403b.  It’s wise to use IRA accounts to help create a proper asset allocation.  Meaning if your 401k offers a poor choice in mutual funds or doesn’t offer specific funds (i.e. international stocks), your IRA account should be used to fill in that gap.

3. Back fill your 401k/403b to the maximum amount

After filling up your Roth IRA account for the year, you are usually best to go back and back fill your employer’s retirement account to the maximum.

4. Invest in a 529 account

If you have children or have future higher education needs yourself, it’s best to invest money into a 529 plan. Money invested is after tax, but is tax free when withdrawn for qualified higher education.  In some states (New York in my case) gives a state tax deduction for investing.  If you don’t have any needs in this area, you can skip this step.  Unfortunately many parents save for their children first, instead of taking care of their retirement plan first.  Retirement plans should always be funded first since you cannot take a loan out for retirement.  In addition, there are situations in which IRA accounts can use for higher education without penalty.

5. US I Savings Bonds

As mentioned previously, I am a big fan of US Savings I Bonds. I think they are a great way to invest some money that’s indexed to inflation, and yet be tax differed while holding the bond.  They can serve multi-purposes in your portfolio, and can be used for higher education needs tax-free.  At minimum, invest the maximum electronic amount (currently $5000) into I Bonds annually.

6. MLP and Muni Bonds

This is an optional investment as it depends upon your income level, and how complex you want your tax situation.  Though, MLP are a great way to get a steady return, and yet most of it be tax differed.  The disadvantage to a MLP is they are much more complex to deal with when filling your taxes.  It is usually recommend to hire an accountant to properly file your taxes when owning a MLP.

Investing in muni bonds depends upon your income level and the state you live in.  High income (you know the one’s Obama vilify) are usually the best to purchase these bonds.  If you have enough money ($250k+) you can directly purchase these bonds, if not you are best to stick with an index-based mutual fund or ETF to get proper diversification.

7. Taxable Investments

After every other item has been filled, only then it’s time to invest in taxable accounts.  Of course if you have other goals than retirement, and higher education (i.e. buying a house or rental property) you may want to push this item higher up the list.  When investing in your taxable accounts it’s typically best to make sure they are still tax efficient.  This means investing in mostly stocks, ETFs, index based mutual funds, and tax efficient mutual funds.  If you are using it as part of your retirement planning, it should be considered as part of your asset allocation.  This means for example, putting stocks with no dividend into your taxable accounts.

Summary

Keep in mind like any part of investing, one should not invest solely for tax avoidance. Do not miss investment opportunities just because it’s tax inefficient, though it should always be considered with your planing.  Though as your different types of investment accounts grow, you’ll be able to put the new asset class into the most appropriate account.

• REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) Investing
• REITs vs. Real Estate Investing
• Investing – Sometimes It Pays To Think Small
• What I’m Investing In Now
• Ginnie Mae Investing

Tax Efficient Investing is from Investor Junkie Copyright © Empowering Media, Inc.