Large Cap, Mid Cap, Small Cap Stocks %

[HappyLady]

How do you balance your portfolio within stocks? What percentage do you allocate to large vs. Mid. vs. Small cap stocks?

[Plain Old Petunia]

The US market is roughly 70/20/10 large/mid/small.

Personally, I hold a total stock market etf, then tilt to small value.

[SVT]

No midcap funds specifically. I'm at 50% VFINX (S&P 500), 50% VISVX (Small Cap Value), 50% VTRIX (International Value), and 50% VFSVX (International Small Cap).

This mirrors the Ultimate Buy-and-Hold Strategy found at fundadvice.com by Paul Merriman. I use a simplified version; 4 funds instead of 8. Same results based on history. The funds have very low correlation to each other. And yes, it's 50/50 US/International.

Here's a link to the article outlining the original ultimate buy and hold strategy.

www.merriman.com/PDFs/UltimateBuyAndHold.pdf

If you haven't read it, read it. Especially if you're trying to decide on asset allocation. There are other articles on that site to help come up with an asset allocation as well.

[azphx1972]

Thanks for that link SVT, it was a pretty interesting read.

[SVT]

Thanks. If interested in the simplified version, and the data/graphs to back up the simililarities, here's a link to a thread from the bogleheads forum.

www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38374

If some of you don't read or participate in it, I strongly encourage you to start. There are A LOT more posters who are very smart and educated in the area of investing than here IMO. There is also a personal finance section, too. And it's a much more active forum than this one. The link to the home page of that forum is in my signature. I encourage all to read/participate in it.

[azphx1972]

Thanks again SVT. I just joined that forum and posted a question.

[SVT]

Taylor Larimore and Mel Lindauer, two of the authors of The Bogleheads' Guide To Investing and Rick Ferri, author of All About Asset Allocation, post there often, among many other very knowledgeable posters. EmergDoc and Livesoft are very good posters too. They're pretty hardcore over there so make sure you cross your T's and dot your I's

[SVT]

May 2, 2011 8:56:22 GMT -5 azphx1972 said:

Thanks again SVT. I just joined that forum and posted a question.

I just looked at your post. If you don't get a lot of good replies, try reposting using the standard format. There's a sticky with the format at the top of the Help With Personal Investments section. I see some of the information they like to have is in there, but not everything.