Javelin said:
I am wary of dropping serious coin into a fund only to have a repeat of Dec 18 and immediately lose a large % (or conversely, that is that many more shares I could have gotten had I waited) of my investment, even if it is for a long-term. (I also watched the last 18 months of growth in both of my kid's 529's basically disappear that month). I suspect that I may need up to half of the amount in about 2 years to buy property/house to live at, so I don't want to tie everything up into one thing. It's 50K, so I can spread around say 5 good investments?
I'm in FDVV, UCEQX, and USATX.
I did buy $50 of the PUFXF because of this thread and already lost $2.50!
I have TSLA, AMZN, and GMN individually among a bunch of others. Some are not doing great (F, GE, FWONA), others are doing well (PLNT, TGT, VZ). I haven't sold anything since I started investing 5 years ago. I'm looking at retiring in 2039.
The markets have now regained all of Dec 2018s losses, so yeah losses suck to see, but historically the markets always come back. I wouldn't put any of the money that you think you'll need in the next 24 months into a stock-heavy investment, but that may/may not be more conservative than you. I always lean towards guaranteed investments when it comes to things like downpayments, so I'd probably stick that portion of the money into something like a CD, or back to back CDs depending on timing.
As for your indexes, I know that you didn't specifically ask for feedback, but here's what I see in a quick glance over:
FDVV is 93% US stocks/6.95% international stock. Expense ratio is high 0.29%. It's up 19.6% since it's inception in Sept of 2016. It seems to have a lot of turnover/churning which explains some of the fees.
UCEQX is a blend of 54% US stocks and 43% international stock (Seems like there's some overlap with FDVV here which may create more exposure to the US or international market than you realize). Expense ratio is way high @ 0.85%. It's up 10% since Sept of 2016.
USATX is a bond fund. It's conservative, but should be less volatile than the others. More security means slower growth of course. Expense ratio is 0.51% which can be a pretty big chunk of any gains you might see here. It's down 3.5% since Sept 2016.
These funds all have higher than necessary fees which are negatively impacting your returns. I think you could get similar or better performance with other funds, and pay lower fees too.
VTSAX would be a good replacement for your FDVV holdings. VTSAX invests 98% in the US market, has very low turnover (3%) which allows an expense ratio of just 0.04%. It's up 30% since Sept 2016 when FDVV was started. So it holds most of the same stuff that FDVV does, but it's outgained FDVV by about 11%, and done it while charging you less in fees. It also has a much longer track record for comparison.
I don't see much reason to own the UCEQX, unless it's there because you want international exposure. If that's the case, then simplifying to something like Vanguard's new VGTSX will give you 96% international stocks with an expense ratio of just 0.17%. This would eliminate any overlap with your US stock funds and would make it more clear just how much of your portfolio is held domestically vs internationally which means you can set your asset allocation more easily. VGTSX is new, but has returned 7.5% thus far.
For your bond fund, VBMFX holds 98.6% US Bonds. It's expense ratio is much lower than UCEQX at 0.15. It's down 4.45% since Sept of 2016. So, similar bond exposure, similar performance, much lower fees.
So, if you converted your current FDVV (mostly US, some international), UCEQX (about half US, half international) and USATX (All bonds) holding to VTSAX (US stocks), VGTSX (International), and VBMFX (All bonds) respectively, you'd have similar/better performance with lower fees all around, and a more clear idea of where your money is going.