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Templeton Dragon Closed Fund

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Is the expense difference between these two funds significant enough to steer the decision?

r/investingSee Post

Target Date Funds (TDF) in Taxable Account for Money Needed in 4-5 Years?

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401k plan options - leave TDF?

r/investingSee Post

Anything wrong with investing into TDF for both 401k and IRAs?

r/investingSee Post

How to diversify between small cap, mid cap, large cap and international

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Pre tax 457b (county) and LACERA

r/StockMarketSee Post

Roth IRA holdings

r/investingSee Post

Target Date Funds - dividends in 401ks?

r/stocksSee Post

should I dedicate all my investment accounts towards a TDF or dedicate one to a TDF and the other to funds?

r/investingSee Post

How can you protect your 401k & IRAs from inflation/recession if you have TDF?

r/investingSee Post

How relaxed are Target Date Funds (TDF)?

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Target Date Fund (TDF) Okay for 401k, Traditional IRA & Roth IRA?

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Retirement investment advice

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Why do long-term target date funds include bonds?

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Target date fund vs personally managed index fund

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How do dividends in my 401(k)s TDF work?

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Parent’s IRA - TDF Question/Advice

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401k investment choices/Strategy

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Roth 403(b) to Traditional 403(b)

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40Yr Male - Investment Allocation Question

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Total market index fund VS target date fund

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Pro rata rule -TIRA to Roth IRA

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Target Date Fund Underperformance

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convert target date fund to my custom build fund in Roth IRA

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Target Date Fund (TDF) for Traditional IRA and Roth IRA a good investment?

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How to Setup DCA Strategy?

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Behind on my Roth IRA investment

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TDF or Index Fund for Traditional IRA and Roth IRA?

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Is a Target Date Fund (TDF) okay for Traditional IRA and/or Roth IRA?

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Having TDF for 401k during downturn/recession?

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Safest investment in retirement account?

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Investment Ideas for Custodial Account

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Can somebody explain why a target-date retirement fund is a good idea? Seems terrible to me

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2065 Schwab TDF or VTI? 23 y/o Planning to retire at 62 (2061)

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All About Asset Allocation and Protecting Your Wealth book summary by Richard Ferri

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Is it okay to invest in similar Target Date Funds with different brokers?

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Help choosing investments for my first 401k

r/stocksSee Post

How much of your portfolio is individuals stocks vs ETFs?

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Should I move the money in my IRA out of Scwabs TDF and into the S&P?

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Two ROTHs or keep my cycle going

Mentions

Everyone has their own risk tolerance. Some people stick with TDF only while others pick a handful of stocks. If you want to diversify then go for it. Remember the saying: Concentration builds wealth while diversification helps preserve wealth. You reduce risk but you also reduce gains. The S&P 500 is simply a sweet spot for most people. If your risk tolerance is lower, you do you. I don't personally care about your financial well-being to try and change your mind.

Mentions:#TDF

Not the OP but to break in, I rolled 401K over to Fidelity IRA. I found similar index TDF and bought 6k shares in the TDF I chose, which put all of my rolled over cash back in. Correct move?

Mentions:#TDF

I'm single, recently divorced, and reviewing my (new) financial situation with fresh eyes. I'm 34yo in a VHCOL center. * 120k in cash, currently parked in MM at 5.3% * 100k 401k in Fidelity TDF, 15% paycheck goes there (including match) * 45k in a Roth No debt, and aside from a couple vehicles and a cat, no material assets either. I live alone, rent for 2700 and take home 6500/month. I save about 1500 a month right now but hoping to bump that this year to 2500 w pay raise. I'd like to buy a condo, or something larger if I found a new partner in a few years. With rates high, I have just parked my divorce finances in (basically) a HYSA for now, but want to figure out how to invest the after tax cash for a 3-5 year timeframe. Some equity exposure would probably(?) be good, but what ratio should I be going for? like 20-30% VTSAX and keep the rest as is (MM rates being better than bond yields anyway?) help appreciated, or any general financial advice for someone in my position.

The Vanguard target date funds (TDF) are pretty easy to look at and see what they do. 2055 (30 years out) breakdown: [https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/mutual-funds/profile/vffvx#portfolio-composition](https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/mutual-funds/profile/vffvx#portfolio-composition) Vanguard seems to allocate more to stocks then other TDFs, though. And they have people paid to over-think it as their full time job :)

Mentions:#TDF

I agree for the most part. But if you take the average 20 or 30 year old... they probably don't even know what they're holding in their 401k, or if they even have a 401k, or what a 401k even is. And if they have one, they likely hust chose a target date fund because they have no idea how the market works, what annualized returns to expect, etc. The average 20 year old doesn't know jack shit about finances... so when they get a job and they go into HR and they're selecting their funds... the HR rep says "most people just select a target date" and the 20 year old jumps on the band wagon not knowing that the 6 to 8% gains from that TDF are subpar....

Mentions:#HR#TDF

Just take a look at any TDF and their glide path. You can use that and do it yourself. I prefer TDFs due to how easy they are and I'm at Vanguard.

Mentions:#TDF

They said AVERAGE. You, being here, on an investment sub, probably investing in something other than a TDF, are not the average....

Mentions:#TDF

No knowing for sure of course, but the TDF is globally diversified. Usually a better bet in the long term despite the recent US outperformance. Then again it's hard to call 100% 500 index a "bad choice"

Mentions:#TDF

I just thought it'd have better returns than the TDF? Or did I overthink that hehe

Mentions:#TDF

Why did you switch from the TDF to VINIX in the 401k?

Mentions:#TDF#VINIX

How are you able to invest in individual stocks? My company doesn't allow anything other that handful of TDF's and mutual funds

Mentions:#TDF

Realize that you be taking on uncompensated risk though by doing that (going to single country) and ignoring smaller caps and international. Long term had tended to favor smaller over large (S&P 500) and there's routinely periods where the US is trailing behind ex-US. The TDF some is a fully diversified portfolio in one: it has the US total market, ex-US markets, and bonds. Only the bonds part (which for the farthest out TDFs will likely be 10% maximum) is more conservative than S&P 500, the rest is either equally as or more aggressive.

Mentions:#TDF

I'd just put 100% in the Vanguard TDF since that's a very good TDF. Otherwise you're overlapping your funds left and right. Also chances are this will be better for you if you do traditional instead of Roth.

Mentions:#TDF

You mention you’re already investing in a TDF. I think a reasonable approach would be to just mirror that TDF in your taxable brokerage account.

Mentions:#TDF

Husband moved his 401(k) balance from a target date fund to a cash position in 2022 based on the advice of his company's tax/financial consultant. However my husband never thought to ask when to invest it back into a TDF. With the market being so high now, is it bad timing to reinvest it into a TDF now? He has about $100k in his 401(k) and he's 34.

Mentions:#TDF

Just pick a TDF close to when you think you'll retire. It'll adjust risk based on your age. That being said this is a casino and if you don't enjoy frostys and baconators you should head on out.

Mentions:#TDF

Which is totally true, but that doesn’t mean the stock price will never go down. I recommend checking out this sub’s resources, but basic investing advice is to first keep emergency savings, roughly 6mo of your average expenses, in a HYSA. Then start maxing out an IRA with index funds or a TDF. Then open a regular brokerage and continue into index funds. Once you’re well established doing that, consider putting a small % of your portfolio into individual stocks. Ofc this is not perfect catch all advice for everyone, but most would agree you jumped ahead several steps with your purchase.

Mentions:#HYSA#TDF

What's the full name and expense ratio of this TDF?

Mentions:#TDF

https://www.morningstar.com/funds/why-biggest-target-date-funds-have-underperformed https://www.adviserinvestments.com/adviser-fund-update/target-date-fund-underperformance/ https://realinvestmentadvice.com/why-target-date-funds-fail-investors-a-3-trillion-delusion/ Additionally, the average fee of a TDF is 0.52%, compared to broad market funds that many are below 0.1%. Additionally additionally, and perhaps more important than anything else - why on earth are you so angry??? You don’t need to tell me why, just think about why a comment on Reddit made you so mad, and try to fix whatever that reason is.

Mentions:#TDF

This is most likely the answer. Doesn’t make sense that a TDF would be down 98% in two and a half months with the stock market booming.

Mentions:#TDF

Oh, gotcha. I didn't realize that this was a bank IRA that doesn't support trading. How's your bond allocation? Usually if someone wants to use their money within \~7 years, I'd go with bonds so you can count on it being there. It sounds like you have a larger portfolio though, so you'll want to see how this $4k fits in to the overall picture and let that drive your allocation. From the sounds of it, you're already in a TDF (2 really, 2030 and 2035) so I would be inclined to park this $4k in the same or similar fund. Your decision here will be driven by what you want from this chunk of money. If you want this to grow for years and be the last thing you withdraw before death, put it in stocks so that it can return the highest amount. VT would be a great ETF for this, or it's equivalent mutual fund is VTSAX I think. If you would rather pull the money upon retirement, use bonds to help it hold it's value. I want to say that VBND is the vanguard long term treasury ETF, but I'm not sure and I don't know the mutual fund equivalent. All in, if you're this close to retirement, I'd encourage you either hire a pro or do a lot of research about how to structure your portfolio. You probably want to start building a bond tent in the next few years as well as considering RMDs, backdoor roth conversions and plenty of other things I can't cover here. Hopefully that's enough google terms to start your research.

No one is pushing crypto here. Are you pushing brews? https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w29559/w29559.pdf OP if you want to read more about why TDF funds are too conservative dive in. >We find that the consumption-equivalent losses from using an age-dependent rule as embedded in current target-date/lifecycle funds (TDFs) are substantial, around 2 to 3 percent of consumption, despite the fact that TDF rules mimic average optimal behavior by age closely until shortly before retirement. >This somewhat surprising result stems from the fact that TDFs tend to decrease equity shares by too much as people age, so that the benefits of a constant equity share of 2/3 for older households is significant, and outweighs the benefit of the TDF guidance to hold higher equity shares early life.

Mentions:#TDF

Exactly. With a properly diversified portfolio, there will always be parts over performing others and parts under performing others. But which parts fall into each change from time to time. With a TDF, you are engaged your always have the winners covered no matter where they are. Then not everyone can stomach massive drops as retirement is approaching or in retirement.

Mentions:#TDF

Which investment most closely resembles the S&P500? I don't know Am I better off continuing to just put it into the target fund? Probably A lot of people have claimed that TDFs are too conservative for a young investor. I disagree, though it does depend on the fund & the investor. Bonds account for very little of the difference in performance between an all-US-stock portfolio & many TDFs designed for young investors. Bonds have had little impact on the performance of these performance TDFs; it's mostly been the international stocks. Adding international stocks doesn't make a fund more conservative. Historically, US stocks & international stocks have taken turns outperforming each other. US stocks have dominated recently, but that tide could turn at any time. I'm most familiar with Vanguard's TDFs, so I'll use them as an example. I've never invested in one, but they're a great choice for a lot of investors who value convenience & are willing to pay a little bit for it. Vanguard TDFs start out with a 90/10 stock/bond allocation & stick with that for many years before starting to gradually shift more towards bonds twenty-five years before the target date. The difference in performance between a 90/10 portfolio & a 100/0 portfolio is usually pretty small, but the difference in risk is usually much larger. This makes it much easier for an investor to hold onto the TDF through a bear market instead of selling in a panic, a move that would cost much more than the performance difference. For a US-only portfolio, over the last 30+ years, the performance difference has been less than 0.4% CAGR. However, the risk (standard deviation) difference has been about 1.5%. (I expect longer time periods would show similar results.) 22 years into this comparison, the 90/10 portfolio was slightly ahead. Only the longest bull market in US history created much of a gap. Why then, you may ask, have funds like Vanguard Total Stock Market Fund (VTSAX & VTI) beaten Vanguard's TDFs by such a large margin recently? The answer is not bonds; it's international stocks. So, pick an all-US-stock portfolio (total market or S&P 500) over a TDF if you like. But please understand that the TDF is only slightly more conservative & has its own advantages. Of course, past performance is not an indicator of future results. https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-asset-class-allocation?s=y&mode=1&timePeriod=2&startYear=1972&firstMonth=1&endYear=2023&lastMonth=12&calendarAligned=true&includeYTD=false&initialAmount=10000&annualOperation=0&annualAdjustment=0&inflationAdjusted=true&annualPercentage=0.0&frequency=4&rebalanceType=1&absoluteDeviation=5.0&relativeDeviation=25.0&portfolioNames=false&portfolioName1=Portfolio+1&portfolioName2=Portfolio+2&portfolioName3=Portfolio+3&asset1=TotalStockMarket&allocation1\_1=100&allocation1\_2=90&allocation1\_3=54&asset2=TotalBond&allocation2\_2=10&allocation2\_3=10&asset3=IntlStockMarket&allocation3\_3=36&asset4=GlobalBond I didn't include international bonds in my analysis because their impact on the portfolio is small. Also, the comparison period would have been much shorter because some years of data are not available for international bonds.

I’m not a huge fan of TDF funds.   https://www.fa-mag.com/news/fidelity--vanguard-tdfs-have-underperformed-balanced-funds--morningstar-says-74223.html

Mentions:#TDF

The Russell 3000 would be the closest to what you’re looking for. For people who only speak vanguard it is very similar to VTI. The Russell 1000 growth would be somewhat similar to QQQ (both large cap growth funds). However, you were correct when you asked if you would be better off just using the target date fund. The construction of those funds is built on mountains of evidence about how to properly grow money before retirement and reduce risk as you get closer to retirement. Also, if you aren’t familiar with what the Russell 1000 or 3000 is, you should probably just use the TDF.

Mentions:#VTI#QQQ#TDF

Is retirement decades away? Just put it all in the TDF today

Mentions:#TDF

Ok, so the Fidelity Target Date Funds (TDFs) are really Fund of Funds. They use mostly actively-managed Fidelity mutual funds to achieve their target allocation. All TDF series (American Funds, TIAA, Vanguard) have a glide path they use to determine the allocations to equity based on distance to retirement and if you keep the funds after the retirement year passes. In your case, you want to use these funds for a overall more conservative allocation but according to Fidelity's glide path, if it was currently 2025 the Fidelity Freedom 2025 Fund would still have a 52% allocation to equity (looks like its at 53% today). Your good 2023 returns in these funds are due to the allocation to equity and it makes sense that the 2025 TDF has the lower return compared to the 2035 TDF which has a higher allocation to equity (2025: 53% to 2035: 70% equity allocation). What I wouldn't like about your portfolio, for myself, would be it's harder to know your overall allocation to equity without looking through the Target Date Funds and figuring it out. I don't know what % you have in each fund but you might not be as conservative as you are hoping to be. That said, you also mention that you are many years from retirement which also means you can usually be more aggressive because time is on your side.

Mentions:#TDF

I don’t have direct ex-U.S. exposure in my brokerage or IRA. My 401(k) holds a TDF that’s around 35% ex-U.S. Composition of most international markets is mostly financials and production, which tend to not be explosive growers. Even if a company breaks out, as some of the Chinese names clearly could if their government let them, those returns would be dragging a lot of dead weight in VXUS. As a result, we get these awesome lists of markets that are beating the U.S. market in any given year (like the Nikkei at +19% YTD), yet VXUS frequently lags. Composition matters.

Mentions:#TDF#VXUS

you can be more aggressive than a TDF and stil get better diversification than individual stocks.....technology index funds come to mind.

Mentions:#TDF

Adding individual stock to Roth IRA (Vanguard) Hi. Investing newbie here. I recently sold some TDF in my Roth IRA at Vanguard to buy an individual stock. The IRA is already maxed out for 2023 and 2024. I sold 10,000 of the TDF but it’s not showing in the IRA settlement fund yet. In fact there’s no settlement fund showing at all in the IRA. I have always put my contributions directly into the TDF rather than into a settlement fund. It does show 10,000 available to trade when I go to the stock buying screen, as a credit. 1. Can I buy the stock now or do I need to wait for it to show in a settlement fund? 2. This morning before open, when I went to do the trade, and put in the number of shares that would get me closest to $10,000, the final estimate ending up being over $10,000 (because of futures?) and I got a scary message about if I exceeded the available amount in the account my account could be restricted. So I quickly canceled the transaction. How can I buy the stock so that it won’t exceed the available 10,000 even if the price goes up in later in the day or in the next day before the trade executes? Is there a certain time of day that I have to do it to avoid this possibility? Or is there an option to tell Vanguard “do not exceed $10,000?” I really don’t want to get my account restricted because of this.

Mentions:#TDF

An S&P 500 index fund can be a good investment, but it's rarely a good, complete retirement portfolio. A TDF is designed to be a single-fund retirement portfolio, but American funds are often a bit expensive (which doesn't translate into higher returns). I suggest that you invest 2-3 hours in learning about investing from a trustworthy source. www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started has some great free resources to learn about investing. After a few hours reading the articles, and, especially, watching the Bogleheads Philosophy videos, most beginners can learn how to get better results than most professionals. Bogleheads is named after John Bogle, founder of Vanguard. I retired at 57 years old. Investing doesn't have to be complicated or costly to be successful; simple & inexpensive is most effective. I invest 100% in total-market, index-based, low-cost mutual funds. Specifically, I use mostly Vanguard's Total Stock Market, Total Bond Market, Total International Stock Market, & Total International Bond Market funds. I've been investing this way for 35+ years. It's effective, simple, & inexpensive. My asset allocation (ratios of the funds mentioned) is based on my need, ability, & willingness to take risks. Market conditions are not a factor. Vanguard's investor questionnaire (personal.vanguard.com/us/FundsInvQuestionnaire) helps me determine my asset allocation. Buying individual stocks or sector funds creates unnecessary & uncompensated risk; I avoid doing so. Index funds are boring, but better for making money. If I wanted to talk about my interesting investments at parties or wanted a new hobby, I might invest 5-10% of my portfolio in individual stocks. As it is, I own pretty much every publicly-traded company in the world; that's interesting enough for me. All of the individual stocks & sector funds are being followed by thousands or millions of other investors. Current prices reflect their collective knowledge of future expectations for each one. I'm a member of the Triple Nine Society, but I'm not smarter than all of them. If I found a stock or sector that looked like a bargain, the most likely explanation would be that the others know something I don't. I prefer mutual funds, but ETFs could also work well. The differences are usually trivial for a long-term investor, especially if they're the Vanguard funds I mentioned above. Actually, the Vanguard funds I mentioned above have both traditional mutual fund shares & ETF shares; they both represent a piece of the same fund. The funds I use comprise Vanguards target date funds and LifeStrategy funds; these are excellent choices for many investors. Using the component funds allows some flexibility that can have tax benefits, but also creates the need for me to rebalance them periodically. Expense ratios are slightly higher than for the components but are well worth it for many investors. Other companies have funds similar to the ones I own that would work well. I prefer Vanguard because they've been the leader in this type of investing for decades & because Vanguard's customers are also Vanguard's owners. I hope that helps! I'd be happy to help w/ further questions. Best wishes!

Mentions:#TDF

>Considering the 457 will have international, bonds, etc. Would I be wrong to go 100% S&P 500 or Total Market for my Roth IRA? Since the 457 will somewhat balance it out? Just because the TDF will have them doesn't mean that you can or could ignore them entirely in your other account(s). You should have a target ratio for stocks to bonds and within each US to ex-US. Basically, with your current plan, every dollar you put into the Roth IRA would water down the ex-US and bond holdings in the 457 further and further.

Mentions:#TDF

Yea that’s kind of what I’m getting at. If you’re specifically looking to diversify internationally you can use a TDF or a fund that has international exposure. But I don’t think that benefit is really there if someone is “diversifying” into 3 funds that generally have the same % exposure to, say, US stocks. You’re still getting largely the same risk as your net exposure to something like international is not significant enough to really bring any benefits from the “diversification”. For example, 99% of VOO holdings are also held by VT. Personally I moved out of my 2060 TDF into a full S&P fund. The 15ish percent exposure to international has been dragging the portfolio down and I don’t see international outperforming US stocks anytime soon.

Mentions:#TDF#VOO#VT

I started a Roth mid last year. At first was doing SCHD, but then sold it and bought into VOO. I'm 100% VOO for my Roth IRA. Figure that can be my more aggressive retirement account while my 401k stays as a TDF. Then I also buy some fractional shares on a Schwab account and some crypto on RH. I honestly use RH for my Roth just to take advantage of the 1% match. It's not much, but it's free money.

Mentions:#SCHD#VOO#TDF

Also mid 30s and slightly behind due to starting my career late. I put my initialy modest 401k contributions in a TDF (also 2055) because that's what my limited research told me to do as a "hands off, fund and forget it" approach. I personally found it underwhelming in terms of performance, especially as I approach max IRS funding limits in recent years. It might not have dipped as low as the market at times (though sometimes it did), it also wasn't hitting the peaks. I did some more research, and it suggested the bond makeup and international stocks of TDF's are probably too conservative for my risk tolerance... especially 20+ years out of retirement. Not to mention the expense rate was like .23%, which many people say to stay under .20%. I moved everything to S&P500, basically VOO equivalent, with a expense rate of .01%. I'd probably do FSKAX or a VTI equivalent if I had one available for a little more diversification, but I'm still ok with the risk at the moment and for the next 10+ years probably.

They are probably useful to people that don't want to allocate (although you can find 60/40 funds, too) so the allocation is just done for you in the fund. As an example, if you had a full service broker and they put you in several funds to allocate your portfolio that's not much different then a fund that does the same thing (except the full service broker charges more). Using funds like this also adds diversification if the funds held are broad market funds. So I see value there for people that don't want to learn how to allocate. Can also be useful if the allocation changes over time and the investor wants someone else to do that or does not understand it. Some funds may be actively managed and are shifting the allocation between other funds (again, more like a full-service broker might do). Others following fixed rules. Target Dated Funds. TDFs get bashed here often but Vanguard's TDF expense are 0.08% which I think is reasonable and the TDF funds make sense for a large part of the population. I would only use one of these that buys funds in the same company. So I would not buy a fund of funds from a small investment house that uses other company funds. I think it makes more sense and probably has lower expenses when the 'master' fund is using funds of their own companies' offerings.

Mentions:#TDF

They are usually target date funds. The general advantage is that allocation is risk adjusted towards some target date. A TDF isn't really actively managed - they tend to be passive. A fund of funds typically competes with robo-advisors and have similar total expenses. For anyone that actively manages their own portfolio - fund of funds generally are not useful products since they lack any nuance.

Mentions:#TDF

A lot of people have claimed that TDFs are too conservative for a young investor. I disagree, though it does depend on the fund & the investor. Bonds account for very little of the difference in performance between an all-US-stock portfolio & many TDFs designed for young investors. Bonds have had little impact on the performance of these performance TDFs; it's mostly been the international stocks. Adding international stocks doesn't make a fund more conservative. Historically, US stocks & international stocks have taken turns outperforming each other. US stocks have dominated recently, but that tide could turn at any time. I'm most familiar with Vanguard's TDFs, so I'll use them as an example. I've never invested in one, but they're a great choice for a lot of investors who value convenience & are willing to pay a little bit for it. Vanguard TDFs start out with a 90/10 stock/bond allocation & stick with that for many years before starting to gradually shift more towards bonds twenty-five years before the target date. The difference in performance between a 90/10 portfolio & a 100/0 portfolio is usually pretty small, but the difference in risk is usually much larger. This makes it much easier for an investor to hold onto the TDF through a bear market instead of selling in a panic, a move that would cost much more than the performance difference. For a US-only portfolio, over the last 30+ years, the performance difference has been less than 0.4% CAGR. However, the risk (standard deviation) difference has been about 1.5%. (I expect longer time periods would show similar results.) 22 years into this comparison, the 90/10 portfolio was slightly ahead. Only the longest bull market in US history created much of a gap. Why then, you may ask, have funds like Vanguard Total Stock Market Fund (VTSAX & VTI) beaten Vanguard's TDFs by such a large margin recently? The answer is not bonds; it's international stocks. So, pick an all-US-stock portfolio (total market or S&P 500) over a TDF if you like. But please understand that the TDF is only slightly more conservative & has its own advantages. Of course, past performance is not an indicator of future results. https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-asset-class-allocation?s=y&mode=1&timePeriod=2&startYear=1972&firstMonth=1&endYear=2023&lastMonth=12&calendarAligned=true&includeYTD=false&initialAmount=10000&annualOperation=0&annualAdjustment=0&inflationAdjusted=true&annualPercentage=0.0&frequency=4&rebalanceType=1&absoluteDeviation=5.0&relativeDeviation=25.0&portfolioNames=false&portfolioName1=Portfolio+1&portfolioName2=Portfolio+2&portfolioName3=Portfolio+3&asset1=TotalStockMarket&allocation1_1=100&allocation1_2=90&allocation1_3=54&asset2=TotalBond&allocation2_2=10&allocation2_3=10&asset3=IntlStockMarket&allocation3_3=36&asset4=GlobalBond I didn't include international bonds in my analysis because their impact on the portfolio is small. Also, the comparison period would have been much shorter because some years of data are not available for international bonds.

That's silly. TDF is already covering most everything but tends to leverage a lot towards international (31%). I add S&P500 to weigh it more toward the US.

Mentions:#TDF

The best fund is one you will stay in when the market drops (so you won't sell and capitulate). It's easy to overestimate your tolerance for risk. I'd go with the idea of just switching new additions to S&P 500 unless you really can tolerate extra risk. But also consider Vanguard has people that spend their days investigating and thinking about the best way to get you to 2060 retirement. Factor that against /r/investing advice which is often not that good. So take it all with a grain of salt. Including mine. Do what you are comfortable with. Your 2060 TDF fund is also under 10% bonds. It's not particularly conservative. https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/mutual-funds/profile/vttsx

Mentions:#TDF

I've gone through this before. For me, rather than rebalancing my current TDF, I just changed the contributions. Something like 80/20 for future contributions of S&P500/TDF made sense for me

Mentions:#TDF

1. Most people can easily manage their own 401K. 2. I wrote the following comparing TDFs to a US total market stock fund. Everything in it applies to comparing between TDFs to an S&P 500 fund except that an S&P 500 fund has even less diversity than a US total market fund, so it's even less suitable to be the only thing in a retirement portfolio. 3. A lot of people have claimed that TDFs are too conservative for a young investor. I disagree, though it does depend on the fund & the investor. Bonds account for very little of the difference in performance between an all-US-stock portfolio & many TDFs designed for young investors. Bonds have had little impact on the performance of these performance TDFs; it's mostly been the international stocks. Adding international stocks doesn't make a fund more conservative. Historically, US stocks & international stocks have taken turns outperforming each other. US stocks have dominated recently, but that tide could turn at any time. I'm most familiar with Vanguard's TDFs, so I'll use them as an example. I've never invested in one, but they're a great choice for a lot of investors who value convenience & are willing to pay a little bit for it. Vanguard TDFs start out with a 90/10 stock/bond allocation & stick with that for many years before starting to gradually shift more towards bonds twenty-five years before the target date. The difference in performance between a 90/10 portfolio & a 100/0 portfolio is usually pretty small, but the difference in risk is usually much larger. This makes it much easier for an investor to hold onto the TDF through a bear market instead of selling in a panic, a move that would cost much more than the performance difference. For a US-only portfolio, over the last 30+ years, the performance difference has been less than 0.4% CAGR. However, the risk (standard deviation) difference has been about 1.5%. (I expect longer time periods would show similar results.) 22 years into this comparison, the 90/10 portfolio was slightly ahead. Only the longest bull market in US history created much of a gap. Why then, you may ask, have funds like Vanguard Total Stock Market Fund (VTSAX & VTI) beaten Vanguard's TDFs by such a large margin recently? The answer is not bonds; it's international stocks. So, pick an all-US-stock portfolio (total market or S&P 500) over a TDF if you like. But please understand that the TDF is only slightly more conservative & has its own advantages. Of course, past performance is not an indicator of future results. https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-asset-class-allocation?s=y&mode=1&timePeriod=2&startYear=1972&firstMonth=1&endYear=2023&lastMonth=12&calendarAligned=true&includeYTD=false&initialAmount=10000&annualOperation=0&annualAdjustment=0&inflationAdjusted=true&annualPercentage=0.0&frequency=4&rebalanceType=1&absoluteDeviation=5.0&relativeDeviation=25.0&portfolioNames=false&portfolioName1=Portfolio+1&portfolioName2=Portfolio+2&portfolioName3=Portfolio+3&asset1=TotalStockMarket&allocation1\_1=100&allocation1\_2=90&allocation1\_3=54&asset2=TotalBond&allocation2\_2=10&allocation2\_3=10&asset3=IntlStockMarket&allocation3\_3=36&asset4=GlobalBond I didn't include international bonds in my analysis because their impact on the portfolio is small. Also, the comparison period would have been much shorter because some years of data are not available for international bonds.

Then keep the TDF. The US market has outperformed the Intl for the last 10-15 years, but there's no telling if it will continue. Intl market has outperformed the US at different time periods. TDF is the best "leave it alone" fund there is.

Mentions:#TDF

I manage my own with a TDF and S&P mix. You'll beat most investors with just the S&P 500 it's riskier though imo. That's why I use the TDF for bring that risk down a little and it works in my brain. Better than buying 20 stocks and selling, failing to meet the market gain and then paying a guy

Mentions:#TDF

Personally, I don’t feel I need bonds in my 20s and 30s. Also, my only TDF options had high expense ratios and I have decent, low cost mutual fund options so I did a 70/15/15 across three funds. YMMV.

Mentions:#TDF

What do you want from your investment? Be more aggressive (VOO), or be more diversified (TDF)

Mentions:#VOO#TDF

Target date funds (TDF) have pro's that look at this. Vanguard has you at 60% equities 5 years before retirement; 50% at retirement and 30% seven years after retirement. My understanding is that is a bit higher then others as Vanguard discovered most people don't draw funds at 65 (retirement age) and defer a bit. But you could pick a vanguard TDF for the year you turn 65 (maybe riund to nearest half decade) and see what they do to get an idea of what people who think about this for a living do. For example, if you are 65 in/around 2040: [https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/mutual-funds/profile/vforx](https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/mutual-funds/profile/vforx) General rules like age minus this or 4% of your retirement portfolio to live on are mostly proving to be too simple in the real world. It's more complex and takes a bit of homework to find what works for you and what you are going to be comfortable with.

Mentions:#TDF

Very underrated comment 👏. Been there for sure. That's why I now just keep money going into a TDF. If it climbs good, and if it drops, I will just keep DCA'ing on the way down until it starts climbing again, and then rinse and repeat

Mentions:#TDF

Babe, buy a TDF and go outside.

Mentions:#TDF

I think a total US Market fund like VTI and an international fund like VXUS approximates the diversification of the TDF without the fees or bonds. You could do something like 80% VTI/ 20% VXUS if you are more skeptical of international. I’ve dumped by TDF and done something similar. Let’s check back in 25 years to see if it was the right play.

Mentions:#VTI#VXUS#TDF
r/stocksSee Comment

How is it **currently** invested? How has the investment done over time? Does it have stocks/ETFs/mutual funds that can just be transferred? It sounds like you want him to sell everything and make new investments. Why? Do you somehow think it has to all be sold? Most likely that’s not true. (Sometimes there might be advisor-only funds, though). I don’t know what a “TDF” is, did you mean ETF?

Mentions:#TDF

1. Sounds like match the employer contributes every paycheck, dependent upon your contributions usually. Whereas non-elective is not dependent on your contributions. 2. In general, yes. It’s diversified, low cost, professionally managed to rebalance regularly, and designed to be completely hands-off from your perspective. You could hold that one fund until retirement or longer; it’ll do all the investing for you. You can always build your own portfolio too using other fund options, but a good TDF is usually a solid step if you don’t know how to (or just don’t want to) manage your own portfolio

Mentions:#TDF

>Maybe there are good TDF’s out there but mine is quite bad and it didn’t even “protect” me during the 2008 crash any more than SPY so what’s the point? Most TDFs of the same year will act similarly. The TDF under performance since inception was largely due to international holdings, the same thing that beat the US for 3 of the last 5 decades (70s, 80s, 00s all favored ex-US over the US).

Mentions:#TDF#SPY

ive done some googling and i cant figure this out. what is a TDF???

Mentions:#TDF

Not at all trying to dog-pile you here, but I do want to point out that per my understanding, the S&P's performance over the last 10-15 years is statistically extremely unlikely (like 1/100 or 1/200 likely). Ben Felix has a video about it on the youtube. This is why some people are saying you may be succumbing to recency bias. Anyone would be tempted by the insane returns of the S&P500 over the last 10-12 years. But past performance is not future performance. And more than that, we know that amazing performance tends to be followed by mediocre performance. You are wanting to ditch a diversified portfolio for a more concentrated one, at a time when the concentrated S&P based portfolio is at extremely high valuations. International is hard to invest in because it is sort of the opposite of USA/S&P500 for the last 10+ years. It looks terrible. International is why your target date fund has underperformed (not because of the bonds). But remember that USA/international take turns outperforming/underperforming. This is an extremely long (and again, statistically unlikely) US dominant cycle. That could flip any time. It may well be that the US-only portfolio dominates from here on out. We don't know and can't know. WE know research shows that international outperforms in a cyclical fashion. We know amazing performance tends to be followed by mediocre performance. But we also know the future is uncertain. Diversification is about making sure you do alright no matter what happens. Personally I don't hold international at market cap weights the way your TDF likely does. I favor 80/20, which is decidedly a US favored tilt. But I'd rather hold 80/20 than 100/0. Just think about it, is all I'm saying.

Mentions:#TDF

>Vanguard TDFs start out with a 90/10 stock/bond allocation Therein lies the problem. 90/10 is WAY WAY WAY WAY too conservative for a "starting off point" for a TDF. and it just gets worse from there, shifting to way too much to bonds in the accumulation years when you really need to achieve returns you get from the equity portion of the portfolio. Thankfully I threw these funds away the week I started investing and just went 100% equities.

Mentions:#TDF

What do you think about doing US stocks only? My TDF was 10% bonds (should be zero), but it was 40% international stocks and 50% US stocks. That was the big reason it underperformed compared to SPY.

Mentions:#TDF#SPY

Focus on longterm. TDF is a good diversified portfolio investment. The S&P500 is probably the best aggressive investment it terms of risk-adjusted returns.

Mentions:#TDF

You may be right, but the TDF that I’m using sucks. Since its inception (2007, right before the crash) it has had a 6% annual yield. S&P 500 has had a 9% annual return over the same time period. So, even if you include a pretty bad recession, the S&P 500 still would have paid off 50% more than this TDF. Maybe there are good TDF’s out there but mine is quite bad and it didn’t even “protect” me during the 2008 crash any more than SPY so what’s the point?

Mentions:#TDF#SPY

No worries. I appreciate the advice. I might keep some of a TDF (probably a different one) but definitely not at 100% of my portfolio. Don’t feel bad, I may not be “retired” but I own a small Kratom business that really took off and as long as it stays legal (big if), I won’t have to work a “real job” ever again. So I’m -kind of- retired, in a way. I just want to continue to build my retirement nest egg in case things change and I do have to get a real job again.

Mentions:#TDF

>My TDF annual return over the last 10 years is 8.5% >S&P is 12% >So that’s a difference of 3.5% It's actually a difference in growth of like 40%.

Mentions:#TDF

Well of course you took more risk than me… I had a shitty TDF for the last 10 years that had low yields. Congrats on the early retirement. I’m jealous.

Mentions:#TDF

No I actually backed it up past the last recession to prove that even in a “multi year bear market” like you said, the S&P 500 survived and outperformed (by 50%) this TDF. Even in a recession, the TDF did not perform as well as the S&P 500. I’m guessing you also have a conservative portfolio and are at least a little salty that you’ve also missed out on the gains of the last decade.

Mentions:#TDF

Nice, wish I’d done the same. Wife has been pretty hectic, and since my retirement is so far away, I wasn’t really motivated to look at my portfolio. I was not aware that TDF performs much weaker than the S&P 500. live and learn I guess.

Mentions:#TDF

I got out of my TDF a few years ago after a long performance of performing about half as good as a total market fund. No regrets.

Mentions:#TDF

Here's the comparison with average annual returns for each period. Only 1/3/5 year averages are shown because the FHAPX fund only started in 2018. * FHAPX (2050 TDF): 11.47% (1 year), 4.28% (3 year), 9.41% (5 year) * FXAIX (S&P500 Fund): 20.82% (1 year), 10.98% (3 year), 14.29% (5 year) So yes, over the last 5 years, the S&P500 fund has performed a lot better. But you have to remember a few things: * 5 years is a very short period of time when it comes to a retirement timeline. * Last few years have been insane for tech stock returns, and those are the biggest in the S&P500 fund weighting. For example, Microsoft & Apple make up a combined almost 14% of FXAIX (S&P500). FHAPX has a huge blend of different Fidelity funds, it looks like only half is in US Equities, and only a portion of that is in funds that have Microsoft/Apple. Microsoft & Apple have skyrocketed in the last 5 years so that is a huge boost to performance in the S&P500 from those companies (& similar). * Given that half or more of the fund is in non-US equities and Bonds, both of which have understandably underperformed compared to US Equities, that explains where a lot of the difference went (particularly over the last 3 years, as you can see above).

You’re in the minority here. It seems that this sub frowns on S&P 500 instead TDF’s, even for those of us still 25+ years from retirement 🤷‍♂️

Mentions:#TDF

Honestly, I was naive and I thought the “aggressive” stage of a TDF would basically be something like the S&P 500, and if I’m being honest, I assume it was even more volatile than that. I’m more pissed at myself than anything. All good though. Live and learn. I’m learning a good amount in these comment sections and at this point I’m thinking 50% S&P 500 and still working on the other half. I’m definitely down with the 100% TDF system though.

Mentions:#TDF
r/investingSee Comment

Well you got me. To be honest I wanted to start debate so I can get a handle on what exactly I want to do. It’s been productive seeing some of these responses. At this point I’m leaning at least 50% in S&P 500, and still working on the other 50%. I sure as hell am not staying in this TDF at 100% anymore though.

Mentions:#TDF
r/investingSee Comment

This is true. I was new to investing / retirement savings and I was convinced by many people that TDF’s are the best way to go. So I haven’t really looked in years because it’s supposed to be a “set it and forget it” fund. All I knew was it is “very agressive” and focuses on “growth” stocks at this phase, so I assumed it was at least keeping up with the S&P 500. Lesson learned.

Mentions:#TDF
r/investingSee Comment

Did you even look at the holdings? It's only 13% bonds. That's pretty aggressive. It has 40% international which dragged down your returns. But in the next 10 years maybe international will outperform the US like in the 2000s. No one knows. It's 10 year performance is almost exactly the same as VT (Total world stock index). That's what you would expect for a TDF 2050. US stocks have done great recently but that is not guaranteed for the next few years. Since we're looking backwards, why not invest in NVDA since it returned 65% annually for the last 10 years. The S&P 500 has underperformed that obviously. You don't do that because that is not guaranteed for the next 10 years.

Mentions:#VT#TDF#NVDA
r/investingSee Comment

I’ve had a 2060 TDF for 13 years in my 401k. It’s been mostly flat. Technically I’ve lost money in recent years where I’ve started and ended the year with almost the same amount despite my contributions… I switched to a Schwab S&P 500 fund middle of January and I’m up 5% of my total portfolio since then.

Mentions:#TDF
r/investingSee Comment

A lot of people have claimed that TDFs are too conservative for a young investor. I disagree, though it does depend on the fund & the investor. Bonds account for very little of the difference in performance between an all-US-stock portfolio & many TDFs designed for young investors. Bonds have had little impact on the performance of these performance TDFs; it's mostly been the international stocks. Adding international stocks doesn't make a fund more conservative. Historically, US stocks & international stocks have taken turns outperforming each other. US stocks have dominated recently, but that tide could turn at any time. I'm most familiar with Vanguard's TDFs, so I'll use them as an example. I've never invested in one, but they're a great choice for a lot of investors who value convenience & are willing to pay a little bit for it. Vanguard TDFs start out with a 90/10 stock/bond allocation & stick with that for many years before starting to gradually shift more towards bonds twenty-five years before the target date. The difference in performance between a 90/10 portfolio & a 100/0 portfolio is usually pretty small, but the difference in risk is usually much larger. This makes it much easier for an investor to hold onto the TDF through a bear market instead of selling in a panic, a move that would cost much more than the performance difference. For a US-only portfolio, over the last 30+ years, the performance difference has been less than 0.4% CAGR. However, the risk (standard deviation) difference has been about 1.5%. (I expect longer time periods would show similar results.) 22 years into this comparison, the 90/10 portfolio was slightly ahead. Only the longest bull market in US history created much of a gap. Why then, you may ask, have funds like Vanguard Total Stock Market Fund (VTSAX & VTI) beaten Vanguard's TDFs by such a large margin recently? The answer is not bonds; it's international stocks. So, pick an all-US-stock portfolio (total market or S&P 500) over a TDF if you like. But please understand that the TDF is only slightly more conservative & has its own advantages. Of course, past performance is not an indicator of future results. https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-asset-class-allocation?s=y&mode=1&timePeriod=2&startYear=1972&firstMonth=1&endYear=2023&lastMonth=12&calendarAligned=true&includeYTD=false&initialAmount=10000&annualOperation=0&annualAdjustment=0&inflationAdjusted=true&annualPercentage=0.0&frequency=4&rebalanceType=1&absoluteDeviation=5.0&relativeDeviation=25.0&portfolioNames=false&portfolioName1=Portfolio+1&portfolioName2=Portfolio+2&portfolioName3=Portfolio+3&asset1=TotalStockMarket&allocation1\_1=100&allocation1\_2=90&allocation1\_3=54&asset2=TotalBond&allocation2\_2=10&allocation2\_3=10&asset3=IntlStockMarket&allocation3\_3=36&asset4=GlobalBond I didn't include international bonds in my analysis because their impact on the portfolio is small. Also, the comparison period would have been much shorter because some years of data are not available for international bonds.

r/investingSee Comment

TDF funds are considered to be great stuff. So easy. But they force you to eat 3 dishes you may not like or need. There's also higher expenses.

Mentions:#TDF
r/investingSee Comment

If I’d done S&P 500 instead of this TDF for the last 10 years (when I started investing), my portfolio would be 40% higher .

Mentions:#TDF
r/investingSee Comment

So, that is a Collective Investment Trust (CIT). They're regulated a bit differently than mutual funds, which allows they to charge a lower expense ratio. The downside (to me) is that they don't have a ticker so you can't just research them in M\*, Yahoo Finance, etc. The only place you can get the info is in your retirement account. It also appears to be the blend TDF, so they're using a combination of active and passive strategies. Looking at the mutual fund data in M\*, the 2023 return for all the various share classes was in the 19-21% range and ranking between about the 25th and 56th percentile. Going back 5-10 years, yes, the S&P will likely have returned more; however, the last decade has been a period of US outperformance. You can find periods of international outperformance, and periods of bond outperformance compared to US equities. The 2050 vintage that you're in is not a particularly conservative allocation and would generally be considered quite agressive given that it has in the neighborhood of 10% +/- fixed income. But, as has been stated, a TDF is not designed to outperform the S&P 500 because it is globally diversified portfolio and is not constructed of only 500 of the largest US stocks. You also shouldn't be comparing the target date return to any single index. You should be comparing the annualized return to the return you feel you need to reach your long-term goals. If you think that number is 10% annualized and the TDF is 8.5% annualized, well, then you can save more, move to a 2060 or 2065 vintage, or completely change your allocation to take more "risk" to try to closed that gap. But if you can get to your long-term goals at the 8.5% annualized return, then there is not reason to take on more risk when you're already getting the return you need to reach those goals and taking less risk to do it. Bottom line, is you do you. If you want to go all in on FXAIX, that is your call, though be sure you can truly stomach a 30-50% drop in the S&P 500 and not do something stupid like move it all to cash near the bottom and not get back in until we're near a top. Hint: most investors think they'll stick it out in a true, extended bear market, but most can't and most don't because most people VASTLY overestimate their risk tolerance, especially those who have never had to endure a true bear market. But being mad that a target date has "underperformed" the S&P 500 during a strong US bull market is the direct result of unrealistic expectations because the TDF was never going to, and likely will never, outperform on the S&P 500 on a pure return basis because that is not what it is intended to do.

Mentions:#TDF#FXAIX
r/investingSee Comment

I thought the TDF means you don’t touch it til that date. I don’t care if it dips now.

Mentions:#TDF
r/investingSee Comment

Your TDF is “aggressive” because it has higher stock allocation. But lower than SP500 probably because the stock allocation to international which has underperformed in the past 10year or so. The argument is that international will eventually outperform SP500 at some point that no one knows so you should have some just in case. Personally I am still struggling to determine if I want international exposure….

Mentions:#TDF
r/investingSee Comment

Sp500 is the best or one of the best performing indexes right? The TDF are way more spread out globally and they carry some bonds that have had some tough years. The currency risk is also spread out more than the SP500. So the 8,5% average gains are still quite good with the very spread out risk of the TDF. Because the SP500 is 100% USA based all the issues of the USA could have an effect on your investment. Now and the last decades it went very well but if something goes wrong it could severely impact your wealth in the short term if there are some impactful issues in the USA. On the long term it will probably even out but if such a dip occurs when you want to quit you could have some serious issues. With a TDF the USA risk is smaller so temporary issues would set you back less

Mentions:#TDF
r/investingSee Comment

I’m very jealous. I’m been riding with the 2050 TDF for ten years and just did the math with what I would have had if I had just done FXAIX. My retirement savings would be 40% higher than it is now. Oh and I wouldn’t have been paying high fees for “managing” a TDF. I probably won’t go all in on FXAIX because the bull run has been going so long that it feels a little late in the game for that. But son of a bitch… I probably could have retired like 7-8 years earlier if I’d just done FXAIX…

Mentions:#TDF#FXAIX
r/investingSee Comment

Seems like your idea of aggressive is skewed. TDF now is probably 90% equities which is aggressive. You want extremely aggressive which would be 100% US equities. TDF are supposed to be diversified into US, Intl, and bonds but will allocate a low percentage to bonds when far from target. They will never go away from investing in US and Intl equities though.

Mentions:#TDF
r/investingSee Comment

I have Fidelity 401k thru my workplace and have 85% FXAIX and 15%TDF. Majority of assets are in my M1 Fin IRA.

Mentions:#FXAIX#TDF

> They couldn’t maybe read the room and see we’re in a major bull market and maybe put a little more into US stocks? Why'd you pick the TDF in the first place? That's not what they are for. They are made to be diversified, not aggressive. They rebalance every year, but do not favor whatever is doing better or expected to do better (US, Intl, bonds).

Mentions:#TDF

Personally I think if you are >20 years out you don't need a TDF and with a tiny bit of manual adjusting you don't really need them even >10 years out. They get a lot more useful as you get very close to retirement.

Mentions:#TDF

Are you comparing total return or just the price change? Historical returns for the fund look pretty normal to me. One year return is also a pretty meaningless timescale. The 2050 fund is currently at anout 90% equities, so it is very aggressive. The 10% allocation to bonds has a small effect on returns, but a decent risk reduction that can help the average person. Are you in the actively managed version of the 2050 TDF or the index version? The expense ratio of the active one is pretty high and it would be ok to switch to the passive one. The biggest downside to switching to FXAIX alone would be losing auto rebalancing, automatic risk reduction as you approach retirement date, and international diversification. It would likely be a bad Idea to drop all international in favor of S&P based solely on recent returns. This is classic recency bias and there is no guarantee that U.S. will continue to have outsized returns. The exact amount is debated heavily, but 20% to 40% puts you in the right ballpark If you don't want to manage all of the above manually for the next few decades I'd stay where you're at (if you're in the index version)

Mentions:#TDF#FXAIX

Not sure what you're looking at but going to M\* and looking at two different Fidelity TDF options: FIPFX (Freedom Index 2050 Investor Class - passively managed) - 19.91% return in 2023 and ranked in the 56th percentile. About 10% in bonds. FFFHX (Fidelity Freedom 2050 Fund - which is actively managed) - 20.46% return in 2023 and ranked in the 35th percentile. About 13% in bonds. So, a couple of questions/comments: 1) What is the ticker for the fund you're in? 2) Neither of those bond allocations would not be considered particularly high, even for a 2050 vintage. 3) If you really expected a well-diversified portfolio of large, mid, and small cap US stocks, international stocks, and bonds to outperform the S&P 500, you need to drastically reset your expectations going forward.

>but aren’t we paying a fee for them to keep their finger on the pulse and adjust accordingly? How much time of outperformance would you want before they switched? What if the rotation was heavily front loaded? >I don’t understand why TDF’s are being so risk averse when the date is 26 years away. At 25+ years, it is still at full aggressive. Aggressive doesn't mean going with whatever had done best the past few years. Aggressive is the stock to bond ratio, ex-US is just as aggressive as the US. >They couldn’t maybe read the room and see we’re in a major bull market and maybe put a little more into US stocks? Just about all big firms are expecting exits to beat the US over the next decade or so. Wouldn't you be pissed if you missed that run entirely? >I’m going all in on S&P 500 and maybe in 10 years all start to diversify to make it more conservative. I'd argue that dropping emerging markets and the US extended market is going more conservative in some ways (but more aggressive but dropping the bonds). >but I just don’t understand how it could underperform so badly Because you're using the wrong benchmark. A properly diversified profile, even a fully against one of 100% stocks, will always have parts that are over or under performing the rest. The issue is that which one is ahead switches periodically and the switch can happen quickly.

Mentions:#TDF

Lol. My oldest TDF dated back to the 1990s. They are a sunk cost fallacy in practice.

Mentions:#TDF

Gotcha, you could keep just the one TDF and be fine. They're globally diversified under the hood, and are actually designed to be your 'one and done' fund. If you were just in say a 500 index fund, yeah there could be a case to add more funds to diversify. But the TDF is already fully diversified

Mentions:#TDF

If you don’t like the TDF then why include it in your portfolio? Sounds like you have all the available funds to build your preferred allocation yourself.

Mentions:#TDF

>All the target date plans I want to choose from invest very heavily in international stocks Most seem to be at or below market cap weight. 2022 Survey of target date funds: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Bogleheads/comments/rffoe7/domestic\_vs\_international\_percentage\_within/](https://www.reddit.com/r/bogleheads/comments/rffoe7/domestic_vs_international_percentage_within/) Why do you think the market is wrong? > I don't prefer international, as the expense ratio tends to be higher The ER is already figured into the ER of the TDF. Many ex-US index funds and index based TDFs do have quite low ERs. The extra diversification should be worth a few extra basis points of ER. > and the returns are usually so-so compared to U.S. stocks. This isn't true, there's plenty of times it is the US trailing ex-US for runs at a time. It has only been the most recent US favoring part of the US/ex-US cycle that the US has separated so much. \* [](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Domestic/International) \* https://www.fidelity.com/viewpoints/investing-ideas/international-investing-myths if that link doesn't work: https://web.archive.org/web/20201112032727/https://www.fidelity.com/viewpoints/investing-ideas/international-investing-myths (Archived copy from Archive.org's Wayback Machine) \* Ex-US has turns of exceptional outperformance as well: [](https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2023/05/the-case-for-international-diversification/) and [](https://www.blackrock.com/us/financial-professionals/literature/investor-education/why-bother-with-international-stocks.pdf) (PDF) \* Of rolling 10 year periods since 1970, EAFE (developed ex-US) has beat the S&P 500 over 45% of the time: [](https://www.tweedy.com/resources/library_docs/papers/Dichotomy%20Btwn%20US%20and%20Non-US%20Mar2022.pdf) (PDF) or for the archived version: [https://web.archive.org/web/20220501183228/https://www.tweedy.com/resources/library\_docs/papers/Dichotomy%20Btwn%20US%20and%20Non-US%20Mar2022.pdf](https://web.archive.org/web/20220501183228/https://www.tweedy.com/resources/library_docs/papers/dichotomy%20btwn%20us%20and%20non-us%20mar2022.pdf) \* US vs EAFE going back to 1970: here’s compared to EAFE 1970-2015, note that the black US line only jumps above the green ex-US line for the "final time" around 2011: [](https://donsnotes.com/financial/images/sp-msci-42yr.png) (courtesy of https://www.reddit.com/r/Bogleheads/comments/143018v/comment/jn9yiub/) \* US vs Europe: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Bogleheads/s/DJ2YVrLW4d](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bogleheads/s/DJ2YVrLW4d)

Mentions:#TDF

I read elsewhere online that TDFs are required to have a certain percentage of international. TDF have a pre-determined risk tolerance of the stocks-to-bond ratio based on ???) when you go 100% target date fund. It gradually shift to more bonds, but it's all pre-configured. A mix of TDF and S&P will give me a bit of bonds/international while reaping more of the gains of the large cap U.S. stocks.

Mentions:#TDF
r/investingSee Comment

Because they are supposed to be a 1 stop shop for investing in all areas, and they were created to follow a specific allocation in Intl. You should just skip the TDF, there is no reason to have it if you don't use it entirely. Sound like you may have recency bias as Intl has outperformed US at certain period, which is why they are a part of all TDFs.

Mentions:#TDF

It's really more about your age than account tax treatment. At 26 I'd be all in with stock index funds, as you are except for the TDF in your 401(k). I'd swap that out. You're looking for long term growth in all of your accounts at this point. For taxable you usually end up with what you start with, so plan accordingly. Also seek to minimize taxable dividends, which you're already doing holding VOO and AVUV. Roth IRA is the best place for the most aggressive of your holdings, since all growth is tax-free forever if you follow the rules. I'm retired, so my allocation is a bit different. I built a taxable account with blue chip stocks, so for better or worse, I'm stuck with that now. My Roth IRA is all FXAIX, but my trad IRA (which also contains what was rolled over from my 401k) is a blend of FXAIX and a variety of bonds, bond funds, and income funds. I held no bonds at all until I retired.

A Roth IRA is a type of account. VT is a type of investment. VT can be held in a Roth IRA, a regular Brokerage, a Traditional IRA, etc. You can sell some of you TDF in your Roth IRA and use the funds to buy VT or you could by VT in a taxable brokerage, or you could do both.

Mentions:#VT#TDF

The money is probably in your settlement fund within the IRA. You should then be able to buy the TDF you want. The screen will ask where the money is coming from, so you’d choose the settlement fund. Also moving forward you can setup automatic contributions to go directly into the TDF

Mentions:#TDF

As u/SkylineDrop said, returns are based on the investment options available to you. I was limited to about 35 funds, about 1/2 of them being TDF’s. I never chose the latter, going with a DIY diversified portfolio before I retired in late 2019. After retirement, I got greedy - 2022 was brutal. But, it finally recovered recently. I did much better than many of my colleagues who contributed much less and/or took less risk using a TDF for their expected year of retirement.

Mentions:#TDF

A couple things 7-8 percent is pretty good target date funds are great they might underperform the market but you have international diversification and a glide path to a more conservative portfolio built in. Since inception is the best but if a fund wasn’t founded before 2008 it’s not very useful. Past performance does not guarantee future returns. Best just to own a TDF or a US fund an international fund and perhaps a small cap fund. Check the expense ratio ideally you want something less than .5% even better if there is a .0x% option The best thing is just stick to it don’t change the funds don’t panic if the market crashes if anything try to up your contributions . Don’t cash out your 401k when you leave your job(have an emergency fund in case you are ever between jobs) and no 401k loans.

Mentions:#TDF

>Add ANY "target date fund"to that list. Your money will sit flat for 30 years. First, no it won't. It's an unpopular opinion, but I happen to think TDF's are fantastic for novices who don't want to learn and who want to be completely hands-off. They're also an antidote to our own behavioral biases that derail financial plans. The average investor severely lags the market. Vanguard found that their TDF investors even tend to outperform their DIY index investors. Secondly, you seem to perhaps misunderstand what this list is. It's about absolute total $ lost, not relative % performance.

Mentions:#TDF