VTI
Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund ETF Shares
Mentions (24Hr)
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Canadian who has roughly US$30k–$35k for the long term, looking to invest in the market. Unsure of the best long-term "boring" buys that my American friends can recommend. Do ya'll have any suggestions?
IRA vs. Taxable Account (Keeping the money in for 20 years).
Avoid chasing new AI chip stocks and accumulate TSM?
Moving Cash Allocation into Tax Advantaged Accounts instead of After-Tax?
Tax-loss harvesting vs rebalancing into VTI before a 2028 home purchase?
$119k VTI/VXUS long position YOLO. I'm a wild and crazy guy.
What’s the best way to draw down from a money market fund?
Thoughts on FZROX and FZILX over VTI and VXUS in a Roth IRA?
Equal weight S&P 500 ETF (RSP) for indexing rather than VOO?
Sell individual stock at a loss, pay down principal or reinvest into index funds?
How should I split my Roth IRA between VTI and QQQ?
Are bonds/fixed income really required for someone approaching retirement?
Question: How do passive index funds like VTI, VOO, SPY, ETC., work?
Where would you put surprise inheritance money
Best Way to Diversify Brokerage vs Roth IRA?
Choosing Between Lump Sum and Weekly DCA VTI
40% of Stocks Experience Catastrophic Losses, and the Best Performers Suffer -69% Drawdowns on Average
19-year-old college student looking to invest for the long term. What would you buy in 2026?
39M tech PM. My RSUs quietly became 55% of net worth and I didn't notice till last week
I invested $6000 for the first time in February and I'm down 22%
VOO is $5 billion away from becoming the first ETF to hit $1 trillion
Sold $HOOD, took profits, and re-entered. Do you believe in Robinhood long term?
60 VTI/ 30 VXUS/10 VMFXX. Should I (33) rebalance to include bonds?
Too much of my portfolio is from RSUs - how would you diversify?
I spent 6 years trying to beat the market. Mostly I just learned how hard that is.
Critique the direction of my 14yo son’s Roth IRA we started this year
How does this mixture look for my 14yo son’s Roth IRA?
New to investing, not sure if im doin it right
AI is disruptive. Individual companies have never been more volatile. What’s the argument to not just buy indexes?
What about VYM? That seems pretty immune to the shenanigans of the tech bros. You can't fake dividends.
Paying 1.86% at Ameriprise and thinking about simplifying. Is that fee still reasonable?
What $10k invested in 8 major indices would be worth today *PART 2*
What $10k invested in 8 major indices in 2011 would be worth today
Bullish thesis for SPCX into the summer
Bullish SPCX Mechanical and Macro Thesis in the next month
Donor Advised Fund (DAF) asset allocation, crypto?
Aggressive Roth IRA at 18 – What Would You Change?
Spacex, OpenAI, and Anthropic IPOs are investment opportunities and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise
used to dread rebalancing day, now it runs overnight
PSA: Don't be a bag holder for SpaceX and AI companies
Investing Opinions for Recent Grad with little student debt
Built my first Roth IRA portfolio in my 20's - here's my 6 ETF allocation and the reasoning behind each pick
place for stock picks that are not used for calls or puts? Higher risk growth picks?
Funds like VT that don't have the typical index problems
Choosing VTI over VOO has cost me about $44,000.00 over the past 6 years
Small business owner here, looking for investing advice from people further ahead than me
27M, with a little over 100K on bank MMA Account, what next?
feels crazy to buy stocks that are over 4x higher than when i first invested, not sure what to do
Is there a downside of using CSPs to acquire ETFs I want to hold long term?
Roth or Brokerage for individual holdings - what is best?
Mentions
A 70/30 VOO/QQQM split is still a fairly large bet on the same mega-cap growth names, so I wouldn’t call it much more stable. For a 20-25 year horizon, I’d keep the core broad with VTI or VOO and only add QQQM if you knowingly want that extra concentration. Separate sub-accounts won’t change the combined risk or return, tbh.
I would put so much in QQQM or riskier sector specific ETFs. I remember when the Nasdaq 100 index fell from 4705 in March 2000 to 805 in Oct 2002. It took until 2011 to recover the losses. Anyhow, large cap growth has seen good times lately. But if we have another 2000, you’ll be able to sleep if you own things like VOO and VTI. That’s the direction I’d personally go.
>I just made my first buy to push one of my holdings... Why do you have multiple holdings if you are using such low amounts. Just put everything into 1 diversified fund like VT or VTI. It will build quicker than spreading it out over multiple funds
It is a hedge. Maybe 2-3% in gold. Oil is about to drop gold hard potentially though. In a liquidity crunch it also gets sold off. I could see someone doing max 9% but VTI and chill if you are worried
Dollar inputs are the right way to think about it. Percent sliders hide that VFIAX $2000 plus VTI $1000 is still almost all large US. For the taxable sleeve i already run VTI vs VXUS through etf compare on moomoo so i can see cap mix and how much of the globe i own. The 401k menu is a different problem. Portfolio Visualizer or a spreadsheet still wins there because most broker tools will not take share classes you can't trade
I’d look for the equivalent of VOO VT or VTI available to you
I manage my sons IRA and have him in the following. I prefer vgt over nasdaq based on personal preference. VTI 49.9% VGT 26.2% VXUS 17.6% DRAM 4.0% EMEQ 2.4%
Index funds (VTI) man. They exist to protect you from your own stupidity.
I moved from VTI to VDC. Agree there is no way to completely eliminate but there are ways to minimize. The stock market will crash...it is more how to manage the damage. Consumer staples only dropped \~15% in 2000 and 2008 crashes
You need international stocks. International stocks beat VTI and QQQM in 2025 and international stocks continue to beat US stocks in 2026. US vs international stock outperformance is cyclical. After an unusually long (16 year) cycle of US stock outperformance that cycle appears to be over. You should have 25-35% in international stocks continue. reddit will recommend VXUS but I prefer VYMI. forward. **Vanguard projects international stocks will beat the US for 10 years.** https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/vanguard-projects-international-stocks-will-beat-the-us-for-10-years-here-are-3-etfs-built-to-capture-that/ar-AA200o0l **Investors who stay "close to home" may miss growth opportunities** https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/wealth-management-insights/international-stocks **2026: International Stocks Seem Set to Shine** https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/2026-international-stocks-seem-set-to-shine **The Case for International Equities** https://www.dodgeandcox.com/individual-investor/us/en/insights/the-case-for-international-equities.html
\- [https://www.etfrc.com/funds/overlap.php](https://www.etfrc.com/funds/overlap.php) \- [https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund\_portfolio](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio) I would suggest you just go all in on VT, which is \~60/40 US/ex-US, or go with VTI/VXUS at whichever ratio you feel best with. I am currently 80/20 US vs. ex-US. There is no need to put each ETF in its own sub-account of your main account.
Yeah I made a mistake. I meant the VGT, not VTI. I edited my post.
Yeah, what? VOO - 500 of the largest US publicly traded companies VTI - ALL US publicly traded companies VTI, which contains more individual companies, is MORE concentrated than the one that is concentrated on the 500 largest companies? What a world.
lol VTI is too concentrated and want voo instead. How about you look into actual holdings of these funds
Why is VTI exploding after this news? I dont get it.
on my roth ira, i’m in: VOO, SCHD, VTI, and QQQ on my on my individual: VOO, VFVA, QQQ, VXUS, VTI, SCHD
Buying VTI for my IRA. Boring stuff.
I just bought $60k of VTI, SCHD and SMH 2 weeks ago should I sell them all?
I want to buy VTI under $350 again please.
Not OP, but general question. I sold all of my holdings in SNDK (yes, early I know but made good profits). Which ETF should I park 1.5m into? I want to get out of investments for a while. What's better between VT, VTI, etc.
No it’s dumb. I have $300k in a MMMF collecting only 3.68% now when it could be in VTI doing 10%+. Really dumb of me not to have lumped it when spy dipped down to $630
I use BAR for exposure to gold as a commodity. Tracks the price decently and has a low expense ratio. Have friends who do miners instead but there is the overhead of the business and you are hoping they can dig out enough to offset the costs. Mabye i'm just lazy but already have exposure to businesses through VIG and VTI. So owning the commodity with a low expense ratio seems to make sense. Also stick with gold because it is used as a reserve asset by other countries and balances the bond holdings in my IRA.
Legit advice: if you're this scared, sell it all and only DCA into broad ETFs like VOO or VTI
Answer 1 (polite): Do what you feel is right. Nobody can really answer that for you because nobody knows for sure. You need at least 2–3 years. You have a bit more volatility here, so the ups and downs will be bigger accordingly. If you want to play it safer, go with SPY. If you want even broader diversification, go with VTI. Answer 2: Learn to fucking experiment and stop asking stupid questions! Everyone trades differently. Personally, I think you’re a pussy for trading those safe stocks!
Hmmm you quit options to trade on Microstrategy which is another risk-play on Bitcoin? My friend, what about some Vanguard Total Index (VTI) for instance? Wanna share the whole portfolio?
Fwiw, VTI still pays dividends, so a taxable account isn't fully tax-deferred even if you never sell. Max the Roth IRA each year if eligible and invest the remainder in taxable now; a traditional IRA only wins if the upfront deduction and your tax rate in 20 years outweigh paying ordinary-income tax on withdrawals.
VTI has dividends, it's pretty hard to think of an ETF that has none.
VTI has dividends that are taxed yearly. And after 20 years you are paying gains on everything you sell. >same as would be the case for the IRA Not if it's a Roth IRA.
But I'm not taking any money out until 20 years from now, so for both accounts, aren't they both growing tax-deferred? In the taxable account, I'm not being taxed on anything until I start taking out withdrawals 20 years from now, same as would be the case for the IRA. And no dividend stocks to be taxed on in the meantime, just a VTI or similar.
Lmao just buy SPY VOO or VTI and chill
Have you already maxed out your IRA this year? If not, move $7,500 into your Roth IRA and do a 70/30 split between VTI & VGT. If you already did that, then invest 5k in VGT. Move the remainder (either 37.5k or 40k) into VMFXX. Treat the VMFXX account as a fully funded 1 year emergency fund. Some folks say as little as 3, others say 6 months. But having a full year already funded, I’d just lock it in and collect interest from Vanguard. Having gone through a layoff, it makes it much easier to sleep at night. Every few months, sweep out a few hundred you gained from VMFXX and invest into VTI in your traditional brokerage. Now just focus on maxing your 401k contributions.
My advice isn’t the most optimal, it reduces risk, monthly expenses, and reduces mental load (one less bill to deal with). Pay the car off. Keep the rest as an emergency fund, setup automatic investments on a weekly or monthly schedule. VT, VTI are solid choices to invest into long term.
Personal finance would be better. You need a safety net in cash, around 3-6 months expenses. So, keep ~$18k in cash in a high yield savings account or money market. Then you should pay off all debt with an interest rate greater than about 5%. Then you should max out your retirement accounts. Then it becomes more about what you want for your life. Save for a major purchase like a house, or you can invest in index funds, or pay off your low interest debt, set aside some budget for travel or hobbies, etc. If you actually just want to know what to invest in, probably just pick VTI. It has low expense ration and broad exposure which is all that really matters. If you are more pessimistic or have major expenses in the next few years, buy more bonds.
If it were me: Do not buy more real estate. Have an ample emergency fund and housing fund to cover a layoff or large home expenses. Max out your retirement accounts for this year and the next if you don’t already have an ample amount. This will compound like crazy and save you a lot of time so you can retire sooner. Stuff like a Roth roi can be 10%+ ROI tax free. Set your 401k contribution really high so it maxes it. 10k in (7k VTI + 3k VXUS) in a brokerage. This will develop a good habit and learning experience if you are not investing properly that will follow you for hopefully the rest of your life. It is also accessible if you need it at any time. If you have a 401k after it’s maxed for next year plus your Roth IRA. In 2027 id put the remaining 100k+ put it towards the house and make sure it goes toward the principal. Keep working and saving as usual maxing out your retirement accounts and paying off the house sooner if you can.
If VOO tanks we have bigger problems. However if we see a decline that just means it’s on sale and I’ll load up even more. If you’re actively reading this on Reddit (you’re 18-60 probably) we will see a recession in our lifetime. I have cash set aside waiting for this to happen to dump into the market. VOO/VTI/VT etc you can’t go wrong to continue to buy no matter what
Recast the mortgage to lower your monthly payments. Something in the realm of 100-150k. Get some estimates from your lender. The rest goes into VOO or VTI or whatever flavor you prefer. This way you lock in the 6.45% “gain” of paying off principle, while still probably gaining more in the index fund or ETF, and it’s still largely liquid, which is good in case of emergencies.
I mean sure but it will take a major hit. I was thinking the same until I realized how much influence tech stocks have on voo. It’s huge. And if they all stumble, it could take a while for voo to recover and reach new highs. I mean only reason voo is going so high so quickly is because of tech stocks and ai stocks. If tech in general goes down, voo will break pretty badly. VTI however is better in that case. But hey! When that happens, everyone’s losing money while some get rich…
Yeah it’s not that complicated. I’d do VTI + VXUS though instead of VOO. If you want to try to pick stocks go for it! You’ll probably learn it’s not worth it and you’re not good at it.
Even a company with the financial depth and breadth like NVDA will not be immune when the bond market comes calling (US 10 year yield is at 19 year high; equity risk premium at 19 year low) and the ripple effects it will have on equities markets. Good luck navigating that [Minksy Moment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsky_moment?wprov=sfti1#Description) with the level of concentration risk you currently have. It’s not too late to diversify and risk manage this appropriately with more allocation to a broad index etf (VTI) and 3 month tbill etf (sgov). Bull markets are like gasoline on the fire of human hubris…
Jack Bogle already set the path. When starting out, stay with index funds. SP500 index (VOO), Total Stock Market Index (VTI)... set aside a fixed dollar amount and buy that amount every month (or week or paycheck period, you get the idea). Automate that. Learn to ignore the market. Jack Bogle again - "Don't just do something. Stand there". Don't panic when markets drop, don't rejoice when markets rocket up. Just keep buying through the automated process - the same index funds (maybe one caveat, when the market drops, perhaps you can do some extra buying). This is insanely boring. But you'll thank yourself in a few years. Also, accept these facts - long term is AT LEAST one full year. No sooner; you cannot avoid taxes; there's no such thing as free money (caveat here, employer 401k match); never stop learning how Investing works - it's not what you'll find on social media (it's not a scam, it's not exclusive, it's not a quick buck) Once you have gone through a year or two of this simple and boring investing, you can dip your toe into individual stocks...
I think the circular financing worries me more than the debt by itself, since it can make demand look stronger than the underlying customer cash flows. Dumb question: does broad diversification through something like VTI actually reduce much risk here when the biggest tech names are such a large share of the index?
I like keeping a big chunk of my portfolio in a global ETF like VTI or VEQT and keep a max % allocation for single stock plays. Sometimes the best thing to do in the market is sit on your hands and do nothing until the lucrative opportunity arrives. Stuff is looking frothy and fearful with sticky inflation and Fed monetary policy tightening, big risk of Japanese carry trade unwind and bond markets demanding more fiscal restraint from US gov (and many other G7 governments). which is pushing yields higher (watch out for the US 10 year above 4.8%). This is not a risk on market currently. Bank some paper profits (toilet paper has more value than unrealized gains)and keep an eye out for opportunities! Oh and always remember; **Time in the market > timing the market**
You are just gambling and this happens when you gamble. Put it in safe investments like VOO and VTI and walk away for a while. Like 6+ months. After that, dont put more than 5% (just my personal benchmark) into options. Winnings go back into ETFs, losses are losses.
the best strat is just to pick a world ETF and do nothing. VTI if you're American, VALL if you're non US. If you deviate from this, you accept a level of risk and underperformance
lol in this sub people blow 10k in a day and call it just another Tuesday. You can't go wrong with the ETF investment. Take it easy on those "principles" and invest in QQQ, SPY, VOO, VTI; I personally don't like healthcare specific ETF, but there is nothing wrong with that choice either. Gold has historically underperformed the stock market. So keep that in mind. Gold return has been about 5% annually in the last 100 years versus 10% for s&p. Having said that, maybe the next 5 years gold outperforms, who knows. I personally never invest in gold. congrats for investing, and good luck on your investment journey.
Yep, maxed my 401k, roth IRA, kicking myself for not doing HSA too. Earlier in my working years, I also invested as much as I could between 2010 and 2018 even though I didn't have much to invest and it was on the tail end of the lost 14 years of market malaise (2000-2014) and people like my parents thought I was nuts to put my spare money into VTI or VOO.
At 18 may think about AI in terms of phases, I think the infrastructure is still being built out so I would still buy NVDA but less of the others. Then the next thing is look for AI software companies who will stay on top. My guess is Google and Microsoft. I don't own microsoft and I just got back into Google. Over the years if I did nothing but buy google I'd be in the green but stupid me jumped around for decades, luckily landed on NVDA. So yes I'm really heavy on AI. Diversifying is a lie, don't listen to others, even college professors preached the same. Find the few companies, handful you love, use, and others use it. Then buy those companies until you make enough to transition over to an ETF like VOO, VTI or something similar. I'm playing catch up. Wish I had enough years to buy ETF to retire on. So I'm just riding the wave until I retire.
Mind if I ask, why VTI over VOO?
I went from 100% domestic to 60/40 VTI/VXUS as my core in early 2025. The International portion has smoked the domestic portion since then. So much winning for the US
With the 🥭 in power, anything other than VOO or VTI or their equivalents just feels like using a slot machine
I got my mom to sell all of her Lulu stock 2 years ago and dump all proceeds into VTI. Very happy with that decision
Buy and hold VTI / VXUS and stop trying to buy high / low and focus on making more money to invest more money. That's it. That's the entire strategy.
Bogleheads view the stock market through broad diversified index funds. When considering their 3-fund portfolio (VTI, VXUS, BND) it makes sense to talk about VXUS outperforming VTI or vice-versa
Working hard made me a millionaire. Now, with all that earned income invested in VTI & VXUS has come growth… which yes is in the millions now.
For sure. The greater fool theory isn’t a bad way to go in this day and age because… well there’s a lot of fools. I don’t think Bitcoin is going anywhere either, I’m sure at some point in my lifetime it’ll be worth some astronomical number (probably). But if you listen to the proponents of bitcoin and read the books about bitcoin and crypto, they constantly contradict themselves and we’re now what, 14-15 years into this thing? And there has not been a single “killer app” on the underlying tech of bitcoin or other cryptos (the blockchain) that hasn’t also been produced and adopted within the traditional currency system. I just think it’s mostly funny and all - and to OP’s point, a person could have way less downside risk and just buy VTI and chill.
Nice! I would diversify more. You’re taking too many risks. I have some nice bond suggestions. You should be 40/60 stocks/bonds. A good ETF is VTI. All world. Smooths out the numbs.
If you had reinvested the 600k into VTI you'd have over $2 million today.
What are you doing with the money now? Buying VTI/VXUS? Why was this your investment strategy in the first place?
I did the same. Loaded the boat on each dip over the last few months around $350-$375. Sold at $510. Now I’m a grandpa moving most of it into VTI
In reference to GPUS, (datavault), you probably seen some posts about insiders bought recently, ignore it unless you want to be exit liquidity (it will get diluted) - They do not make any **G**raphics **P**rocessing **U**nits, (the dedicated component responsible for computer graphics, etc) - it's dog shit - It's not the next Nvidia, AMD, Intel (yes Intel used to make dedicated, non-integrated Graphic Cards.) - it's not a hold stock (it's not VT, VOO, VTI, etc, etc)
DCA into VTI while you learn, then start small with shares of good companies.
**27M Investment Portfolio** **Roth IRA:** 100% VTI **403(b):** 100% VIIIX **457(b):** 100% VIIIX **Brokerage:** 46% VOO / 54% SGOV
Anyone in the accumulation stage should care about total returns within their risk tolerance. I am 36 and I have thought about dividend stocks in retirement for peace of mind of having income without selling shares. But at age 36 I would be a fool to invest in SCHD instead of VTI.
VTI/CIBR my favorite ETF's
Your taxable income from SGOV and BOXX should be dwarfed by the capital gains, short and longterm, from selling VTI in the brokerage account. Keep all your cash in the brokerage and use the tax advantaged accounts to take advantage of not having to pay taxes, at least now, on the gains.
I have a Roth IRA with 43% VTI ( US Stocks ), 14% VNQ ( Real Estate), 13% LQD ( Corporate Bonds ), 13% VEA ( Foreign Developed Stocks ), 11% VWO ( Emerging Market Stocks ), and 6% SCHP ( TIPS ). What should I look to build in an individual stock account? The Ira is a robo trader I’ve had for 5 years now and I am now looking more into the individual stock account.
I have deep capital gains in VOO, VTI and a little VT and will possibly start using some of the money in about 16 months when I plan on retiring. My sentiment is bearish so I constructed an XSP protective collar with 2 contracts expiring in December 2027 and 5 contracts expiring in Dec 2028. No cost collar and it ended up being about 118/90 for the top and bottom collars. Plan to let it ride nearly to expiration or maybe roll the 27’s to 29’s depending on my cash flow situation.
VTI and chill homey, it beats your fantastical portfolio.
this is the endgame. would do VTI VXUS VOO though
Hmmm maybe VTI + VXUS was actually the smart thing to do.. who woulda known
Didn't realize VTI paid dividends
Terrible long term hold. Gets outperformed by VTI by a wide margin. If you bought the bottom congrats but I’d have a short term exit plan so you can get out with your 25-30% gains
Continue to dollar cost average VTI and VXUS.
VOO VTI VTI/VXUS VT Or comparable funds.
It's not AI, I compared Schwab vs Vanguard ETFs for my own investments. The list of top ETFs is just going down through that ETFdb list and picking the top fund for each category; that's how I got that. Crude but not AI. Look, I don't think we disagree on anything substantive. If you had just been clearer in the start that you were only talking about outflows from Vanguard's brokerage business, this whole thread would not have happened. When you said "4x the outflows that they do inflows in the retail channel, their retirement business has stemmed enough of that bleeding" almost everyone interpreted "retail" as retail fund AUM, not ACAT transfers out of the brokerage. I acknowledged early on your clarification. I wouldn't be talking about the brokerage business in my replies if I hadn't accepted that was what you meant. My point then wasn't that your stat was false, it was that it was secondary to their fund business. I have never used Vanguard's brokerage but I regularly hear it's difficult to use. I agree with you it should be better and it's a *theoretical* negative to their future funds business if they have someone move to another broker, it just gives that broker more leverage, sending you stuff to encourage you to use their products. It gives them an in from a marketing perspective. But that's all it is. If anything, the shift to Vanguard has actually accelerated since everyone went zero commission. Vanguard overwhelmingly has cultural mindshare on this. Reddit threads, YouTube, podcasts, it's always VOO, VTI, VXUS, VT, BND. No one is saying IVV, ITOT, IXUS, SCHX, SCHF. The reality is that Vanguard's core fund business is growing and money is flowing *in* to Vanguard.
Vanguard hasn't historically been trying to be a retail brokerage. In fact their philosophy was quite against anything that would encourage "trading" at all for a long time. The brokerage interface is really just there to give direct low cost access to Vanguard's funds, and mattered more when you couldn't just buy Vanguard funds commission free from *any* broker, like you can now. If you are measuring them as a brokerage, these are valid complaints. It's just not really their thing though. Look at the other two largest fund managers, BlackRock and State Street. They have no retail brokerage clients at all because they just do the funds. Conversely, with all brokers gone to zero commissions there's no reason not to buy Vanguard through another broker. Used to be if you were with Schwab SCHB had a big selling point over VTI in that it was commission free. Now they both are, and same with basically every other brokerage, so brokers don't really have that to bolster their own funds any more.
Spmo is s&p500, vgt is technology fund. What do you think makes up the majority of VTI?
Just did a 80% VTI and 20% VXUS for the long term run worth it ?
Just did a 80/20 80% VTI and 20% VXUS and feel good I’m in for Long term growth so Not worried about short term issues
My three biggest is GOOG, NVDA and VTI
Using the 4% rule as a general guideline (NOT a hard & fast rule), you could safely pull around $11,200/year from a portfolio of $280K without fear of running out over a ~30 year period. If you need to spend $1500/month, and you get $410/month from SSDI, you're still pulling more than that (~$13,080/yr). The 4% was recently updated to something like 4.6% now, which definitely gets you a little closer. The 4% rule is also based on the assumption that your portfolio is invested in the market at roughly a 60/40 split stocks to bonds. There are a lot of other variables and nuances to it, so I'm speaking generally. Putting all the money in CD's, HYSA's, or other cash-equivalent investments isn't going to cut it because you'd essentially just be keeping up with inflation. Growth comes with a certain amount of risk. If I was in your situation, I'd probably keep ~3 years worth of living expenses in cash-equivalents (a good MMF or a decent ETF like SGOV), and invest the rest in low-cost total market index funds such as VTI/VXUS or similar. Something like an 80/20 or 70/30 split -- that part is up to your comfort level with international investments. If the markets continue to do well, you can pull profits off the top for living expenses. If we go into a bear market, you can live off your cash bucket until things start to recover. But it gets a little dicey if we would go into an extended bear market that takes longer than 3 years to recover.
Usual recommendations is as follow: 1) emergency fund, 3,6,12 months of expenses. HYSA or the like. 2) Tax advantage investment. 3) brokerage account for flexible expenses, but beware of tax obligations when trade. You don't need best portfolio, or at least not yet. Point is, no one can say what really best base on your situation, risk level, or other concerns (house payments or insurance or family to name a few) I would suggest a relatively simple investment, such as 60 stock 40 bonds. You can adjust to be more or less aggressive depending on your risk tolerance. On stock side, go with VT or VTI+VXUS. Is there a better choices? yes there could be, but starting with something simple doesn't hurt. You want to grow your assets with the market, then learn more if you want to take more risk.
Continuing to dollar cost average VTI and VXUS.
Well you have to decide for yourself. Real estate or a business could be lucrative if you know what you're doing. If you'd rather invest, start with something like VT or a combination of VTI and VXUS (total US and total international). Or use it to better yourself and improve your human capital if you're trying to bring in more income.
If your goal is to approximate the total U.S. market rather than intentionally overweight mid or small caps, I think you're approaching this the right way. The key is to separate two decisions: first decide your U.S./international allocation, then reconstruct the U.S. portion using market-cap weights. An 80/15/5 split among S&P 500 / mid cap / small cap is a reasonable approximation. Applied to your 60% U.S. allocation, that gives you 48% S&P 500, 9% mid cap, 3% small cap, and 40% international. I wouldn't increase mid or small caps simply because their percentages look small. They're small because their share of total U.S. market capitalization is small. If you deliberately want a small-cap or mid-cap tilt, that's a different investment thesis. But if the objective is simply "build VTI from the funds available in my 401(k)," keeping the weights close to the actual market is the cleaner approach. The best allocation is often the one you can understand, rebalance easily, and leave alone for decades.
Yes, in most cases the fees they charge to manage an investment portfolio eats the gains of the investments. Most people would be better off throwing money into the VTI or SPY blindly because the cost structure is so cheap and efficient.
At 22, I think your biggest advantage is time, not your ability to perfectly time the market. If the money is truly long-term retirement money and you already have a sufficient emergency fund in the HYSA, I wouldn't spend too much energy trying to decide whether this month or six months from now is the perfect entry point. One thing I would think about, though, is the allocation itself. VTI already gives you substantial exposure to the large tech companies that dominate QQQM, so adding QQQM isn't really adding much diversification — it's intentionally increasing your concentration in those companies. That's not necessarily wrong, but it should be a conscious decision. At your age, consistently funding the Roth, keeping costs low, staying diversified, and continuing through both bull and bear markets will probably matter far more over the next 30–40 years than whether you lump sum or spread this particular contribution over a few months.
Yea. I think you are right in staying out of the market means losing on gains, especially at 18. Compound interest is no joke. Also, there is a chance that the person you have responded to is only looking at the single investment in NVIDIA and just calling the whole thing stupid. For OP: happy medium - Just DCA into VOO or VTI. You still have exposure to NVIDIA doing that, but all of your eggs are not in one basket. Please, do some research into the basics before making life changing investments.
I don't have a total US market option in my 401k like (VTI/FSKAX) and have to build it myself between large cap, mid cap, and small cap index funds. They are all Spartan Index Funds with very low expense ratios. My goal is to allocate 60% US and 40% International. My choices are Spartan 500 Index (S&P 500), Spartan Mid Cap Index (S&P 400), Spartan Small Cap Index (Russell 2000), and Spartan Total International Index (MSCI ACWI ex US). How much should I allocate between 500, mid and small? My understanding is the S&P 500 makes up roughly 80% to 83% of the total US market. Should I split it as 80% 500, 15% mid, and 5% small? So with a 60/40 split it would look like 48/9/3 for the US investments then 40% Total International. Is that a good balance or am I not investing enough in mid and small? Should I just go with 60% S&P 500 and 40% International? I will be manually adding FXNAX (Bonds) at a later time. Thanks in advance.
Nah, I used to trade. Made money, lost money, came out ahead of SPY, but it wasn't worth the time and stress. Now I just VTI and chill and while the money isn't as good, you literally don't have to do anything, and ironically it's a method so easy and simple that it's perfect for WSB users yet they'd rather try and learn options and read earnings reports and still lose money.
Correct. Fancy sankey for “buy once, don’t touch it.” The couch is just VTI with extra steps.
JEPQ +22% in 4 years SCHD +67% SPY / VOO +87% VTI +88% QQQ +137% QLD +268% “iT’s hElD uP wAy bEtTeR thAn mOsT peOpLe PrEdiCtEd” It’s shit.
Just put it on VTI and pretend you lose it all. Keep doing that for 30 more years and you will bounce back
Same. I’ve been lucky this year with total portfolio up 37% and I’ll be darned if I’m giving that back. I’ll play corp bonds and VTI for the rest of the year unless another sector looks really really good.
What about these ones? Stocks: TOT for an almost equivalent VTI Bonds: CPAG for AGG
Invest in low-cost index funds (VT or VTI/VXUS), then - Nobody knows nothin' - Don't do something, stand there! John Bogle
I spent about 5 minutes looking at his site and it's completely uninteresting to me. I think you will be better off just putting all your money into VTI and focusing on earning more money instead of this plan.