VTI
Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund ETF Shares
Mentions (24Hr)
70.00% Today
Reddit Posts
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?
If someone is worth one million dollars, how much $VOO and $VTI should they own? What if they're worth *two* million; how much then?
Is holding energy ETFs or individual stocks worth it?
Edward Jones advisor wants me to invest with him instead of on my own.
You can do it! You can always recover! VTI & chill + buying dips
VTI averaging 20% per year; am I looking at this correctly?
Any recommendations or input on my portfolio structure?
Help me re-balance my portfolio: 31F, single, hoping to buy a home in VHCOL area in near future but also work as little as possible?
85/15 VTI & VXUS in brokerage, 85/15 FZROX & FZILX in roth ira
The mental relief of finally admitting I suck at stock picking
Rate my 100k by graduation plan at plan 18 years old
Made a stupid mistake with the market and not sure what to do now
How much of your portfolio do you actually keep in 'satellite' positions?
Any tax implications/forced sale if/when a massive company gets absorbed into VT/VTI?
Mentions
depends what you want. i’ve always been a VTI guy
I wouldn't go with BND at your age; you have plenty of time to ride out the ups and downs of growth equities. VXUS and FZILX underperform VTI and FZROX in the long run. The reason for this is the US has the largest economy and attracts the most capital investment (which helps to perpetuate the cycle). Also most of the leading US companies operate on a global scale, so it's not as though you only invested in one domestic economy. Over the course of the long run, the difference in CAGR will make a very meaningful difference in total return. My goal in investment is to grow my net worth as much as possible by making selections that have a proven track record; everything else (diversity) is secondary. You can compare VTI (US), VT (World including US) and VXUS (World minus US) - the more US weight the better the long term performance.
Sell BND and buy more VTI
Same pattern every time — headline drops, market panics, then recovers. If you've been DCA'ing into VTI/VXUS regularly, these blips are just buying opportunities at a discount. Time in the market > timing the market.
Just choose VOO or VTI it doesnt matter much
VTI is a fund that tracks all US public companies. It’s about as simple an investment as you can make - a bet on the US economy long term. It’s an investment so it can lose value but over any long term period (think 10+ years) it will make you money. You should look to only put money in here you don’t reasonably expect to need in the near term. Another option is VOO which is the S&P 500 fund. Not as broad as VTI but some people prefer concentration in the larger companies. The rest leave in a high yield savings account. Places like SoFi, American Express and many others offer rates over 3% for cash just sitting there. Good luck and nice job!
Grabbed some VTI like that will do anything I'm just coping now bro
VTI - broadest market ETF. Markets can go up or done. You want consistency over time and a long horizon
The appeal of Vanguard index funds are that they passively track the market (the index part) and charge a very low annual expense ratio since there isn't a lot of overhead when compared to an actively managed fund. A lot of other firms offer similar products at similar or lower expense ratios so Vanguard isn't the only game in town for passive investing nowadays. There have been Vanguard funds that lost money and some funds that have closed due to failure to attract investors or performance issues. Those were more on the active side of the house. To my knowledge no funds have gone to zero. In order for VTI or VOO to go to zero, there would need to be some global cataclysm to wipe out the US economy and all industrial output.
"into some Vanguard" is not an investment. Can you please be more specific? If you're talking about a broad based index fund, the chances of it going to zero are virtually nil. Something like VT, VTI, or VOO.
I would point you to ... - https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing - https://www.investopedia.com/articles/basics/03/050203.asp I don't really like to tell people what to invest in, and would rather point them to learning resources, since everyone has to learn to take responsibility for their own investments. But if I *had* to, I'd say start with either VOO, or VTI, or VT, and as you learn more about investing start to diversify more when you have a reason to do so.
I see, so what would you recommend to someone starting off? I see there’s no point in investing in VTI and VOO at the same time Since they pretty much have the same %. If VTI and VXUS Is a good Combo what’s a good combo with VOO?
VXUS would give you some diversification into international equities. It's an established practice by some investors to hold a mix of VTI and VXUS to have a total world equity investing strategy. It's long term returns are lower than VOO or QQQM, but you gain the extra diversification.
you need to become a boglehead. over a longer time horizon, it’s literally IMPOSSIBLE to lose money in the stock market with a low cost etf. VTI and chill bro…. do some back testing of just plowing money into VTI vs your stupid ass trades. you’d be up massively but you’re chasing quick gains and you’re getting hammered.
If you want to invest but you can’t just put your damn money in VTI, VXUS, BND, and BNDX and move on. You’ll make an average 5% growth. It won’t be as glorious as doing options on a stock that shoots to the moon (Nvidia) but you’ll still reap the rewards from Nvidia or a co growing to the moon.
I mean you have seen a lot of replies, but geez, VTI or even SCHD or FXAIX 90% of that and just play with the 10%. Oof.
Had a bunch of my companies private stock in my retirement get converted to cash and thrown in to an IRA a couple months back. Been sitting on that pile up until today. Finally opened my positions in to VTI, VXUS, VUG, ARKX and NASA. The last two are the 20% of my FAFO money my IRA.
Why not just VT and chill? All the diversity you need. VXUS + VTI if you want to adjust the non-US exposure.
Boys VTI is only down .35% this shit too easy
Yes. Put whatever you have into VTI or VOO and watch as you slowly regain that $40k loss. Or you can continue playing with options and likely lose more.
Nah, plenty of them will peddle you some in-house fund that has management fees or will be an idiot and try to beat the index. But yes, the sane answer is just to buy VTI or VOO, put any excess savings in when you can, and sit on it and watch your net worth grow
Sure, but the point of VOO or VTI isn't trying to pick favorites, but to have a diversified allocation that will give you a 'safe' healthy annual return. While QQQ and VUG aren't crazy recommendations, you're still picking favorites. If AI didn't take off there was a chance tech would underperform other segments. COVID pushed for more fabs to be built, and put new laptops into the hands of every WFH employee and education from home kid. There was a very real chance tech would have been been in a glut of supply with flat or lower demand.
The problem with exceptional markets and exceptional sectors is they’re already priced exceptionally. It’s one of the biggest risks of being all VTI and not having VT/VXUS. (guilty)
Yeah, definitely sell it it a bit overpriced in my opinion. Get a VOO+VTI+QQQ and forget about it.
Bummer. Shoulda bought VTI and chilled.
At $100M you can dump almost all of it into equities (VTI, VXUS) because you have more than enough to live off even during huge crashes without drawing down much percentage wise. Spread like 20% across real estate, bonds and a year or two of cash maybe.
The lesson is this: 15k after 45 years on VTI would be around 1.1M. If you aren’t a spectator in this sub you’re a loser.
Ahh damn. Always only do 5% of your portfolio in options. If you lose, go back to VTI or VOO or If Microsoft and apple are down a lot you can put some in VGT. Don't listen to any other fuckers. 5% Max if you lose you're done.
https://preview.redd.it/ehlwi42dohdh1.png?width=526&format=png&auto=webp&s=ec4412303abb84c9c654a728b88597658f1df0b0 Character development is complete time to buy VTI
It’s alright. I don’t need to money at all, the rest of my portfolio is entirely VTI and VGT and amounts to $340,000… and I’m 24 years old. The real shame is I decided to do this in my ROTH which just fucked my tax free growth opportunity. I expected to shelter a moon 🌕 launch but actually just fucked my ROTH. Lessons learned. Life goes on. Alas.
Unfortunately only 21. I had asked for more, but that’s what was allocated to me at the IPO. All the profits just went into my main holding: VTI. But, I’m not as convinced as Reddit that SPCX is doomed to drop to $60. I’m going to watch from the sidelines for a while.
>I have VTI and it's going ok, but my individual stocks are bleeding me dry and I'm just panicking This is extremely common and happens to a lot of people, which is why so many people suggest avoiding stock picking altogether and just buying broad market ETFs (like VTI). Boring, but much safer. Stock picking is closer to gambling and you're bound to get burned a lot even if you think you did your research
I have VTI and it's going ok, but my individual stocks are bleeding me dry and I'm just panicking. I should just let it ride like someone else suggested and sell when I'm at breakeven or some profit.
Too much overlap with voo spy and qqq. Honestly sell everything and do VTI/VXUS. 80/20. Then read and study. Not to be rude but your portfolio is basically Reddit picks. And the fact that you have 3 overlapping etf’s tells us that you don’t understand them. Seriously. VTI/vxus and Learn more.
Its down 0.3% bro maybe invest in VTI?
As many other mentioned VOO or VTI as a main chunk . I personally have 50% VOO (top 500 companies ) AVUV 16% (small cap tilt ) VO 16% (mid cap tilt) and PAVE 13% infrastructure tilt) more of a sector specific ETF
IBM makes up about 0.50% of VTI/VOO so apparently I’ve got around 10 shares too. I did the math. I definitely don’t need to increase my IBM concentration beyond what I inadvertently have.
Man, seriously, just put consider this a $3400 lesson that you will only lose money if you try to day trade. Toss your $10, and any money you don't need for the next 10 years, into VTI or VT or AOA and just let it sit. Save this screenshot as a reminder that literally every idea you had for trading lost you money, and that's exactly what will happen again if you keep trying this shit.
They have done well so far and I have made a ton on them. But definitely of risk is you can’t be certain of either outcome. So I feel like it is disingenuous to say “these ETFs will make you a ton of money” because I can’t guarantee that at all, but I also don’t think it is near the same risk of gambling or something. My personal opinion is these will continue to do well. I like their strategies, they are fairly diverse, have good past performance (though everything has gone up a ton so less certain how they do in an actual bear market), and they generally hold companies I like. in terms of risk from least to worst my rankings would be: VOO and VTI, the ETFs like the ones I mentioned, individual stocks. I would touch crypto or options or anything like that even if it can be tempting, these are basically gambling.
I like VOO or VTI. These kinds of funds are where most of the money should be. Coca-cola is a good company. No reason to sell it at all. Just hold what you have allocate new money to index funds. you can definitely take on some more risk at your age. Keep it like under 20% of your portfolio tho. If you want to take on a little more risk but not insane, you can look at strategy ETFs like VTV, VUG, GARP, SCHD and such. these are diversified but still potentially carry more risk than a broad index fund. If you gonna do individual stock picking learn value investing.
Not necessarily. With VTI you get VOO PLUS a ton of small and mid caps. There is something called the size premium which says small caps will return more than large caps - and you can see that in the chart I posted. Since 2001, VTI returned 60% more than SPY which is a lot.
Well it beats VTI YTD, 1 year and 5 year…is that enough sources for you?
Yes my bad, I always confuse them. In my head I read VT as total, and VTI as total international everytime I see them
Like the share price ? That’s just what it is lol… in reality it doesn’t matter, although a lot of people think more shares is better and it can be a weird thought experiment. But mathematically, having 1 share at $500, and 5 shares at $100 is the exact same. If you return 10% in a year, either way you still have $550. If you just like having higher share counts, there’s other ETFs that track the same things, but VOO, VTI, SPY, VT are generally the most common.
Correction on your last sentence - VTI is the total US market. VXUS is everything but the US
SPY is the 500 largest US companies. VT is I believe between 4000-5000 companies all over the world. The US has seen massive growth in the 2010s, outperforming international. There are times it’s the other way around, and there are times they are about equal. SPY, VOO, etc., you only return what the US does. VT you return what the world does. And VTI you return what everyone *except* the US does
VTI actually beats SPY when starting from 2001. Beats by 60%, look at “max” on this chart. https://stockanalysis.com/etf/compare/vti-vs-spy/
Never selling is silly, you might as well just flush the money down the commode if you don't plan to sell. I buy VTI all the time regardless of price with the idea to hold until well into retirement.
I don’t know, man. I keep hearing over and over how VTI is better. Even though they’re basically identical to each other
VTI / VOO is far better than putting all your money into one stock (Coca-Cola) as you have now. I would stay away from individual companies. I'd highly recommend moving your savings into one of those index funds and then if you want to branch out to other things you can always do that later (though on r/Bogleheads people will probably just say stick with the index fund which I agree with. 99% of my investments are in target date funds or index-based ETFs). Depending on how your Coca-Cola stock was invested and when (was it a taxable brokerage account?) then just be mindful of the capital gains tax on sale, but I'd highly recommend not investing in a single stock going forward and if the taxes aren't too high sell all you have in Coca-Cola
VOO is definitely better than VTI. And don't forget the SPYM. SPYM has a cheaper expense ratio. And you can sell covered call to enhance your benefits. Good luck
with a guaranteed $1M a year, they're in the top 37% federal bracket, plus 3.8% NIIT. holding yield-heavy assets like corporate bonds or T-bills in a taxable account means losing 40.8% of the return to federal taxes every year. if they don't need the cash flow, the core should just be VTI and VXUS for tax-deferred growth, plus federal tax-free muni bonds for the conservative sleeve. anything else just stacks taxes on top of their guaranteed income.
Most investing decisions are about limiting risk to the right level, at 1M/year, risk is meaningless, assuming the person is spending well under 1M. I'd put it all into some stock index fund, VT is just as good as any other (VTI, VOO etc) and never touch it again. Leave it to my heirs with the free basis step-up. The better question is what does this person want to do with their money. They don't need to invest to fund their retirement so what DO they want to do? Fund/found a charity? Build a scholarship fund? Leave as much money to their heirs as possible? Gift as much as they can to people they care about each year while their alive to help those they care about? This question is much more important than their investment allocation, which really doesn't matter for this person (but shouldn't have any bonds).
State income taxes don't apply? Then be sure to include munis that avoid federal taxes. Control costs now. If you're trying to amass wealth on top on the guaranteed 80K/month, more savings early in the timeframe is a real advantage. Likewise, keep after it. If the person is willing/able to work at it some, direct investment into property might be an option to do some tax things. REIT likely wouldn't have the tax advantages but could provide the diversification. One possible allocation could look like this: 25% SGOV or similar, 25% FLMI or similar, 15% international index fund, 35% broad US index such as VOO/VTI/SPYM. If 50% stocks is more than your comfort, dial it back into TIPS and/or SGOV (RETI and/or property fits here too).
Today is a very green day for my world ex US heavy port. $EWY +4.7%, $EWJ +2%, $VXUS +1.49% vs. $VTI +0.45%. As long as the AI cap ex infrastructure buildout continues to expand, world ex US should continue to outperform US stocks. There is much higher volatility due to DXY fluctuation risks thou.
If you’re this late, this just isn’t for you. Seriously. Micron has been trending for months now. So you clearly don’t pay attention to stocks/tech news. Just invest in VTI and VXUS. Don’t dare touch options. Best regards, regard.
I’m 18 and want to start building wealth, but my current net worth is approximately -$1,300 because I owe money to family. The debt is interest-free, although part of it needs to be repaid soon. I earn $14.66 per hour at Walmart and currently work around 73 hours every two weeks. My regular expenses are fairly low, but I will return to college in August. I’m not looking for a get-rich-quick strategy, day trading, or risky options. I want to learn how to manage my money properly and invest for the long term. What order should I handle the following? 1. Paying off my debt 2. Building an emergency fund 3. Contributing to a Roth IRA 4. Investing through a regular brokerage account Once I’m financially ready to invest, would starting with a diversified index fund such as VTI be sensible? I’d also appreciate recommendations for trustworthy books, videos, or other resources that teach investing from the beginning.
Leave that 15k where it is. Put the rest in VTI.
VTI or VOO, VGT, SPMO are the ETFs that rely on.
OP asked “which would you buy”… I said which one I bought But for fun, I’ll answer a few of your other questions Who I am - doesn’t matter What’s my experience - been investing since 2009 What’s my knowledge - also doesn’t matter… I fix surgical robots for work What’s my portfolio look like - literally… why does any of this matter… I own CLOV, RKLB, QQQ, VTI, TSLA, and GOOG How many years have I been investing - 17 years… also why does this matter? What’s my salary - $75,000 base with OT… also why tf does this matter?
None of it, instead put it in a Roth IRA. But I'd pick some VTI and VXUS combo.
Yah so basically there will be something similar to VTI.
From holding RYCEY? If you have everything in VTI/VXUS you don’t have to watch and worry about it, it just goes up over time. It can’t go to zero. And if you really can’t stomach volatility, or need the money soon, that’s when you add a bond allocation. Holding cash and waiting is never the answer, you’re highly unlikely to be able to time the market.
Yep: https://www.reddit.com/r/smallstreetbets/s/Y359rsCwdD Plus another couple thousand on WEN, and my current short position is green by another thousand so far. But other than high conviction plays like those, I just have everything in VTI/VXUS, which is also up nicely this year.
VTI or VOO and chill. 10k is great but not enough saves to risk on a single stock.
I've seen armies of bagholders lose so much money on Microsoft, and others who say it's the best thing to buy. The smart choice is the boring choice: chuck into your ETFs of choice. Mine are $SPY and $VTI
What would you pick between IVV + AVUV or VTI + VUG/SCHG
What would you pick between IVV + AVUV or VTI + VUG/SCHG
What would you pick between IVV + AVUV or VTI + VUG/SCHG
That's why I am buying $VXUS, $EWJ, and $VPL over $VTI. I want Kioxia, ASML, SK Hynix, Samsung, and TSM over NVIDIA, AMD, and the US $SOXX stocks. This is another variation of the HALO trade buying the actual fabs manufacturing the damn chips. IP only gets you so far and then you are at the mercy of paying the price for fab manufacturing capacity just like everyone else.
If 10K is a lot of money to you, you are better off investing in VTI. Going through massive drawdown (which can happen for a single stock) is not for the faint of heart. Case in point was Meta a few years ago
You're right to point out that that kind of feels like "luck", because it's not actually investing at all: it's speculation. The subtle difference is that investing involves knowing the risk parameters of what you're putting your money into, and speculating is disregarding that and gambling with the hopes of seeing extreme returns. As a young person you've unfortunately been inundated with pictures and videos of people YOLOing entire student loan checks on options and getting very lucky. Those people then post about it on social media and give you the false impression that you're missing out on your chance to get rich. What you don't see as much of is all of the people that did the same thing, lost it all, and have had to either take private loans or give up on the idea of getting sn education entirely. The vast majority if retail traders who speculate consistently lose, and then they either post about it on reddit for a consolation prize while they think about how to hide their losses from their partners. Speculation in the market and going to the casino are fundamentally the same thing, but speculation feels more "high brow" and business-like and the very few people that get lucky will tell you that they got rich by making smart "investments". This is false. This is a lie. At 18 you have an advantage that most investors dream of having: you have time. If you're 60 and you invest $100 it may only have 5, 10 or 15 years to grow before you need to withdraw it to help pay for living expenses. If the market crashes in that short time horizon you may actually end up with less than you put in, and you then don't have the time to wait it out until it recovers. At 18 that same $100 will have decades to appreciate in value. You can weather downturns. You can work, and you can buy more stock while others are having to panic sell. This is known as the "time value" of money. Don't starve yourself or skip out on enjoying the finer things in life when you're young, but do relentlessly set aside a portion of whatever you make and put it into a low-cost index fund (as others have been saying), like VTI through Vanguard. By the time you're 30 you'll be damn glad you did so, and while you're shopping for houses your friends will wonder if you're secretly a trust fund baby.
Start with a high yield savings account or open a brokerage with vanguard, fidelity, schwab or similar reputable company for your country and invest in a money market like SWVXX on Schwab, treasury bonds like SGOV, or similar. This will help you stay ahead of inflation with 3-4% interest/dividends until you learn more about what to invest in. Popular assets typically are etfs that track indexes like the S&P500 SPYM, Nasdaq 100 QNDX, total world index VTI, and similar. Some brokerages support automation like Schwab and their S&P500 SWPPX mutual funds can invest automatically on a weekly schedule so you have more time to focus on income and life.
Yes, I'd consider a simple 70/30 VTI/VXUS allocation a reasonable starting point. The exact percentages matter less than choosing a structure you understand, contributing consistently, and sticking with it through different market conditions. You can always refine it later as your goals and experience evolve.
So say a 70/30 VTI and VXUS to begin with and follow it consistently?
If your timeline is 15+ years, the strategy doesn't change: Stay the Course: Keep buying broad, market-cap-weighted index funds (like VTI or VOO, or VT). A crash just means you buy the best companies in the world at a discount. Dial Down Risk if You Can't Sleep: If the volatility genuinely terrifies you, don't try to pick AI-free stocks. Just shift a percentage of your portfolio into fixed income (like short-term Treasuries) or an equal-weight index fund (like RSP) to dilute the mega-cap concentration. Time, not timing, is the ultimate hedge
If you end up in India, they tax worldwide income for residents. The Indian government doesn't recognize the Roth wrapper, so you'll owe annual taxes on the dividends and capital gains inside the account once you become a resident. Singapore is the opposite since they don't tax capital gains or foreign-sourced income, making the Roth safe there. Since India is the 80% outcome, holding simple index funds like VTI is much easier to report than complex REITs or dividend funds if you have to file Indian tax returns on them.
If you leave the US in 7 years, your destination country's tax treaty determines if the Roth IRA remains tax sheltered. Most countries don't recognize the Roth wrapper. You'll likely face annual taxes on dividends and capital gains back home, or you'll have to liquidate the account. If you end up liquidating it or paying local taxes, high-yield assets like VNQ and SCHD stack tax friction. VNQ's yield is taxed as ordinary income and it's highly inefficient outside a US tax shelter. A clean VTI and VXUS split's easier to manage and it's more treaty friendly. You've also got high look-through overlap. VOO, VIG, and SCHD share many of the same US large-cap holdings, which just layers the same domestic beta. Where do you plan to move after your US residency ends?
Low Cost index funds that track the SP500 use VOO for that. If not use VTI tracks entire US Market. Either one is great for long term as you will always be holding the winners.
If it’s my first $19k going into the market, I wouldn’t be trying to pick a single stock to try an hit it big I would get into o r or two of the ETFs that gives broader access to/ exposure to the markets. Such as: VOO IVV SPY VTI ITOT FXAIX
I can pay off my home with cash, but I choose not to because that cash is making a lot more than the 3.5% interest by being in VTI.
Too much risk of her ending up with a smooth-talking salesman who puts her in high commission poor performing products or an outright criminal that steals her money. If a person doesn't want to learn about something as simple as VTI they aren't going to know when they are being scammed by a so called professional advisor.
All we know is what the market is doing now and what it has done in past. If market is trending down now - maybe wait till it seems to have found a solid base support - and then lump the sum into the fund. But that is timing the market. If your fund is SnP index like VOO or even broader like VTI - then you’re probably safe lumping it in now (as the market has had some recent pullbacks) and thus getting the “time in the market”
When you say 85/15/5 is that VTI/VXUS/BND? I'm guessing that's an approximation since real life tends to be a little messier, and you mentioned some single stock pics. And what about shifting your "weight" from 60-40 to 90-10. Ratio of equities to ..what?
Like how big? Like 10%, 20%, 50%? My largest concentration of stock I ever had was my own Employers RSUs. They kept going up and up and up, which made it seem stupid to sell, but it was basically 100% of my net worth at the time. It was having that value crashing down and the emotions of "what the fuck was I thinking?" that forced me to form a plan to diversify out of it over a set period of time to avoid the FOMO of the potential rebound, while also getting me closer to my goal of being diversified. It took 3 - 4 years to properly diversify and while I did not sell anywhere near peak, I did sell on average way higher than the "bottom" it dropped to that forced me to learn my mistake. The reality in hindsight is that I was basically financially illiterate. My family moved here from a collapsed USSR country, and where rapid "democratization" gave everyone stock options of the formerly public companies they were a part of and people that eventually became oligarchs tricked everyone into selling their "stock options" for cheap. To some extent, I still feel like stocks are a psychological game at a mass scale. It only keeps growing if the population keeps growing and everyone is piling in with 401ks, but it's still better than holding money in cash of Bonds. Take a deep breath, make a plan that will make you comfortable with the money you have invested regardless of whether it goes up or down. Here is the mental model I have now: * My company stock goes down, and if majority of my Net Worth is with my company I feel like I failed and I'm stressed because I think we have the power to do better regardless of the reason of the stock drop. * VT, VTI, VXUS goes down significantly, the entire world's market's are fucked up and there is nothing I can do about it and as long as I have the cash I need on hand I can wait it out. Owning a single stock feels suddenly makes it personal, emotional. Owning a basket feels like buying into a system. Buying into a system allows you to absolve yourself of emotional consequences (unless you truly invest the money that you still need soon).
It doesn’t have to be. If individual stocks are such a battle, VTI and chill.
yeah VTI is basically the whole US market in one ticker, so owning it means you already have LMT and NOC at their market cap weight. no extra work required. glad it was helpful!
Missing the forest for the trees. As long as the asset continues to grow while continuing to pay out the fact that in under performs the s&p is irrelevant. The goal of a solid dividend pick is to provide steady income. Wealth is only valuable if you can USE it. That’s why being house broke and “paper” millionaires is a thing. I have a system that creates me a tax free income without requiring me to sell my assets. To me - that’s success. The other thing that most people forget is that yes while the dividend asset may not appreciate in value as quickly as it is enabling you to buy more asset producing assets rather than stay locked in a single share value. It is inherently a superior model in my opinion. I make riskier than plays than shit like VTI I used leveraged ETFs, with aggressive yields that range between 10% and 30% annually. Yes I know technically some of the payments are distributions. It’s irrelevant because the NAV continues to rise. A majority of my holdings for the longest time were in LBS. in the February of this year I started to diversify and rebalanced into other leveraged etfs such as HHIS, HHIC, LLYH, NVDH which has sky rocketed my monthly income. So far I’m up on all of them and as I said producing a much stronger regular payment. Everyone is entitled to invest how they want but to me adding an extra 12 Gs to my annually income. On my current investment schedule I will be be earning 16K a month in passive income that I don’t have to pay tax on and is a lot more valuable than just staring at 1M in a bank account that I can do anything with or I have to borrow against to make cashflow happen.
I'm going to provide extra context, which I think this conversation needs. I opened my brokerage account in 2015 with the goal to get better gains than my checking account which had accumulated too much cash. Lesson/question/change #1: Why didn't I figure out HYSA??? At the time, my father was my coach. He was fully retired, 75 years old, and living on dividends, social security, and pension. His guidance, which made sense to me, was towards dividend paying reliable stocks of companies that we're going to fail. For example MMM or ATT. He told tales of stocks he "couldn't afford to sell due to gains/tax" and the neat companies he had invested in (BGS) that had done so well. It seemed he clearly had it figured out. In time, Dad has passed, I have taken control of his old accounts to provide for my mother. There is clear evidence of emotional investing, and choices he made clearly haven't all panned out. For example, the BGS shares he gifted me are now nearly worthless. Lesson/question/change #2: Dad wasn't a genius and didn't always get it right. Lesson#3: Emotional decision making is frequently not the best. However, my mother remains well provided for, even as her costs skyrocket in assisted living. Dad was a proponent of picking individual stocks. Through time I have largely moved away from this. I continue to hold individual stocks, which has generally been OK, but hasn't "beat the market". However, since my objective was to do better than my checking account, I'm doing very well. Lesson/change #4: Instead of focusing on picking individual stocks, using broad index funds is easier and quite successful. Lesson #5: Understand and remember your objectives. At this point, VOO, VTI, and DIA account for about 30% of my brokerage portfolio. A few big winner individual stocks and a few more funds (including SGOV) round out my top 10 holdings. Going forward, I will almost certainly continue to focus on adding to my VOO, VTI, and SGOV positions. I have benefited from and enjoyed my dividends. However, some of my worst moves have been "dividend chasing". At one point, rather than benefitting from the modest monthly dividend from VOO or the declining % yield from CAT I chased dividends in a bond fund RA. I'm about 25% down on that, and while it continues to pay well above 5%, fees will eat into that. I'd have been ahead to purchase VOO, CAT, or KO. Buffet has benefitted from dividend stocks, but doesn't pay a dividend... Lesson/change #6: Don't chase the high dividends, benefit from strong stocks that pay a modest yield. Time in the market....
For me it was ATCH, Beyond Meat, and now SRXH. In total I gained $17,000 in about a week but then lost $23,000 over a couple month period. Gave up and going forward will only do VOO and VTI.
I think you're too black and white about this. Sure, put most of your portfolio in indexes and don't chase trends, but hell yes you should absolutely play with a portion. For example, I bought $1000 of Palantir at around $36 per share; when it got to $180 per share I sold all but one share of it and rolled the profits into VTI. If you're not reckless you can use individual stocks to fuel your portfolio growth. Sometimes I lose...I once bought $1000 of a pot stock when that was a thing around 2011-2013. That investment is worth about $26 now. Point is that it's okay to place risky bets as long as you don't risk more than you can afford to lose.
Oh right, i know divies aren't free...but thanks for the note on VTI...I didn't know that's how it worked
LMT and NOC are solid companies but just a heads up — dividends aren't free money, the share price drops by the dividend amount on ex-div date. both of these are already in VTI at market cap weight, so a total market fund gives you the same exposure without the single-stock risk. worth considering if you're aiming for long-term
VOO / VTI and chill. Maybe mix in a little world or international ETFs if you want. Time is your biggest asset right now.