VTI

therealjerseytom

IMO makes no sense to hold both VTI and VOO. Also makes no sense to hold something like FSELX with capital gains distributions when you can find a tax-efficient ETF with very similar performance. Is there a reason why you want a growth tilt right now? Knowing that "growth" doesn't mean that it will literally have more investment appreciation. Why are you overweight US equities? (Versus the total world market cap). Have you considered asset classes beyond just stocks and bonds?

humdinger44

Individual stock picking is not correlated to long term investing success. Whole market index funds held for a long time are. Consistently hitting the market average is something to celebrate. It's easy to do these days and nearly entirely stress free. Professional stock pickers struggle to beat the market average and they can't do it consistently. Chances are you're not better equipped or more well informed than a professional broker working at a big firm. Brokers have good years and bad. Retail investors have good years and bad. If you're hitting the market average you're doing better than most. VOO, VTI, VXUS or just wrap it all together and go for VT.

AdhesivenessPure212

The fund handles all the foreign tax stuff internally through tax treaties and local structures, so you don't need to worry about it as an individual investor. Most major funds like VTI have pretty solid tax optimization and keep tracking error low - they wouldn't be competitive otherwise

FleetAdmiralFader

Oh, that's quite a benefit. What you **should** do is move the money to a low-cost index fund like VTI and then **never touch it again**. You really want to take advantage of that tax advantage so moving it out is less than ideal. I recommend asking your broker to remove your options approval. That will at least remove one vector for losing all the money quickly but you'll still have to exercise some self control. You can put other hurdles up like resetting the password and not saving it in a password manager. That'll force you to go through the Forgot-Login-Password flow which may be enough annoyance/delay to prevent you from trading on a quick hunch.

SirGlass

VTI is like 85% VOO + 10% cap + 5% small cap. Meaning holding both only reduces your mid/small cap allocation. Meaning with your allocation you are actually holding like 95% large cap VOO 3% mid cap 2% small cap. That mid/small cap exposure is so little it won't matter. I would just go 100% voo if you don't want small/mid cap exposure

taplar

Is there a reason you are doing VOO and VTI instead of just VTI?

Pure_Veterinarian374

VTI

ForgiveMeImStupid

I’m in my early twenties and a year away from graduating college. I have weekly reoccurring investments in VOO and VTI and have about 3K 70/30 VOO/VTI. Is this a good investment plan just to keep those weekly deposits up or should I diversify more? I’m only looking for long term safe investment planning

baboolsindahood

Idk VOO is not what it used to be. You think you're diversifying but its not what you think. You're actually over 1/3rd in tech. Thats similar to the dot com bubble days. VTI is more diverse since its all the stocks. I think today you should also consider commodities, crypto, and REIT etc, possible hedges against the USD to truly diversify

Competitive_Risk_310

Honestly 6 weeks + a bull-ish tape is basically the best-case backtest, so I wouldn’t get too attached to the +4% yet. The allocation looks like “default Reddit core portfolio + a little crypto,” which isn’t *bad*, but the overlap (VTI + QQQ + AAPL/MSFT) means you’re kinda doubling down on the same thing and calling it diversification. If you like the AI angle, I think tools like Prospero are better for quick context and risk flags, but the actual portfolio construction still needs you to set tighter rules around concentration and rebalancing.

xqpv

How much cash is too much cash? And is less cash and more VTI better in order to protect against inflation if you’re reasonably secure in your job or ability to support yourself?

ITCHYisSylar

Thats it.  Thats all I do, other than various financial podcast more for entertainment.  Instead of spending time and energy doing that, I spend that time and energy working overtime, meal prepping instead of going to a restaurant, things to make/save more money to continue VTI or VOO and chill.   Sometimes when I legit worry about an upcoming recession, I put money in something that has a track record of being recession/crash resistant like MCD or Walmart.  Or if the majority is shitting on a sector here like big oil, which clearly isn't going away in the near future and still has long term potential, I may put money in that for a year or two.  But that is really it.  

M4STERB0T

'VTI was up 90% from 2021 to 2015. What were you invested in?" This guy figured out how to do investing chronologically backwards

sin94

The opposite happened to me. I found myself sitting on idle cash with both family members at home and no external spending. I decided to go all-in on dollar-cost averaging (DCA) into VTI and just relax. That decision snowballed for us. Costs were low, and I stuck to the investment strategy, forgetting about trying to time the market or chasing the latest trends. I still hold my legacy pre-2020 stocks, and while only the blue chips have soared, the accumulation I’ve built in VTI (and more recently VT) is what I keep looking back on, wondering why I didn’t think of it earlier.

ITCHYisSylar

90% VTI, 10% VXUS, and chill. When everyone freaks out and panicking like on Liberation day, I double down, work overtime, cash in vacation hours, and throw it all in.

sin94

In 2025, for some reason, I made a shift. I had always invested in VTI, a low-cost Vanguard fund covering the U.S. market, but I switched to VT, which includes both international and U.S. markets. The results exceeded all expectations—VT was up 20%. Meanwhile, I continued dollar-cost averaging (DCA) into VTI in another account, which was up only 12% due to the DCA approach. This experience reaffirmed the principle that time in the market truly beats timing the market.

GoodFortune67

Mom deserves a nice low-risk ETF. QQQ if you believe in tech. If not, VTI.

Newbiewhitekicks

You just buy more VTI/VXUS

trix_is_for_kids

VTI was up 90% from 2021 to 2015. What were you invested in?

redditissocoolyoyo

Vug or VOO or VTI. Maybe vti.

mapsosa

75% VTI 25% VXUS if single stock-> goog/amzn/aapl

Blade3colorado

"Just go for the ETF and forget about it?" Exactly! Messing around with your mom's potential retirement money will potentially cause her to lose a lot of money; and worse, effect your relationship with her negatively. Play it safe and strongly recommend an S&P 500 focused ETF, e.g., VOO, VTI, etc.

amg-rx7

If you don’t have time to keep on top of different positions just dollar cost average into VOO VTI or VT every month

Synaps4

VTI and it's not even close. If you have pretensions of being a trader you better be doing your due diligence. Is your mom going to write a well sourced 20 page thesis on the stock? Is she going to read the last 10 years financials? No? Then she has no business investing in it.

SirGlass

If you look at a dividend aristocratic fund it has approximate returns of VOO/VTI. However counter intuitively it does not have a high dividend yield , the dividend yield is just slightly higher than VOO. Because even companies like MSFT has paid and raised dividends over the last 20 years, its just that their stock price has also appreciated much faster then their dividends making the yield somewhat small Even NVIDIA pays a dividend .

IceCreamforLunch

Invesco's RWL charges 0.39% in net fees compared to 0.03% for VTI. That would be $300/mo more per $1M invested and the RWL doesn't seem to fare any better in past down markets.

Commercial_Deer_7114

I will never understand why all investment subreddits are so intensely brigaded by the hard-left. What does this nonsense article add to an investment discussion around a SCOTUS decision on tariffs? What are you hoping to gain? You think some VTI/VOO/VTX-investor will go like "Ah, I was going to read about the economy and how it affects my investments, but then I saw this marxist article on transexualism and now I will instead read about Karl Marx" ????

__redruM

No, it’s the first real popular index fund. It’s expense ratio is low, so it’s not worth viral marketing. It’s just a good general choice and has been for decades. When someone says “I have no idea what to invest in, what should I do”, it’s a great answer. Along with VT, VTI, etc.

SirGlass

>, growth-based stocks and or ETFs/mutual funds should be 100% the goal you had me in the first half, IMHO I do not know what will out perform in the next 30 years , VTI/VOO are not growth funds, they are broad market funds that will hold growth and value and also pay dividends Growth focused funds like SCHG are not guaranteed to grow more in the next 20 years, they might, they might not. I would say age doesn't even matter , I have no clue why people think they need dividends after 40/50/60? Returns are what matter. TLDR do not bet on growth or dividends buy the market . SCHB/VTI/ITOT take your pick

InternationalFly1021

As others have stated, this is not technically a hedge because there is no negatively correlated or structurally different performance. Semantics? Maybe in your case, but precision is still important. When you’re talking about adding assets with lower correlation to reduce volatility, that’s textbook diversification. BRK may have less sensitivity to the same drivers as VTI or VT, but it’s still sensitive to the same drivers and moves in the same direction. And beta has little to do with tail risk. A true hedge against equity drawdowns would do something equities don’t. You can’t hedge equities with more equities. Pedantic? Maybe. But I still think it matters, though I’ll admit to being a persnickety person. All that said, if you’re having any worries or anxiety about equity risk, what you’re really asking is whether you’re overexposed, which is an asset allocation question relative to your objectives, timeline and risk profile. It’s probably time to revisit your balance of stocks to bonds and the makeup of each (i.e., US vs Intl equities, duration and credit types in bonds). This is the single best thing an individual investor can do in this case. Review what you’ve got, keep it simple, don’t overthink it, and don’t put yourself in a position where adding extra complexity for theoretical benefits introduces execution and behavioral risk, which is ironically what you’re trying to avoid - unnecessary risk.

IllllIIlIllIllllIlll

>The 10-year returns The past 15 years, let alone 10 years, are absolutely not representative of anything. It's the biggest bull market and biggest US outperformance period you could have cherry-picked. Obviously VTI performs better during this specific period. The point of target date funds is to increase the **risk-adjusted** performance. Yet you keep talking about the performance, ignoring risk altogether.

IllllIIlIllIllllIlll

If you had bought VT instead of VTI, you would have saved a fraction of a second because that's only 2 letters to type instead of 3

Fun-Personality-8008

OP asked what helped to stop overthinking. You spent more time writing that wall of text than I have spent on tweaking my investments in the last 15 years combined. 15 years in which I have gone from zero to a million bucks doing nothing but maxing a 401k and IRA with 100% VTI. That's good enough for me.

O-3_Howling_Mad

Well done! Admittedly I'll probably start sliding more towards a 100% VTI portfolio in a few years and, ugh, incorporate some bonds around 50. That said, it's anyone's guess how the next few years will play out! Best of luck to you!

Kitchen_Page9991

Im mid 50's and hold an aggressive portfolio like you. VGT has been a game changer for it. I too get concerned about allocation. I'm45% VGT, 45% VOO, with cash and a splash of GLD and SLV in there as well. I'm in the process of selling a second home right now. The profits from that will be allocated to something like VTI. Just for the sake of balancing it out more.

marioacastiello

Currently I’m mainly in VTI, VOO, VYM but I want to add an international fund like VXUS

usa_reddit

Nothing wrong with VOO/VI it's slow, safe, growth over time. This is my strategy and I believe it will beat VOO/VTI over the next year, but I have higher risk exposure in SMH and SGOL. |SMH (Semiconductors)|15%| |:-|:-| |SCHD|20%| |GLD/SGOL|15%| |VYMI|10%| |SGOV|10%| |SCHG|30%|

Decibel0753

In Germany, you cannot buy American ETFs VOO and VTI.

zdog2x

I do VTI, VOO, VWO and VEA. Majority being VTI.

fakieTreFlip

Investopedia is your friend: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/etf.asp It's an asset you can buy just like a stock. It's technically a group of securities put into a single fund. Some popular ones are VTI and VOO. Their holdings include big companies like Nvidia and Apple and Amazon. You buy shares of the ETF instead of the companies directly. It's a decent way to diversify your holdings without having to think about it too much. Just buy stuff like that and hold until you retire lol

JamesSt-Patrick

Don’t listen to him, your intuition was actually correct. Berkshire is a half decent hedge because it provides stability. Going into VTI or VT or whatever means you absorb all of the downside

Away_Investment_8409

At 27, time is your biggest edge. A broad ETF like VTI or VOO is plenty on its own. Owning both is mostly redundant, so I’d make one of those your core and keep it simple. If you want, you can add a small slice of something riskier for growth, but keep it small enough that you won’t stress during downturns. SPLV can smooth volatility, but it may lag long-term. Biggest key is consistency and not touching it when markets get rough.

PonticGooner

BRBK and VTI are good picks, SCHG. That said, the last three years I’ve basically said fuck it and have actively traded in my Roth IRA more than my actual account and not contributed to it, and I’ve managed to outpace VTI and VOO even if I account for hypothetical maxed out contributions that I haven’t made. So that’s been interesting. Long term is usually 10 years like you’re saying but a Roth IRA or 401k long term is longer than that because you’ll be looking to withdraw from it when you’re in your 60’s (not sure how old you are). The responsible choice is VTI and BRBK in my opinion.

YaPhetsEz

Its almost unbelievable. Like he could have just bought SPY/VTI and been up 20%

Mysterious_Motor7859

YOLO VOO/VTI lol

JamesSt-Patrick

I’m so sick of seeing of seeing people dickriding Vanguard index funds and talking down to others as if knowing what VT/VTI/VOO is makes them a genius Vanguard index funds are like the most basic investment you can make. You’re not anything more than a spectator. It doesn’t make you a smart investor.

RandolphE6

Why is 57% too good to be true? VTI is up about 142% since 2018.

kiseki1107

VOO and VTI overlap with VTI holding 3000+ US companies and VOO holding only 500+ companies. If you want foreign exposure outside US, then VXUS is a good one. A dividend-focused one would be like SCHD. VGIT, BND, SGOV are all like investing in fixed income/bonds/HYSA so I would put a few percentage there for a safety net. Overall, if your goals are aggressive, I’d put like 50% in either just VOO or VTI. Split the remaining 50% among foreign exposure like VXUS, dividend exposure like SCHD, and fixed-income exposure like VGIT.

Various_Couple_764

The down side is: * Your investment can loose a lot of money in a bear market. * Some pear markes last for years. * These are mostly growth funds. They produce tiny dividends. * The only way to get income from these funds is to sell shares. IF the market drops when you sell you could loose money. The first goal off a young investor to to develop: * a retirment fund (401K, IRA , Roth) and maxyout the contributions you are allowed to depoist every year. * Build a HYSA or money maker account of 6 months of cash living expenses (the money you tyicpally spending 6 months. Not your earnings. * And max your any other tax deferred investment opportunity you have such as HSA. Now typically fund like VOO and VTI are excellent choice for a retirment fund. For HSA a dividend fund may be a good choice. After that you should develops a taxable brokerage account: * You can invest more than 6 months of money in growth index funds like VOO and VTI. to supplement your cash emergancy fund. Growth index funds grow very fast potentially giving you sever years of living expenses. But you have to sell these fund income. preferably you want o only well when you can make a profit on the sail. You do not want to sell at a loss. * IFyou have a Roth IRA you have $7500 per year expense for the yearly deposit. Sao start investing hi high dividend fund for income preferably one with a low tax on the dividends you recieve.. A good choice is QQQI with a 13% yield. and you pay no tax for about 6 years on the dividends you recieve. You can build this up to cover the Roth IRA deposits. * After the roth expenses are covered start buildin up a different dividend fund to press other monthly expenses such as utility bills, insurance bills, and possibly enough to cover the monthly mortgage cost. Try to limit each dividned fund to about 50K invested. And try to make sure each fund invests your money differently. Keep this up until all regular monthly expenses are covered by passive income from dividends. Dividneds are cash profit chaser payments made directly into your brokerage account from the funds you invest in. now it will take time to build up enough dividend income to cover monthly bills but once you have it the loss of income for any reason from work would not result ins bankruptcy and loosing your home. And once your dividend income exceeds your monthly expenses you can consider retiring or reducing the number of hours you work each week.

CoolWerewolf

I own 2223 shares of VTI Based

gav_mkv

QQQ and VTI like every other day

pbmadman1994

You have the right idea and simple ETF investing will get you better results than 95%+ of people. Good tax efficiency too. I would avoid overlap though as others have said. Also consider some high yield cash equivalents while stocks are so high. For now I’d go with a stock market portfolio of 40% VTI 20% VT (global) and 40%SGOV until S&P PE for next years earnings is under 20. Then just 75% VTI and 25% VT when market corrects. When you reach 40yo, put 10% of your total portfolio in BND for bonds and increase 1% of your bond portion every birthday. Keep the stock portion with the same weighting. I got this strategy from Brinkeradvisor.com and have been following him with great success and returns for over 30 years.

Psychological-Safe98

Honestly, this looks solid for a **set-and-forget approach**. You’re building a **diversified foundation** with VTI and SCHF while keeping a smaller allocation for higher-conviction bets like ARKX. A few things to consider: * **VTI (50%)** – This gives you broad exposure to the total U.S. market. It’s low-maintenance and will likely keep growing steadily over time. Perfect for the core of a long-term portfolio. * **SCHF (30%)** – International exposure is smart. Many people overlook global diversification, and SCHF helps balance U.S. market swings. * **PPA (10%)** – Sector ETFs like PPA can tilt your portfolio toward industries you believe will outperform. Just keep in mind sector performance can be volatile, so monitor long-term trends rather than daily fluctuations. * **ARKX (10%)** – I like that you’re putting a small amount into thematic or higher-risk growth plays. This is the part of your portfolio that can **outperform dramatically** if the theme takes off, but keeping it small helps manage overall risk. If you want to add **QQQM**, think of it as another growth tilt. You’d likely reduce VTI slightly to make room since VTI already has heavy tech exposure. Overall, your allocation balances **stability** (VTI + SCHF) with **opportunity** (PPA + ARKX). The key is **consistency** and avoiding constant tinkering. Set it, forget it, and let compounding do its work.

Ill_Looking_Pot

100k into a HYSA. The rest split between 20% QQQ, 25% VTI, 15% XAR, 15% VXUS, 15% VB, 10% VAW. With this you can catch gains from materials, defense, and small caps all benefiting from the US grand strategy. Protection from downside risk with the large caps while catching their AI rise. Then you have the dry powder with the HYSA to add onto anything having a run like more commodities.

therealjerseytom

I'd skip the PPA and ARKX. Personally I bailed on all of my QQQ/M. If it's truly long term, like 20+ years, it could be as simple as VTI and SCHF.

foradil

>You’re also (inadvertently) cherry-picking data. There have been 10 year periods where VTI has underperformed a TDF. Picking the last 20 years is not cherry-picking. Prior to that, there were few retail investors, ETFs were not mainstream, and 401k's were less utilized.

Worst-Eh-Sure

VTI is US index market cap weighted. So it’s mostly S&P500, especially the mega caps. VOO is only S&P500 and also market cap weighted. Your entire portfolio would be VERY heavily tilted to the US S&P500. You will have no exposure to international. That’s a good bit of risk. People forget at this point, but the global stock market is cyclical. What goes up, eventually comes down. Tomorrow? The day before you retire? After you die? No clue, but you have a lot of risk in the US performing well. If nothing else just go with VTI and skip VOO. At least this way you get some exposure to US mid and small caps.

yad76

Keep in mind that the term "growth" in this context is essentially just a nice way of saying "overpriced" relative to PE (with "value" meaning "underpriced"). It does not mean that those stocks are expected to grow more in terms of stock price over time but that those companies need to grow profits just to justify their PE and current stock price. In fact, historically, value stocks have outperformed growth stocks by a wide margin, not surprisingly since that means buying underpriced stocks beats buying overpriced stocks, though, in recent times, growth has outperformed value due to the prominence of tech companies being "overpriced" relative to PE. I call this out because I am assuming your "heavy focus on growth" is in terms of your portfolio value and not because you have a general desire to hold overpriced stocks. Based on the history of the stock market, a "heavy focus on growth" would actually lead towards an overweighting of value stocks (e.g. VOOV) rather than growth/VOOG, even if VOOG has been winner lately. The questions of when/if the tech "bubble" will burst and when/if value stocks will regain their historical position of outperformance is something that has been talked about greatly going at least a decade or so back. No one knows. All that said, I personally keep the majority of my portfolio in VTI (similar to VOO but holds the total stock market) and then hold a percentage in VOOG as a means of overweighting tech. I also own a small number of individual tech companies as a further means of overweighting companies I specifically believe will outperform. I do not believe these overweightings in my portfolio will make sense over the long-long term i.e. I do not view VOOG as a viable "hold for life" ETF like I do VOO or VTI. I wish I had isolated these holdings in my tax advantaged accounts as now I find myself with very high capital gains in my taxable which vastly complicates figuring out how to take profits and pull back on this.

the-real-batman3

I just invested most of my free cash in VTI (70k), market can drop now

harrison_wintergreen

>The 10-year returns for the 2060 fund is 201% versus 284% for VTI. the last 10 years don't necessarily predict the next 10 years. I'm old enough to remember when the US market/S&P 500 went basically flat from 2000 to 2010 but international stocks, bonds and small cap US stocks were much better investments. don't put all your money on today's winners.

DaemonTargaryen2024

> I understand that target date fund should be providing a diversified, age-appropriate portfolio that gets more conservative over time. Yes. It’s a Honda civic. > I naively assumed they would not get particularly conservative until 10-20 years pre-target-date. Did you not read the prospectus? Or any of the publicly available data about the pre-planned lifecycle of the fund? > The 10-year returns for the 2060 fund is 201% versus 284% for VTI. You are comparing apples and oranges. TDFs never claim to compete with an all-stock fund in terms of performance. You’re also (inadvertently) cherry-picking data. There have been 10 year periods where VTI has underperformed a TDF. You can still generally expect VTI to outperform long term, but only looking at the last 10 years where there was a substantial US bull market is not a complete analysis. > Is the target date fund more stable or safer? Generally, yes. > How does this make sense? Answer this: who is the target audience for TDFs? And does you not being their target audience mean the TDFs are therefore useless?

StatisticalMan

Comparing VTI to a target date fund is apples to oranges. Compare a VTI+VXUS+bonds to a TDF.

Cruian

>also FZROX I believe will sample the index, not buy every single company , This is common to other US total market funds as well. The other day I found it on VTI/VTSAX 's prospectus for example, I'd fully expect to see the same in FSKAX's.

KrustyLemon

I keep my 401k / roth IRA 100% VTI Brokerage holds my more risky investments. Even if I mess up and go -100% on brokerage, I'm still good to retire.

dudreddit

The OP does not understand how TD funds work ... and 201% vice 284% for VTI should be considered quite good, for a TDF!

JackfruitCrazy51

Go back to last year, and VTTSX beat VTI by over 4%. International is the big difference.

Formaldehead

Well, the market has really gone no where but up so of course VTI is going to beat it. The truer test would be to see how it performs when/if the market tanks. That would show how much of a hedge it really is.

RaspberryFun8573

Oh so you kept putting money into a sinking investment when you could've put it in semiconductors, gold, hell, even VTI or SPY to double your investment.

___Art_Vandelay___

Target funds are crap IMO. I moved all of my retirement investments out of one and into VTI years ago and kept it that way. Way better returns, as you've pointed out, and lower expesne ratio. Bonds are dumb.

Cruian

>VOO is a bit more riskier than VTI While VOO holds less stocks, the extra stocks VTI includes are riskier than the ones on VOO

razorwiregoatlick877

You probably don’t need to do both VOO and VTI. You should also consider an international fund to diversify. You are you d enough that you could probably split between VTI and something like VXUS.

chindef

Taxable brokerage in a diversified etf like VOO or VTI. 

Funnyhowitgoes1943

Generally investing in passive broadly diversified funds like VOO and VTI make sense. As pointed out elsewhere, they overlap so pick one. The issue now is becoming that a few large tech consituents are an extremely high percentage of the index. It is worth temporarily considering an allocation to RSP, equal weighted S&P 500. I am also a big believer in global diversification, so consider adding an international developed (VE or IDEV) and an emerging ETF (EEM or VEA).

HsRada18

VOO is a bit more riskier than VTI. If you have enough emergency funds for 6 months, then I would say VTI

ear2theshell

Here's a visual representation of the downside: https://totalrealreturns.com/s/VOO,VTI,VT,SPY,QQQ,VGT (both VOO and VTI lag behind just buy and hold with QQQ). For someone in 20s, I recommend VGT which is a pure growth ETF.

therealjerseytom

> My concern is primarily stemming from VGT's significant Nvidia holdings. I'm thinking QQQM can accomplish **the same goal**, while reducing volatility specific to Nvidia. But what *is* your goal? If your goal is just aggressive growth and portfolio value appreciation, being 100% stocks in a diversified index is max aggressive. *Buying into VGT or QQQM doesn't make your portfolio "more aggressive" since it's already 100% stocks. What you're doing is making specific concentration bets.* It's certainly possible to make the wrong bet. It's possible that over X time frame, VTI on its own will have more portfolio appreciation than the extra concentration in VGT (tech-specific bet) or QQQM (mega cap, non-financial bet). So that's why it's important to sit back and ask, what exactly is it you're trying to achieve, and how is investment X, Y, or Z the best fit to that objective? While also being cognizant which risks are typically seen as compensated, versus not compensated.

Cilantro_Frog321

I’ll (35) just share what I have in my Roth IRA because I am not a financial advisor: 60-65% QQQM 35-40% VTI 0-1% SCHD For now, SCHD is just a scrap holding to utilize the whole portfolio. My percentages will shift every 5 years. But note, I also hold SCHG and SCHD in a taxable account. Those percentages are more like 65-70% SCHG & 30-35% SCHD. If I was younger (20-25) when I started investing (31) — I would probably be all in on VTI. I have my portfolio work a little harder because I started a little later. Little risky for some, but you have to do what you have to do. People see our choices, but not our opinions. Good luck out there :)

blorg

It's more like 80%. www.etfrc.com say there is 88% overlap between VOO and VTI, by weight, but S&P themselves say the S&P500 is [approximately 80%](https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/indices/equity/sp-500/#overview) of the US total market.

blorg

It doesn't necessarily cost more in fees either, depends on the specific funds. VTI (0.03%) + VXUS (0.05%) is lower fee than VT (0.06%). The single fund is simpler and automatically rebalances, which is a big advantage. If the fees are this low, a few hundreths of 1% simply don't matter. DHHF which is an Australian global ex-Australia ETF is 0.19%. BGBL (developed markets ex-Australia) is 0.08%. BEMG (emerging) is 0.35%, but emerging markets are only 10% of global equity capitalisation by weight. So BGBL+BEMG at market weight would be around 0.11%.

Virtual_Crow

VOO is limited to about 500 stocks selected by a committee, VTI is every stock in the US. The downside is concentration risk. Both indexes use market capitalization to decide how much of each stock should be in the index. The biggest conpanies will be proportionally a larger part of the index. If you buy VOO, 7% of your investment is in Nvidia. In theory, you're trusting that the market is pricing the companies appropriately, but in practice if it's not you are pretty highly concentrated in a few stocks and sectors. You are theoretically getting a better return (assuming the market is correctly priced) but should expect higher volatility. In addition, you're losing exposure to international stocks, which also might make your investment more volatile due to less diversification. In reality you have little to worry about over a long (10+ year) horizon. If you want greater diversification and less volatility, and are willing to accept potentially smaller returns, then go for something like 80% VTI, and 20% VXUS which is an index of international stocks. Otherwise just put everything in VOO and don't look at it.

BiggestMack01

Honestly, no. Vanguard is REALLY annoying and it took me weeks because the support is so shitty. First you have to call them to transfer your VTSAX shares into VTI, and you need to make it an exact share value (no partial shares), then you can tell them you’d like to start a full account ACAT transfer.

BiggestMack01

If you do decide to do it, make sure to utilize vanguards transfer function where you can transfer all VTSAX funds into VTI without selling them or losing any money

SirGlass

People mention this often when talking about things like VTI/VXUS vs VT. In this case you save a very small insignificant amount by splitting between VTI/VXUS

No-Block-2095

If you keep it to only one ETF, it will hinder avoiding wash sale in taxable when it is time to sell. Also there could be some possible tax loss harvesting to do when large caps behave differently than dmall&mid caps. US market: large+ mid& small cap =VOO+VXF = VTI Intl : VXUS

Mattwwreddit

Downside is 100% US exposure, but to some that’s the goal. Many existing and foreseeable headwinds for the USD due to worsening international relations and active de dollarization efforts.  Personally I don’t see the U.S. losing its status as the reserve currency in any abrupt sense, but the slow draw down is non zero chance. It’s not inherently a good or bad thing, but it introduced some uncertainty/risk in regards to global capital flows repricing assets faster than US companies can capitalize on the weaker dollar.  Some international exposure might serve as a good diversified. Something like VXUS is a nice fire and forget - it’s like VTI but international. 

moscaloka777

Putting money into VOO and VTI is pretty steady long term, but you still need enough emergency cash since life has unexpected things.

MaSePoEs22

Pretty much. For most people, broad index funds *are* the optimal strategy. Simple, boring, and hard to mess up. The real downside isn’t VOO/VTI. it’s behavior. Panic selling, tinkering, or abandoning the plan when markets get ugly. If you can stay disciplined, this is exactly how it’s supposed to work.

AviPaz

The main downside is not risk, it is concentration and expectations. VOO and VTI are excellent core holdings, but they are both heavily tilted toward US large cap growth. You are effectively making a strong bet on one country, one market structure, and one valuation regime continuing to work for decades. That may be fine, but it is a choice. The bigger risk I see in your plan is not the ETFs, it is liquidity and flexibility. You are aggressively paying down the mortgage and investing monthly, which is great, but make sure the emergency fund truly covers business risk as well as personal risk. For your age and horizon, simple is a feature not a bug. Just be clear that VOO plus VTI is a strategy, not a guarantee, and diversification means more than just owning more tickers inside the same market.

TortugaTurtle47

I do about 70% in VTI and 30% in VXUS for the growth portion of my investments.

cjm5308

I’m personally a fan of something like 80/20 VTI/VXUS

LightForceUnlimited

VOO=S&P 500 VTI=Total US Market VXUS=Total International Market VT=Total Global Market In order to get the entire global market you can either go for VTI plus VXUS or just go all in on VT like I did. VT automatically rebalances so you never have to worry about tinkering with your portfolio. The only thing you have to do is buy more VT shares over time. VT is an entire global equity portfolio in one simple ETF.

der_physik

Given that you are still very young, you could go 100% VOO or 100% VTI. If I was in your position and assuming I was just starting, I would go 100% VOO while I learn more about investing.

Mr_Anderson_x

Opportunity cost is the downside. VOO and VTI are probably the "best" idea for long-term safe growth. But you can make more money with other, more risky strategies. I prefer the boring long-game because I don't have time to play/learn the riskier trading game.

Gimme_All_The_Foods

No need to split. Their performance is very similar so just pick one. I opt for VTI it doesn't matter too much. See here: https://testfol.io/?s=cbD4nV4aBr9

masalamedicine

VOO is included in VTI. Think of it as VTI = VOO(~70%) + mid cap(~15%) + small cap(~15%). You can but don't need to do a 50/50 split.

masalamedicine

VOO is included in VTI. VTI = VOO(~70%) + mid cap(~15%) + small cap(~15%).

O-3_Howling_Mad

No, I hold similar allocations within all of my retirement accounts sans my current 401K which only offers VTI. I've maxed my accounts for years and should eclipse $1.5M, in totality, if I can average 6% this year. Definitely no selling here!

O-3_Howling_Mad

>What's your specific conviction that mega-cap non-financials (QQQM) will out-perform the greater US the market (VTI) over your investment time frame? Honestly this is a bit outside of what I'm looking to gain input on. I don't have a crystal ball, but I can stomach the volatility and have certainly appreciated the last 10 or so years of increased gain. My concern is primarily stemming from VGT's significant Nvidia holdings. I'm thinking QQQM can accomplish the same goal, while reducing volatility specific to Nvidia. On the contrary, it could also hinder future growth, but I'm not sure how much higher it can go.

DiegoMilan

In time, everyone learns that all roads lead back to either VOO, VTI, VT or their mutual fund equivalents.

PuffyPanda200

By only going with VOO and VTI you are not getting international exposure. Boeing, Airbus, and Embraer dominate the global aircraft industry. Ge aerospace, P&W, RR, and Safran dominate the aircraft engine industry. By going for only us stocks you do make a choice that the US companies will be the only ones that you are exposed to. Granted if you had to choose one market I would choose the US one. Personally I like investing and rebalancing my portfolio. I basically do an S&P 500 blend and then add in international non-financial companies as they would be if they were part of the S&P 500. This is a lot more work than just doing SP500.