Tuesday, May 20, 2008

As The Government Deficit Keeps Rising...

In a letter written to congressman Paul Ryan, CBO concluded that
The United States faces serious long-run budgetary challenges. If action is not taken to curb the projected growth of budget deficits in coming decades, the economy will eventually suffer serious damage. The issue facing policymakers is not whether to address rising deficits, but when and how to address them. At some point, policymakers will have to increase taxes, reduce spending, or both.
This gives another reason why one should consider a Roth IRA rather than a traditional one. But as the deficit keeps climbing up, we may have a much gloomier future as put by the CBO in the letter,
If foreign investors began to expect a crisis, they might significantly reduce their purchases of U.S. securities, causing the exchange value of the dollar to plunge, interest rates to climb, consumer prices to shoot up, and the economy to contract sharply. Amid the anticipation of declining profits and rising inflation and interest rates, stock prices might fall and consumers might sharply reduce their purchases. In such circumstances, the economic problems in this country would probably spill over to the rest of the world and seriously weaken the economies of the United States’ trading partners.
This makes me wonder whether it would be wise to put my money in the U.S. stock market at all. But we knew the inflation is going to shoot up, and putting money in the market seems to be a good if not the only way to provide an aegis. Maybe a good solution would be to quit my job and live on the money I saved up so far, and at the mean time, really concentrate on personal investment such as studying Economics, and that will certainly get you a job when the Economy goes bad in the future. Well, maybe not. But the idea of personal investment rather than monetary investment should be right.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Portfolio Allocation for My Roth IRA

When it comes to Roth IRA, I want to make sure not to over diversify. This means having as few accounts as possible and as few funds as possible. If two funds can meet your asset mix target, don't go for an extra third. Since I'm looking at a 30 year investment span for my Roth IRA, I'd also want to set up the account with a fund company directly to avoid the commissions charged by brokerages. This requires me to pick a good fund company that has several good cheap funds that can satisfy my asset mix target. Vanguard is the first that comes to my mind. Their funds are relatively inexpensive. And they don't charge nothing. Not even a custodian fee. But I didn't choose Vanguard at the end because most of their funds require a $3,000 initial investment, which means for the year 2008, with the $5,000 contribution limit, I can only purchase one fund. This will not meet my target. Then I discovered Dodge & Cox. After reading everything from their website and talking to one of their people on the phone, I decided go with them. I think their funds' expense are reasonable, the way they do business is clear, and their management team are serious investors. Though they only have 4 funds, I can use 3 of them to meet my asset mix target. They are rolling out an international fund in April or May as well, so one more option for the future to choose. Their minimum initial investment is $1,000 per fund. The only less perfect thing is that they charge a $12.50 per customer (not per fund) maintenance fee every year. But I still think Dodge & Cox will serve me better in the long run comparing with Vanguard. (Vanguard will take me at least 3 years to meet my asset mix target). Here is my final portfolio with them:

1st Level
Target D&C

U.S. Stocks 50.0% 50.0%

Foreign Stocks 40.0% 39.9%

Bonds/Cash/Others 10.0% 10.2%

Total 100.0% 100.1%




2nd level_full Giant/Large 80.0% 89.0%

Mid 20.0% 10.7%

Small/Micro 0.0% 0.3%

Total 100.0% 100.0%








2nd level_non Foreign Giant/Large 60.0% 62.4%

Mid 20.0% 6.5%

Small/Micro 0.0% 0.1%

Total 80.0% 69.0%

Friday, February 22, 2008

Asset Allocation for My Roth IRA

After I'm done with asset allocation for my 401k, I move on to Roth IRA. I decide to max out the its contribution limit ($5,000 for year 2008) as well. Since I'm not limited to pick from a few costly but mediocre performing funds like in the case of my company 401k, and my 401k is really a conservative approach, I can afford to be more aggressive for my Roth IRA. I set the mix target via the following aggressive-conservative-conservative levels:

1st Level
Target

U.S. Stocks 50%

Foreign Stocks 40%

Bonds/Cash/Others 10%

Total 100%

2nd level Giant/Large 80%

Mid 20%

Small/Micro 0%

Total 100%

3nd level_non foreign Giant/Large 60%

Mid 20%

Small/Micro 0%

Total 80%

Like my 401k, when I do my contribution allocation, I will follow the above target in the level-ordering fashion because I think the first level has most dominant power on my portfolio. To avoid things going wild, I have to hedge the risk involved in the second and third level significantly by allowing only 20% exposure to the mid/small caps.

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