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Possibly by this afternoon, if it stays quiet here, I’ll have our new portfolio.
Well, of course, I shouldn’t have written that qualifying statement in there. Because it just tempted the universe to fill the rest of my day right after I posted it… 
C’est la vie. Even though I was thrown off task a bit, people came in with a handful of interesting problems so I wasn’t bothered by the interruption.
After everyone went to bed Friday night, I had more than enough time to do the research I wanted anyway. And the decisions are in for this round of rebalancing. By tomorrow everything should be where I want it:
- Put in all sell orders today.
- Wait until market close for them to execute (mutual funds, so no instant trading).
- Put in buy orders today after the sells have cleared
- Buys get executed Tuesday morning
It’s not like I’m in a huge hurry to do the trades, but that delay in #2 is one minor reason why this round I’ve decided to shift quite a bit out of mutual funds and into ETFs. Well, that, and the lowered fees in most ETFs compared to their mutual fund counterparts (if there is one). Oh, and the fact that no-load mutual fund transactions have went from free to $9.95 while stock trades remain $6.95 where our accounts are held.
So, enough blathering. How about the meat already? The breakdown, largest allocation to smallest:
| Class | Security | %age |
| US Large Cap | DODGX | 22% |
| US Micro Cap | PZI | 18% |
| Int’l Small Cap | DLS | 16% |
| Emerging Market | EEM | 12% |
| US Small Cap | EES | 9% |
| US Small Cap Value | DES | 9% |
| Int’l Large Cap Value | DODFX | 9% |
| US Real Estate | RWR | 2.5% |
| Int’l Real Estate | RWX | 2.5% |
I will incur a bit more in transaction costs this time around versus the last time I did this. In fact, they will be infinitely more, since last time I don’t believe I had any transaction costs. Unfortunately, as I said before, Firstrade’s free mutual fund trades recently disappeared. The total was still less than $100, so not crushing or anything. But it would certainly eat into any gains if I had to do this often.
If you notice, I have quite a bit invested in one company’s ETFs: WisdomTree. I recently stumbled across the WisdomTree indexes. I was always slightly uncomfortable with cap weighted indexes, for the very reason these ETFs were created: in a ‘normal’ index overvalued companies tend to get overweighted, while undervalued ones get underweighted. Despite almost no history, I like the idea, and I’m going to give them a run.
As to the overall allocation, it probably looks a little risk-heavy to some. I have no need to invest these funds conservatively - I’m perfectly comfortable with the risk, and have many years before I intend to tap these accounts. Some day I may consider a bond fund like DODIX in there for diversification reasons, but I’ve never been all that attracted to bonds. I’m not that old yet…
