setting up a Roth with 5k

Keiye wrote on [Wed, 20 Jun 2007 11:21:00 -0500]:

Assuming your are over 50 I think it is, and eligible to put $5K into your Roth, you can either find a single fund that you are happy with, or use something like a Target date retirement fund that does all the asset allocation you want, if that's what you want to do.

You can simply buy $5000 of SPY or VTI and guarantee yourself broad diversification, low expenses, and market performance. Joe W.

If the OP is old enough (50+) to qualify to put in $5K per year into his Roth, instead of the normal $4K limit, he's probably old enough that his retirement assets shouldn't be invested 100% in equities. One of the target retirement funds or a balanced fund would be a better alternative.

Personally, if I were starting all over again from scratch, I'd open an account at Oakmark rather than Vanguard and put $4K into OAKBX and $1K into OAKIX. But that's just me. :-)

-Sandra the cynic

Their LifeStrategy and their Target Retirement funds offer a wide variety of asset allocations. Choose one which has an allocation you like. The minimums are only $3000 and all you should need is one. (In addition to those two series of funds, there is also the Star fund with only a $1000 min and a Balanced Index).

You can't afford to do asset allocation by hand with individual funds until you have enough assets that the smallest allocation you need is above the minimum in that fund.

With a Roth, you can pretty freely re-allocate later after you've built up enough assets there for it to be worthwhile, with no tax consequences.

Take a look at Vanguard Balanced Index or Vanguard Asset Allocation. I have both in my core portfolio. The Balanced Index has lower fees, the Asset Allocation tends to perform a bit better. Ya pays ya money and ya takes ya chances, but either one will serve you well.

-- Doug

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I'm at the starting from scratch phase with my Roth. I have an opportunity to finally retire all of our bad stupid debt and fund Roths. I was all set to open a Vanguard online account and fully fund one their low expense index options.

So why Oakmark?

Brief rundown:

Early 40s, $100K+ combined income, 401k's funded up to the match, $145k mortgage with limited equity.

Honestly I'm looking for a fund it and forget it solution. I have up to the $8K max required to fund both funds.

Any suggestion?

BAJ

I did say, that's just me. :-) I generally feel better investing my money in actively-managed value funds with relatively compact portfolios, than index funds. Oakmark has the reputation of being an ethical and shareholder-friendly company, and they publish really good manager reports and market commentary every quarter. I even like to read the commentary about the funds I don't own. Right now, in fact, I only own OAKIX; I somewhat reluctantly sold my OAKBX which I held in an old 401(k) account when I did a rollover and Roth conversion on that money, but only because I felt that holding a balanced fund no longer made sense in my overall asset allocation and tax diversification plan.

Anyway, both OAKIX and OAKBX are among the very best funds in their respective categories. OAKBX, in particular, is one of those funds that seems to churn out steady returns year after year, and that over the long term has out-performed many all-equity funds with far less volatility. It's a great core holding that will let you sleep at night. There aren't too many balanced funds with similar long-term records that are accessible to new investors at all.... DODBX is closed, and VWELX requires a $10K initial investment, for instance. And PRWCX has recently undergone a manager change and it's not clear whether the new team will live up to the old one.

-Sandra the cynic