Would appreciate any advice you guys have about my portfolio.  I'm 39, so I'm about 20 to 25 years away from retirement and my goal is long term aggressive growth.  I have a high tolerance for risk with my time horizon but would like to know if you guys think I am assuming too much risk with my current spread.

CGM Focus         CGMFX  21.9%

Fairholme             FAIRX    13.4%

Harbor International      HIINX    6.8%

T Rowe Price Emerging Markets    PRMSX  9.9%

T Rowe Price New Asia        PRASX  6.1%

T Rowe Price New Era            PRNEX  7.7%

Vanguard Small Cap Index      NAESX  23.9% 

Large Cap Individual Stocks   10.4% 

Would appreciate any advice you might have.

Thanks

BUBEAR 

You really have alot in foreign, in my opinion.  I just xrayed CGMFX and FAIRX and found quite a bit of int'l, then you have another ~ 25% foreign in the other funds. 
The lack of bonds is probably not a great idea either. 
Having 22% in a fund as potentially volatile as CGMFX is risky.
You said you wanted an aggressive portfolio, and you certainly have one.  And at age 39, you might want to rethink the assumption of working another 20-25 years.  That might be a stretch.

Theses are just my quick thoughts, and I am far from an expert, but I suspect most folks here will agree with my observations.  If you can stomach the volatility and risk of such a portfolio, more  power to you.

Big Steve

I agree: you have a lot of international exposure. I personally feel comfortable with about 15- 20 % with 5% emerging markets. I take a very simple approach. A nice Large Cap blend (50 - 60%) with 20% bonds and the above foreign exposure. Index if you can.

someone else commented about the large % intl,  which I don't have a problem with in current conditions, +1or2 yrs.  I'm 70% intl.  78% of the world market is outside the US, Fido stat.

I have some concerns about having 20% in any single fund.  As you may know there are some long discussions on cmg funds on this board.  I don't own any, so I can't comment there.  Maybe I should buy some..  I don't hold any more than 10 % in a single fund.  I may hold more on a market region, such as latin am,  holding prlax and flatx, I do watch for overlap in these conditions.

I would look to gain exposure in bric countries, namely russia, mid east right now.  I graph my holdings (via fido big charts) daily, and the shape of the russia charts is definately different than the others.  and eurox, letrx has been consistenly 30+% for 5 yrs now..

You are young, so don't get emotional if there are big short drops, 1 or 2 days down, because there are big gain days as well.  Stay passionate about your investements, meaning watch them like a hawk.  Compare them against their peers in the same investment grouping.  If they go from top 10% as compared to peers to the bottom 80 % peer rating,  then get out!

adapt to 'follow the money', look for markets that are always the top short term returns and see if you have exposure in these areas.  If not, then why?  I don't jump to every hot market, but I do try to understand why they are hot,  such as gold this past yr.

If you are in the better funds, top 20%, then you'll do good.  Make sure you are in funds that don't correlate, you'll come out ahead with less risk, another fido stat.

Have fun!

Kerryvan,

Please tell us how to get to "Fido Big Charts" assuming you have an account at Fido. My search at Fido site on "Big Charts" got nowhere. Thanks in advance. KM

the bigcharts are the charts in the portfolioResearch tab.  If you notice closely all the graphs are provided by bigcharts.  you can select the timeframe at the top of the screen.  It will plot a chart for every holding you have all on the same page if you scroll.

I look at the shape of the chart, to sse how they are over time to see if they are very correlated.  probably not the best way, but it does show differences.  or you can go to the site bigcharts dot com,  I don't know if you can plot them all at once, never tried.

Kerry,

Thanks! Since the Fido site is in "maintenance" mode at this point (Saturday night), I shall try tomorrow morning to find out. BTW, I do occationally use BigChart.com to compare NAV changes. I don't believe BigCharts.com's charts reflect dividend/distribution but pure NAVs. Thanks again. KM

OP, I didn't mean to deviate from your original subject.

[quote user="ignatz"]Hmmm. Your holdings add up to 76.2%, so it's a little tough to comment.[/quote]

My apologies.  In my haste to post I forgot my Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund.  I have fixed it now.

You really have alot in foreign, in my opinion.  I just xrayed CGMFX and FAIRX and found quite a bit of int'l, then you have another ~ 25% foreign in the other funds. 
The lack of bonds is probably not a great idea either. 
Having 22% in a fund as potentially volatile as CGMFX is risky.
You said you wanted an aggressive portfolio, and you certainly have one.  And at age 39, you might want to rethink the assumption of working another 20-25 years.  That might be a stretch.

Theses are just my quick thoughts, and I am far from an expert, but I suspect most folks here will agree with my observations.  If you can stomach the volatility and risk of such a portfolio, more  power to you.

Big Steve

[/quote]

Steve I really appreciate the advice.  I'll look to back off my position on CGMFX.  

I'm intrigued by one comment you made though.  How would you know that it was a stretch on my retirment target unless you knew how much money I had already saved for retirement?  Between an IRA rollover and 2 401K's, my wife and I have been saving since we were 24.

Thanks

BUBEAR 

I'd disregard the % in foreign comment,  but I'm 70+% foreign until the dollar, US market and elections settle down.  Euros will be dropping as well..

Congrats on your ability to save.  I'm younger than your retirement age target, and comtemplating retiring.  My issue is how much is enuff?  Our current spend rate is low and based on the retirement calculators I should do okay..  I trust them as much as I trust investment advisors...  So I'll have fun working for a while.

Just invest in the best of the best, and smile when you can retire...

someone else commented about the large % intl,  which I don't have a problem with in current conditions, +1or2 yrs.  I'm 70% intl.  78% of the world market is outside the US, Fido stat.

I have some concerns about having 20% in any single fund.  As you may know there are some long discussions on cmg funds on this board.  I don't own any, so I can't comment there.  Maybe I should buy some..  I don't hold any more than 10 % in a single fund.  I may hold more on a market region, such as latin am,  holding prlax and flatx, I do watch for overlap in these conditions.

I would look to gain exposure in bric countries, namely russia, mid east right now.  I graph my holdings (via fido big charts) daily, and the shape of the russia charts is definately different than the others.  and eurox, letrx has been consistenly 30+% for 5 yrs now..

You are young, so don't get emotional if there are big short drops, 1 or 2 days down, because there are big gain days as well.  Stay passionate about your investements, meaning watch them like a hawk.  Compare them against their peers in the same investment grouping.  If they go from top 10% as compared to peers to the bottom 80 % peer rating,  then get out!

adapt to 'follow the money', look for markets that are always the top short term returns and see if you have exposure in these areas.  If not, then why?  I don't jump to every hot market, but I do try to understand why they are hot,  such as gold this past yr.

If you are in the better funds, top 20%, then you'll do good.  Make sure you are in funds that don't correlate, you'll come out ahead with less risk, another fido stat.

Have fun!

[/quote]

Kerry,

Thanks for the great advice.  Do you think that EUROX and LETRX have seen all of the gains they are going to see and will start falling off?  I know you can't predict the future but I keep hearing this statement about Chinese Emerging Markets Funds and I don't know what to believe.

Secondly, what do you mean by making sure I am in funds that don't correlate?  I am not familiar with that principle. 

Thanks

BUBEAR 

I've noticed since the BRIC meeting last week,  more news being positive on russia.  I googled it in the past few days and discovered some pension funds investing there.  I think that is why Tramx, femex opened in the past 9 months.

For a track record I'd go with eurox, letrx, mpymx..  although the reason I jumped into femex is for the initial pop the first couple yrs...

 gotta run,  will say more later

correlation, great question, I don't have a good answer.  I've been searching for a quantitative way to measure this on a global basis.  It is easy against an index, but europe has it's own index, Asia likewise, then currency differences...  I found an etf site that is looking at correlation of 20+ etf's across the globe.  too early to tell.

So being the simple minded person that I am,  I use the charts of my funds on the Fido page. portfolio research tab.  The are NAV charts, hence any distributions are not captured.. except for the big drop in nav in dec...LOL..

I look at the shape of the charts, are they the same?  If so, then there is a strong correlation.  If they have different shapes, then they are weakly correlated.  for example, the dollar dropping, gold rising.

I want to be in assets that don't always track together.  I want to be in assets that are not flat lined for periods of time, such as Japan.  Japan and US didn't track the past couple yrs, and Japan was flat.  At some point, Japan may take off, that is why I still follow it daily.

Russia has started changing, so I google'd it and discovered many pension funds are investing there now, (buy funds).  India has been flat lined for a while,  it is in wait and see mode for me  (hold funds).

US is in a mess, and a number of people are afraid of emerging markets due to unsafe accounting.. can you say enron, housing bail out, banking bail out?  my guess better funds at 10% return for 2008.

euro is in trouble, so as it drops, dividends will be less and exchange rate will hurt on the return.  thus leaving the growth countries, that have dropped their forecast down a couple %,  now at 10-12% for the yr.

correlation, great question, I don't have a good answer.  I've been searching for a quantitative way to measure this on a global basis.  It is easy against an index, but europe has it's own index, Asia likewise, then currency differences...  I found an etf site that is looking at correlation of 20+ etf's across the globe.  too early to tell.

So being the simple minded person that I am,  I use the charts of my funds on the Fido page. portfolio research tab.  The are NAV charts, hence any distributions are not captured.. except for the big drop in nav in dec...LOL..

I look at the shape of the charts, are they the same?  If so, then there is a strong correlation.  If they have different shapes, then they are weakly correlated.  for example, the dollar dropping, gold rising.

I want to be in assets that don't always track together.  I want to be in assets that are not flat lined for periods of time, such as Japan.  Japan and US didn't track the past couple yrs, and Japan was flat.  At some point, Japan may take off, that is why I still follow it daily.

Russia has started changing, so I google'd it and discovered many pension funds are investing there now, (buy funds).  India has been flat lined for a while,  it is in wait and see mode for me  (hold funds).

US is in a mess, and a number of people are afraid of emerging markets due to unsafe accounting.. can you say enron, housing bail out, banking bail out?  my guess better funds at 10% return for 2008.

euro is in trouble, so as it drops, dividends will be less and exchange rate will hurt on the return.  thus leaving the growth countries, that have dropped their forecast down a couple %,  now at 10-12% for the yr.