This is just a quick note to point out a useful tool that I ran across while researching our ideal asset allocation. Simply head over to Adviser Online’s Fund Correlation Tool and you can easily determine the correlation between any pair of Vanguard mutual funds. [more]

Update: Click through for a summary of the best online brokers.

Time for another quick, informal poll.

In the past I’ve asked about your favorite credit cards and your favorite online banks. This time I’d like to find out about your favorite online brokers. So…

What’s your favorite online brokerage, and why?

Please leave a comment, below…

A few weeks ago I wrote about the fact that we’ve been reconsidering our asset allocation. In the comments following that article, a commenter named Kurt suggested that I check out Vanguard’s Portfolio Watch feature for analyzing our portfolio. I hadn’t heard of Portfolio Watch, so I decided to investigate.

As I’ve noted in the past, we have a relatively complex portfolio, with multiple retirement accounts, two Roth IRAs, and a taxable investment account. This adds up to seven accounts held at three different institutions (Vanguard, Fidelity, and TIAA-CREF). Despite the complexity of our situation, Portfolio Watch does a fantastic job of simplifying things.

The good news is that Portfolio Watch can easily pull in data from non-Vanguard accounts and then slice and dice your holdings in a variety of different ways. Given how useful this feature is, I thought I’d put together a little tour of what it has to offer. [more]

This is just a quick note to let you know that Upromise is currently offering a $10 bonus for creating and activating your new account (it’s free!). In case you’re not familiar with Upromise, it’s a college savings program that allows you to earn cash rewards on your everyday purchases. [more]

A few weeks ago I wrote about the fact that, in the world of investing, past performance does not predict future returns. As a followup to this, I wanted to share a set of quotes relating to this topic that I ran across in The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing…

“There is simply no way under the sun to forecast a fund’s future return based on its past record.”

John Bogle, Founder of The Vanguard Group

“Top performance lists are dangerous.”

American Association of Individual Investors

“For the 20 years from 1970 to 1989, the best performing stock assets were Japanese stocks, U.S. small stocks, and gold stocks. These turned out to be the worst performing assets over the next decade.”

William Bernstein, Author of The Four Pillars of Investing

“Fund rankings are meaningless when based on past performance, as most are.”

Jack Brennan, CEO of Vanguard

“Buying funds based purely on their past performance is one of the stupidest things an investor can do.”

Jason Zweig, Money Magazine

If you liked these quotes, be sure to check out “Investment Insights: Timing the Stock Market” and “Investment Insights: Staying the Course.”

As a followup to my collection of quotes on stock market timing, here’s another set of quote on the importance of developing an investing plan and staying the course. Once again these quotes are brought to you courtesy of The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing… [more]

As I noted the other day, we’ve been reconsidering our asset allocation. Setting aside the finer details of how much we want in which type of investment, we also need to get a handle on how to structure our holdings across accounts.

The problem

Our situation is perhaps more complex than that of the average family, in that we have seven different investment accounts of various flavors. This includes two Roth IRAs, a SEP-IRA, a 403(b), a 457(b), another work-related retirement account, and a taxable investment account.

Unfortunately, we can’t consolidate any of these accounts (at least not until I leave my current job) so we’re stuck with the complexity. Nonetheless, I’m committed to treating the whole ball of wax as a single pot of money for allocation purposes. After struggling with how best to manage things, I finally had an epiphany. [more]

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a new book called The Middle-Class Millionaire. That post generated a good bit of discussion and, not long after publishing it, I was contacted by Lewis Schiff, who is one of the authors of the book.

Lewis graciously offered to field questions from readers, and a good number of took him up on his offer. What follows is a series of burning questions (and answers!) about Middle-Class Millionaires (MCMs)… [more]

With all the stock market turmoil, I thought I’d share some investing quotes that I ran across when reading The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing. The general topic is “market timing” – i.e., the practice of jumping in and out of the market, trying to buy in at the low points and sell out at the high points. There are (in my opinion) some real pearls of wisdom in here. [more]

Over the past few months, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to our investment mix. We’re now maxing out our available retirement options, so we’ve turned our attention to investing in a taxable account. This brings up a number of issues related to both asset allocation and asset location. While we need to maintain a reasonable overall asset allocation, we also need to be careful to maintain tax efficiency in our taxable account.

Yesterday I finally decided to slice and dice our various accounts to figure out exactly where we stand with regard to asset allocation. For starters, my wife and I both have Roth IRAs with Vanguard, though we’re not currently eligible to make contributions. I also have a SEP-IRA and a 403(b) at Vanguard, as well as a 457(b) at TIAA-CREF, and another work-related retirement account at Fidelity. Finally, our taxable account is at Vanguard. [more]