My 13.65 Basis Point ETF Portfolio

By Matthew Hougan

I'm reporting live from the Inside ETFs conference in Boca Raton, Florida, which is off to a great start.

We have nearly 500 people in attendance—up significantly from last year's event—and it's a lively crowd. I sat on the "ETFs 101" panel yesterday with Steve Sachs (Rydex), Tom Lydon (ETF Trends) and Barry Rabinowitz (an independent financial advisor). We had planned to spend two hours walking people through the basics of ETFs, talking about their structural advantages over competing products, the creation/redemption mechanism, etc.

But 10 minutes in, the audience jumped in with questions... and they were great questions. We had to cut things off after two hours, but I think we could have talked for five or six hours if we had had time. People are hungry for information, and they are very, very interested in how ETFs can help them deliver better returns to clients.

During the talk, we spent a lot of time talking about how ETFs tend to be cheaper than competing mutual funds. To illustrate this, I brought up my 13.65 basis point portfolio: Looking at management fees, it is the lowest-cost portfolio you can build for a retail investor that offers diversified exposure to the market, including U.S., international and emerging markets equities, as well as bonds, commodities and real estate. It holds six ETFs and has a net expense ratio of just 13.65 basis points, or 0.1365%. That compares to a fee of 1.40% for the average actively managed U.S. equity mutual funds.

I got a lot of questions from the audience about this portfolio, so I've decided to post it here. It's designed for a young investor (like myself) with a long-term investment horizon. The weights would be very different for different investors.

For those of you who have been following this portfolio for some time, you'll notice that it has slimmed down from seven to six ETFs. I used to include both the Vanguard Europe (VGK) and Vanguard Pacific (VPL) ETFs; those are now replaced with the Vanguard Europe Pacific ETF (VEA). This change has had no impact on the expense ratio.

Asset Class	Weight	Fund	Ticker	ER
U.S. Stocks	40%	Vanguard Total Market	VTI	0.07%
Developed Markets Stocks	30%	Vanguard Europe Pacific	VEA	0.12%
Emerging Markets	5%	Vanguard Emerging Markets	VWO	0.25%
Fixed Income	15%	Vanguard Total Bond Market	BND	0.11%
REITs	5%	Vanguard REIT	VNQ	0.12%
Commodities	5%	iPath Dow Jones AIG Commodity ETN	DJP	0.75%
Blended Expense Ratio	0.1365%

A Few Notes

A few caveats are in order.

First, the choice of the commodities ETF or ETN is a topic for debate. There are a wide variety of commodity ETFs and ETNs that charge the same 0.75% management fee. Choosing between them is not easy, as they offer very different exposures to the market.

In a taxable account, ETNs may have a slight advantage, as under current law, the IRS provides them with more favorable tax treatment than commodity-focused ETFs; specifically, they can qualify for long-term capital gains just like an equity ETF, whereas commodity ETFs are treated as commodity funds, which require you to pay taxes on any gains on an annual basis and subjects those gains to a 60/40 long/short tax treatment. That could change at some point in the future, but for now, it's the case.

Second, as I've said before: I'm not recommending this as the right portfolio for anyone, and I'm not saying that these are the best ETFs in their respective asset classes (although many of them are great funds). Still, the portfolio makes an important point: You can buy a diversified core portfolio that includes everything from emerging markets stocks to commodities futures for a combined expense ratio of just 13.65 basis points. That's amazing. And it is a testament to the benefits ETFs bring to investors.

Comments

[Hefaistos:]

Children should be taught this in high school!

Jan 13 08:10 AM

[Allah:]

awesome, low fees and high losses!

Jan 13 10:13 AM

[k9s-4-k8:]

Better than high fees and high losses.


On Jan 13 10:13 AM Allah wrote:

> awesome, low fees and high losses!

Jan 13 02:11 PM

[Chris B:]

Overall a good looking no-maintenance portfolio, but the commodity ETN duplicates the exposure already found in the equities, has the highest ER (0.75%) of them all, and exposes one to counterparty risk in the derivitives market. I might toss it, as this duplication biases the portfolio towards yesterday's winner, even after recent losses in commodities.

For modest inflation protection, buy TIP - a screaming long-term bargain now that the market is priced for 10 years of deflation. Otherwise, I might reallocate that 5% to BND, VNQ, or a Latin American ETF.

Also, does this portfolio have a cash position?

Jan 13 05:15 PM

[donzelion:]

Low fees, high losses in 2008...but high fees lead to greater losses over time. I'm not a fan of wealth redistribution - particularly not redistributing it to someone who proceeds to lose it for me (I can do that on my own, thank you very much).

That said, maybe the "couch potato" plans can be improved by:
(1) Placing limit orders on price when buying the ETFs so that you only pick them up at a substantial discount (try that with a mutual fund...)
(2) Placing limit orders on price after obtaining the ETF (sell it whenever it earns more than 20%)
(3) Placing stop loss orders on each ETF (sell it whenever it drops more than 10%)
(4) Adjust the spread (for limit orders and stop loss orders) to keep a target portion of your money in cash at all times

The strategy will miss some big market moves - but we're talking about ETFs here, not stocks. Individual stocks usually rise or fall 10-30% over the course of a year...ETFs shouldn't be so volatile (and you should wind up with a large number of stop loss/buy orders that never hit).

Jan 14 04:13 AM