Response To Agile's Model ETF Portfolios (ETFs: DVY, EFA, EWA, EWU, PEY, SDY, VPL)

Roger Nusbaum submits: In response to the model portfolios submitted here by Agile Investing's J.D. Steinhilber -- I believe no all-ETF portfolio can cover all the bases. It can probably cover most of them, but not all.

Agile’s portfolios have plenty of foreign but is heavily tilted toward Japan. EFA has 23% Japan and VPL has 74% Japan. The way the numbers work out the conservative portfolio has 15% of its equity exposure in Japan, about 12% of the moderate is in Japan and 11% of the aggressive. These weights are not heavy compared to the MSCI World Index but might be heavy given that Japan has doubled in the last couple of years.

There is also not much yield. I did not plug it into Morningstar to calculate but I can tell it will be low.

The investment-product world (notice I am taking it beyond ETFs) has a lot of very innovative tools that allow investors to capture many different themes, more than what is being captured here.

As an example, PowerShares has a lot of innovative products. Any of the Dividend ETFs [Editor: DVY, PEY, SDY] might be a better way to capture the financial and utility sectors. IShares Australia (EWA), which is a personal holding, can be a good way to capture financials and materials or iShares UK (EWU) can be a good way to capture energy and financials. Both yield more than 3%.

The point here is that do-it-yourselfers can capture some very narrow themes without having to be stock pickers. Obviously anyone willing to do a little stock picking can capture even narrower themes, like Norway which has been a favorite of mine for over a year.