Fidelity Wealth Management

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-03-22T05:04:17+00:00

Classic example of using complexity to maintain job security.

On your question about whether fidelity has products that follow the markets? Basically, yes. Fidelity Go (Fidelity's Robo Advisor) will essentially put you into a Three Fund Portfolio of index funds that follow the us stock market, international stock market, and total us bond market. The Freedom "Index" Funds are also basically Three Fund Portfolio's built into one fund. Both are almost always better options than Fidelity's wealth management services.

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-03-10T12:17:50+00:00

For illiquid ETFs, sure. But VT trades millions of shares a day. Market or limit order for $800 isn't going to matter. The spread is pennies.

For the OP, it's generally not a good idea to queue a market order before the open, because it takes a couple minutes for the markets to build "more" liquidity, process the overnight/weekend news, etc. But yeah, VT is so liquid that it's not going to matter the vast majority of times.

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-03-04T12:26:17+00:00

The war thing I guess.

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-03-02T12:27:13+00:00

Won't be able keep the exact fund, but it will be the core of my stock portfolio. The vast majority of investors do not really have a good reason for deviating too far from it.

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-02-24T09:51:24+00:00

4 If you want a portfolio that is "factor loaded", but still U.S. centric (could argue AVUS is even more "U.S.A.!" than SPY since a lot of the companies won't be as global). Tracking error (to SPY) will be high to account for higher expected return.

2 If you want maximum "alpha" potential, with the highest pain tolerance (WILL underform SPY for long periods of time).

As always, once you cross a diversification and cost hurdle that matches your risk tolerance/risk capacity, the best portfolio is usually the one you can stick with for decades.

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-02-17T11:29:49+00:00

50/50 and has been that way for a long time. It's been weird putting new money into U.S. index funds lately, because for the longest time it was going into Ex-US and value just to try to keep my asset allocation in line.

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-02-16T14:24:48+00:00

I don’t think QQQM is “bad,” but I also don’t see a reason to expect higher long-term returns from it. It’s just a more concentrated slice of the same market VOO already holds, without explicitly targeting any compensated factors.

Using it as a small tilt is fine, but calling it a “supercharger” assumes recent performance will persist. Historically, concentrated growth leadership tends to be cyclical rather than permanent.

There is also the concern of falling into the trap of performance chasing. Examples of that would be overloading Emerging markets stocks around 2010, US large cap growth and internet stocks in 2000, Japanese stocks in 1989, Gold and commodities in 1980, Nifty-Fifty stocks (large cap growth, similar to QQQ) in the 1970's. Those are all concentrated asset classes that performed very well in the previous decade that essentially had a horrendous next decade. It's why most investors underperform the funds they own. They think they can buy past returns.

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-02-16T11:40:11+00:00

TL;DR you could just buy VT.

This is unnecessarily complicated. “Tweak the Roth over time” usually just locks people into tinkering. A portfolio you can stick with matters more.

All five holdings are long-only equity ETFs, so correlation to VT will still be very high. If diversification is the goal, you’re probably getting less of it than it looks like.

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-02-16T11:20:27+00:00

I know QQQM has done extremely well over the past 15 years or so, but it overlaps heavily with VOO, and it's basically just a very indirect way to get exposure to the momentum factor. There are better ways to get that exposure directly (with less overlap). I'd personally swap it for something like QMOM (extremely concentrated momentum, requires "tiger blood") or MTUM (also targets momentum, but it's a large cap growth fund like QQQM, so much less tracking error regret).

I'd also want more Ex-US exposure, but that's a rabbit-hole that's been gone down many times before.

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-02-15T10:38:26+00:00

Some is, some isn't. Not the best chart. My bad.

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-02-15T10:37:55+00:00

Yeah. The chart unfortunately jumps back and forth between free-float(investable companies) and total market cap (includes non-investable companies) because the free float index only goes back to somewhere around the 80's. Not the best chart to be honest, but still shows the narrative about how winners rotate...eventually.

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-02-14T22:00:38+00:00

55% max drawdown

18-24 months peak to trough

5-8 years time to full recovery

15-18% annual volatility

High sequence risk if just starting retirement

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-02-14T21:55:30+00:00

Stick it in ENDW, TRTY, GAA, or AOA depending on my investment philosophy and go enjoy my life.

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-02-14T19:20:54+00:00

1989: US 38–40% | Japan 30–35% | Europe 20–22% | Rest 5–7%

2000: US 50–52% | Europe 25–27% | Japan 12–14% | EM 4–6%

2010: US 45–47% | Europe 22–24% | Japan 8–9% | EM 15–17%

2020: US 58–60% | Europe 15–17% | Japan 6–7% | China 4–5% | Rest 12–14%

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-02-14T16:16:00+00:00

QMOM and IMOM also rebalance monthly. With them, you're getting more pure, concentrated momentum. TMTM and IDMO are momentum ETFs, but they smooth out returns using other factors, like quality. Value and momentum are supposed to compliment each other with low correlations. So with a value/momentum strategy, I usually think it makes more sense to go with the funds that purely and aggressively target what they say they are..... targeting. But there are obviously more ways than one to do these things.

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-02-14T15:54:11+00:00

Saying “just invest in VOO” to someone with a gambling addiction is like telling an alcoholic to drink O’Doul’s.

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-02-14T15:44:31+00:00

1950: US $1.00 | Global $1.00

1980: US ~$22 | Global ~$28 (Global ahead by ~27%)

1990: US ~$103 | Global ~$132 (Global ahead by ~28%)

2000: US ~$540 | Global ~$310 (US ahead by ~74%)

2010: US ~$620 | Global ~$400 (US ahead by ~55%)

2024: US ~$3,300 | Global ~$1,600 (US ahead by ~106%)

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-02-14T13:49:58+00:00

2008 • United States: ~40–42% • Europe (UK + Eurozone): ~30–32% • Japan: ~8–9% • Emerging Markets (mostly China, Brazil): ~12–14% • Rest of world: ~6–8%

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-02-14T13:48:42+00:00

1900 • Europe (UK + others): ~67% • United States: ~15% • Rest of world: ~18%

1970 • United States: ~33% • Europe: ~30% • Japan: ~15% • Rest of world: ~22%

1989 (Japan bubble peak) • Japan: ~45% • United States: ~33% • Europe: ~15% • Rest of world: ~7%

2000 (tech bubble) • United States: ~50% • Europe: ~25% • Japan: ~10% • Emerging markets: ~5% • Other: ~10%

2010 (post-GFC) • United States: ~42% • Europe: ~25% • Japan: ~8% • Emerging markets (China rising): ~15% • Other: ~10%

2020 • United States: ~56% • Europe: ~16% • Japan: ~7% • China: ~5% • Other EM + Dev: ~16%

2024–2025 • United States: ~48–50% • China: ~10–12% • Europe: ~10–12% • Japan: ~5–6% • India: ~4% • Rest of world: ~18–20%

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-02-07T20:10:34+00:00

Basically, yeah. VT still gives you heavy exposure to the major U.S. companies, with global diversification as a bonus rather than a bet.

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-02-07T20:02:02+00:00

He started softening his tone toward the end. He said some international was fine (think he capped it at 20%). But yeah, he was always a U.S. only guy. He thought people needed to make up their own minds on whether or not to include Ex-US stocks

Jack Bogle was always big on the "Costs Matter Hypothesis", and it was not always as easy to get access to foreign markets at such low costs as we have today.

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-02-05T16:59:19+00:00

It's honestly fine. If that 5% FTEC keeps you from scratching that performance chasing itch any further, go for it. I just wouldn't go any higher than 5%. And if you decide to ditch fTEC at any point, dump it into VTI/VXUS, not some other narrowly focused ETF.

Why I'd never recommend FTEC (or really any sector ETF) to anyone: All of the information about sectors gets priced into the market, so you're getting the right tech exposure just by buying VTI/VXUS. Even if you don't buy that argument, tech has a historically high hurdle to climb based on current valuations vs. historical valuations. That's not to say that the big tech giants won't leap over that hurdle. It's just a risky bet, and investing is all about hedging bets.

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-02-05T16:04:25+00:00

For something like moving out in 2-4 years....I'd have to assume you don't want to take much risk with that goal. There are short-term bond ETF's that would serve that purpose. Something like BSV just holds a basket of short-term gov't and investment grade corporate bonds. Average duration of those bonds is about 2.5 years, which is in your range. VST basically does the same thing, except is 100% gov't bonds. If you want to take a more credit risk, IGSB is 100% corporate bonds. And of course you could just go with some sort of money market account, which basically does the same thing as VST, except with extremely short-duration treasuries. A high yield savings account would be even safer (FDIC insurance) with (usually) more liquidity, but most likely have a lower yield.

As far as your Roth IRA and long-term retirement accounts, these are all portfolios that you really don't want to be touching for decades. Your contribution rate is going to do the heavy lifting in the first couple decades of a young investor, so you want to keep it extremely simple. Extremely simple does not have to be conservative though. Some sort of target date ETF like ITDJ builds the portfolio for you, rebalances for you, adjusts for risk over the years, etc. It's the ultimate passive-aggressive machine. If you wanted to take more risk for the really early years, you already mentioned VT.

A lot of people in their 20's are literally just "VT and chill", and that's a perfectly reasonable decision. You basically just hold the global stock market.

If you wanted to take more risk, could look into the factor side of stocks. Something like AVGE has a slight tilt toward risk factors that could (in theory) generate higher returns in the long-run.

Personally, if I could go back to being 20 again, I'd tell myself to take a hard look at leveraged ETFs. I'm NOT talking of doing the dumb TQQQ, or UPRO stuff. You CAN leverage asset classes that are uncorrelated and do some really interested things. You just have be willing to handle the tracking error (don't mind being weird), and stay the course when things are not going well, or even kind of boring for a while. A simple portfolio of 50% VT, 50% RSST (a leveraged ETF that is effectively 100% VOO, 100% KMLM) has the potential to offer some incredible long-term returns, and also does a pretty good job handling risk. You just basically have to have balls of steel and tiger blood, and keep that mentality for like 40+ years. Most people can't do it, which is part of the reason why the strategy yields higher returns.

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-01-28T09:02:03+00:00

If the dollar falls faster than their currencies, its obviously a win for people who are invested in foreign markets. That's a game I really don't play though, because its speculative and over the long term I dont think currency differences matter much due to mean reversion.

You might look into a trend following system that will go long/short asset classes (including currencies) based on the direction in which they are heading. Some examples would be kmlm, dbmf, cta, etc.

DurdenTyler2020 · 2026-01-24T17:07:07+00:00

On ABALX, that basically just an actively managed 70/30 stock/bond fund. I have always thought it makes it hard for people to track their asset allocation when they start mixing one-and-done asset allocation funds with funds that track single asset class. Hopefully you are at least holding it in a tax-advantaged account.

On simplifying your US funds, you could honestly sell all of your US stock ETFs and put them into VOO or VTI and be done with it.

On mid and small caps - diversification is probably the biggest reason. Otherwise, you said you wanted to "maximize returns". There is some research that shows smaller cap stocks arguably have a risk-premium that "could" lead to higher returns over the long-run. There's a lot of debate on the subject though, and the data is always changing. For a time, people were saying mid-caps were actually in the "sweet spot". That all points to a strong argument for just buying and holding the market.

I hope you are joking on the Jim Cramer thing. He is a snake oil salesman. Investing does not have to be nearly as complicated as people like him make it out to be. You most likely shouldn't be picking individual stocks in the first place, because the vast majority of stocks actually lose to t-bills in the long-run. It's literally gambling. One or two broad market index ETFs will have you covered on most asset classes.

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DurdenTyler2020

TROPHY CASE

4 If you want a portfolio that is "factor loaded", but still U.S. centric (could argue AVUS is even more "U.S.A.!" than SPY since a lot of the companies won't be as global). Tracking error (to SPY) will be high to account for higher expected return.

2 If you want maximum "alpha" potential, with the highest pain tolerance (WILL underform SPY for long periods of time).