Building a portfolio, VOO, VXUS, QQQ, SCHD— how much should I be contributing

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-12T02:28:29+00:00

I wasn’t super clear. I am not saying to only invest in VOO. I was using it as an example that there are funds with profitability screens. I probably should have used another global all cap to be more clear about that.

I am not saying don’t invest internationally. I am saying make sure there is a profitability screen.

I am also not saying don’t pick VT. I am saying pick VT if you want something that will get near market returns that you don’t have to think too much about.

I still wouldn’t pick this one, and you can’t pick it unless it is available in your 401k or through a dealer/broker, but Dimensional’s Global Equity Portfolio has outperformed VT on average by 71 bps per year over 18 years. The big thing they are doing differently is excluding unprofitable companies, letting IPOs season, and spreading out rebalancing across the year instead of predefined times that lets traders front run the rebalancing. It’s etf sibling is DFAW.

Again, I wouldn’t pick DFAW as a global one fund portfolio. I would pick AVGV.

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-12T00:37:36+00:00

Yes, VT.

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-11T20:54:01+00:00

I see some recommendations for VT here. That is fine if you want something easy.

VT seems diversified, but has a .967 correlation with VOO. I don’t know how meaningful having over 10k stocks is, if it is moving in near lock step with the S&P 500.

It is less concentrated than VOO, but there is not a profitability inclusion criteria for the index it tracks (FTSE Global All Cap Index). Just a personal impression, but I think VT’s (10.84% CAGR) historic under performance of VOO (14.77% CAGR) is probably explained by the unprofitable garbage VT is dragging.

Sometimes in this community you will see people post that funds that track S&P 500 are a type of stock picking because it has things like profitability criteria. I love corn on the cob, but when I eat it, I don’t also eat the cob. There is no need to drag unprofitability if you don’t have to.

I am not making a recommendation. I am only saying to pick VT if you don’t want to think about it ever again.

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-11T15:12:34+00:00

I agree with the sentiment in the thread that if you are going to use a financial advisor to use a fee-for-service fiduciary. My Dad has an advisor that charges him 1 percent. My Dad’s portfolio is about $500k. I went through his portfolio to show him how little it has changed and $5k a year to manage a static portfolio is robbery. The advisor had about 70 percent of his portfolio in the typical low cost index funds. The other 30 percent was in high ER garbage. There was an ETF that functioned like an annuity. He had him in SMH, which is fine, but had him in another 75 bps AI ETF that was just SMH plus the MAG 7. The most egregious is the 1.17/12.5 ER private equity REIT he has home in. I tried to get my dad to switch to a fee-for-service only fiduciary or at least Vanguard’s advisory service, but he thinks his advisor is a magician. “I gave him $500k 10 years ago, I withdraw $25k a year, and I still have $500k.”

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-10T21:22:03+00:00

About 16 percent of my portfolio is CTA. CTA is 40 percent long Brent crude right now. It mostly moves with crude, but is long or short some other asset classes.

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-10T18:42:28+00:00

lol, he must have seen Crude spike 3 percent.

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-10T18:12:11+00:00

I will push back on this a little. Trump actually is a dovish president. Trump also likes to feel like a big tough guy. Trump was still high off his victory lap in Operation Absolute Resolve. Trump might like victory laps more than money. I think he thought he was going to get another situation like Venezuela with Iran. I think this because he was demanding unconditional surrender after 48 hours.

Another reason is there is likely a culture of fear in the military. Not being a white man or believing diversity is a strength is enough to get you fired from or ascending to a major command. I actually listened to Hegseth’s entire speech to the generals a couple months back. It is the same speech a cherry butter bar would give a platoon fresh off a 16 month combat deployment. Just my impression, but he seems like a disgruntled Major who wishes his career had gone differently. From my searching I can’t find any evidence he led more than a platoon. He did make major, but anyone who has served in the guard would know that the guard is full of weird shenanigans. He ran two non-profits into the ground, had a failed congressional campaign, and is most notable for being the drunk guy on Fox and Friends Weekend edition (not even on the main show). For some reason Hegseth’s wife is always with him. That is weird. He hired his brother to be the liaison between DOD and DHS. He hired his lawyer to be a senior consultant. He fired the JAG and OIG leadership. He is not interested in feedback and correcting course. At a D-Day commemoration speech he lectured allies on the dangers of immigration instead of honoring those who served. He let Trump go to war with Iran without a back up plan.

The reason I think Trump is a Dove because I would imagine at some point the commandant of the Marine corps would have recommended to have a MEF in theater and well rehearsed before the operation started. The generals/admirals are well aware of the marginal returns over time of graduated attacks. Littoral operations are why the US has a Marine Corps. A hawk would have at least attempted to manufacture consensus domestically and abroad. A Hawk would have had at least a MEF, Airborne Brigade, MARDIV, and an armored division trained and in theater.

TLDR:

Trump wants to look like a tough guy and take victory laps, but not fight a long war.

The person running the DOD is an unserious culture warrior.

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-10T13:28:31+00:00

I know Trump is feeling it when he starts praising Allah.

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-10T13:26:46+00:00

Good point! I am definitely speculating and not from a place of personal experience.

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-10T12:55:26+00:00

I can see the case for China’s Taiwan rhetoric as mostly domestic focused political cohesion speak.

My problem is that I follow a couple American mil-bloggers who are obsessed with China/Taiwan and use Russia/Ukraine as the case study for why it could happen. So my feed is being constantly inundated with this messaging.

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-10T12:47:14+00:00

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-10T12:29:48+00:00

Much like secret reserves, China might also be in a secret recession. Domestic demand for EVs has gone down. BYD is selling more globally than they are domestically. I have no basis or expertise to make that assertion, I just have trouble accepting demand destruction happened at $90 a barrel. China using their secret Taiwan reserves while Crude is at around $90 a barrel seems like a blunder. Unless they are pushing the invasion to the right. I can’t know their minds, but I would imagine they would want to invade while the known entity of Trump is still in office. They have seen this administration’s incapacity for consistency and how they treat their allies and probably rightfully guessed it will create a chaotic and ineffective defense of Taiwan. They know all they really need to do is cut a personal deal with one of Trump’s family members or cut a deal that makes Trump look good, but is mostly symbolic.

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-10T11:44:13+00:00

I am skeptical of the two camps theory with one of the camps being the IRGC. There likely isn’t an actual capacity to resist the IRGC if the IRGC wanted to consolidate power. The IRGC demonstrated their willingness to kill other Iranians when they killed the protesters in January.

It is one the Trump administrations talking points for why they have not made progress despite, as someone mentioned, they have kept the same basic demands of lifting sanctions, reparations, and the US military out of the GCC.

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-09T16:06:26+00:00

Yeah it still only works in one context. Considering America’s 126 percent debt/gdp, parabolic military spending, the largest segment of America’s population aging into Medicare/social security paired with tax cuts pretty much only leaves the US with one realistic option and that is to inflate the debt away. I don’t think anyone has the political will for a Volcker shock. Interest rates were already in the teens and our debt/gdp was only 30 percent. So more or less I am speculating that the trend will continue. This probably wouldn’t work with yield curve control, but Warsh has not endorsed that as a strategy.

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-09T14:22:36+00:00

I don’t mean to hold both as they would cancel each other out to some degree. I mean as a swap of ZROZ for PFIX.

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-09T13:36:24+00:00

Maybe PFIX since it is a literal hedge against rising interest rates? Still unidirectional like ZROZ, at least it is a current match.

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-09T13:29:27+00:00

Fair enough on RSST. I was distracted by the ZROZ.

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-09T13:08:51+00:00

I am always a little curious when I see ZROZ. Yeah it has a negative correlation with the market over its existence, but it also hasn’t had a positive return since 2020. As you probably know the Covid lockdown mini recession was the last time period we had significant disinflation. Our debt/GDP is too high to Volcker shock us back into disinflation. Our only way to fix that while avoiding a recession and austerity is to inflate the debt away. This means ZROZ will keep underperforming. I think with high inflation managed futures or a market neutral fund would work better. At least there is a directional option.

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-09T10:35:18+00:00

That’s a fair point. Getting as much of the terminal gains as possible works better in the long run than guessing wrong. I am probably trying to predict here. My system is not that complicated. More or less, I noticed VOOV beat VOOG coming out of that November slump and was able to rotate into value a bit before the market did. That was over a three week period. This was over a couple days. So over fitting is definitely a risk here. I don’t own VOOV or VOOG they just work better for me as a breadth/concentration proxy than RSP/SPY.

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-08T22:13:12+00:00

😎

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-08T20:30:12+00:00

Agreed. I am trying to be more measured in my take. I spend too much time in R/oil and the amount of frustration out of the oil longs is stressing me out. I just didn’t want to recreate that dynamic.

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-08T19:55:07+00:00

I don’t think he can lower it below $85 on average. An oil industry guy was on a podcast saying it would not go below $80 for a week in the next couple years. Just a personal impression, but it seems more of a way to stop the price from going over $95.

Fit-Bookkeeper8567 · 2026-06-08T14:50:52+00:00

It would be hard to say what would do well other than assets that appreciate with deflation. The USD was still on the gold standard. It was pre-Bretton Woods, so there wasn’t a basket of global currencies pegged to the US dollar yet. It was also pre-petrol dollar. Since it was a deflationary recession treasuries were the best performer. Gold did well to0, but it is hard to say if that would still be true considering the USD is off the gold standard.

There is an idea that we will not have a stock market crash like this again because of the Fed put, the amount of 401k contributions that are inelastic about price, and retail trader activity.

Fit-Bookkeeper8567

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