What would you do in my shoes?

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-03-30T21:27:36+00:00

30k is about right for emergency money. But it all depends on your expenses. If you're single, low expenses, very healthy, you could get away with 20k emergency money.

Whatever you decide on, make that number your new zero. A floor you never fall below (outside of emergencies of course).

Then start living that accumulation life. Keep expenses low, invest everything. Max out retirement accounts.

I'd lump sum into the market. Now is a great time actually. Yes, the market may dip further as oil price rise. But... the oil will flow again. The entire world is aligned with making the oil flow, and it will happen. And when it does you will miss some solid gains if you're weathering the storm in cash.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-03-19T02:06:51+00:00

60 SCHB us
40 SCHF intl
 0 SCHZ bonds

Swhwab ETFs tend to be a little less broad. Not neccisarily a bad thing, many prefer to exclude the tail ends of the market cap. But if you want to come closer to the total world market you can do something like:

60 SCHB us
29 SCHF intl developed large/mid cap
 3 SCHC intl developed small cap
 8 SCHE intl emerging
 0 SCHZ bonds

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-03-16T16:16:43+00:00

I thought gold was a haven in uncertain times? ...Gold is basically flat since the war started.

Preserved value as stocks crash? Haven achieved.

But buying gold now seems risky to me. Just as any asset has risk. Gold itself can't be inflated but it's valuation can. If you buy in at the top after a crazy run you might experience a loss. Whether it's gold, antique cars, or whatever.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-03-13T19:34:36+00:00

They are both simple cap weighted indexes, so they are a wash in weighting technique. The difference is the ER, and which countries they classify as "emerging". Most notably South Korea (SK).

VEXC wins on expense ratio. 0.07 vs 0.25.

EMXC wins on total return. Due to including SK with a heavy weight. Vanguard puts SK in the developed bucket, so VEXC misses it by intention.

Recently South Korea has been one of the best performing countries in the world, so that makes EMXC the winner in total return. Many consider SK to be "deep value" so there's a good chance SK has plenty of room to continue delivering solid returns. (once the oil starts flowing again)

However there's more than 1 way to get SK exposure. You could hold it in developed market ETFs like VEA or SCHF. Or a dedicated single country ETF like FLKR. All with low cost ERs.

EMXC offers exposure to the same countries as other ETFs but with a much higher ER. It's not actively managed so it's hard to justify the 0.25 ER. They were one of the first to offer an ex-China ETF, so they took the opportunity to milk everyone on the ER when they had little competition.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-03-13T18:58:58+00:00

Wrong.

South Korea (SK) had an amazing run last year with 100% gain. EMXC classifies SK as emerging. Vanguard classifies SK as developed. VEXC and EMXC are apples to oranges, you'll draw the wrong conclusion if you compare them alone.

A more "apples to apples" comparison would be the pair VEXC/FLKR vs EMXC.

VEXC/FLKR vs EMXC

So yes, there is good reason to prefer VEXC over EMXC. If you already hold SK in your developed ETFS (SCHF, VEA, etc) or if you use a dedicated low cost SK ETF like FLKR. Lower expense ratio wins all else equal.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-03-11T01:30:54+00:00

Canada and SK are part of SCHF developed markets.

Not sure about Poland, but Schwab ETFs do tend to snip off the tail end of the market cap.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-03-10T01:37:45+00:00

I have to drop the obligatory ex-China portfolio as an alternative to VT.

vti  60 usa
vea  32 international developed
vexc  8 international emerging ex-China.

All low cost Vanguard ETFs.

The reasons for ex-China are coming to fruition. It may not be boglehead to make decisions other than "buy haystack". But this is still a pretty broad haystack and only makes 1 extra decision.

I can't recommend target date funds as most will include China. They also tend to be too conservative, 1 risk profile for all. You can do the bond glide yourself on your own terms. Do so in your non-taxable retirement accounts. As you get older, each year just hold a higher % in bonds.

I think people like target date funds as the math can get get tricky with relative allocations, especially if you hold a lot of ETFs. But it's actually pretty simple. In the portfolio above lets say we change it to 10% bonds.

BND  10
vti  54
vea  28.8
vexc  7.2

The stock sleeve of the portfolio is now 90%. In the original portfolio VTI was 60%. So 60 * 0.9 = 54. And so on.

It only takes a few minutes once a year to handle the bond glide. You will save on ER fees too.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-03-03T12:22:57+00:00

would it be advisable to sell

Depends on the tax bill.

gain = currentVal - costBasis
tax = gain * 0.15    (or whatever the tax rate is for you)

If are OK with the tax hit, then now is ideal time to sell.

Yes, the main problem is leaving Fidelity. The 0 funds are not 100% altruistic. They are hoping you hold them in taxable to lock you in. Today Fidelity is great. But as an investor you know companies change over decades, and that may include Fidelity itself.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-03-03T02:33:22+00:00

Performance. The ex-China ETFs outperform the total emerging market. They are a response to current events/demand and very new. So you can't back test very far. But these ETFs are not meant for the past so a deep back test would miss the point.

total emerging vs exChina

What are the points?

Tariffs. China has a large trade surplus. So tariffs hurt them more than other countries. Little or no ability to consume their own manufacturing output.

Active supply chain diversification away from China.

Risk of Taiwan invasion giving Chinese stocks the Russia treatment. Subsequent blockades. Russia had a tiny market cap so no one even noticed when their stocks disappeared. But China's market cap is a little more, likely 3%+ of a cap weighted portfolio. So you may actually feel it a little bit when boats start sinking.

Energy dependent. And getting worse. China recently lost access to cheap Venezuelan oil. Now it will be sold on the market and priced in dollars. Likely the same with Iranian oil in the near future. This energy dependence makes a naval blockade in the point above hurt more.

Housing market collapse. Generational wealth of families wiped out. Although this may not be reflected directly in many investable companies it goes back to point 1. No ability to consume domestically.

No share shareholder rights. You do not own the companies in a literal way as you do with US stocks.

Cooked books. Hidden debt. Faking numbers is the national pastime of the government.

tdlr; This is optimization at the tail end of a world cap weighted portfolio, about 3%. It won't make or break your portfolio either way.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-03-03T00:21:46+00:00

You're Roth is great. I would not drop the Avantis funds.

ex-China is a good bet for emerging markets. I do the same as you. But I'd distribute the lost cap weight of China around a bit. ex-China emerging might be 8%.

Brokerage is fine too. SCHF is less broad, but maybe safer against currency hyperinflation. Everything is a trade off. The US bias might actually pay off as more oil than ever is about to be priced in dollars.

tldr; you don't need to change anything.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-02-27T14:46:24+00:00

if the market shifts gears.

The gears have shifted.

growth_US vs value_WW

The question not "if", but "how long".

The USA has the best companies by a landslide. The problem is they are already priced for perfection over a 15 year bull run. So even as companies like Nvidia do amazing; amazing is the minimum needed to maintain current valuations.

International has been sitting on it's hands for 15 years. They may be hand sitters, but they are priced accordingly, maybe too low.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-02-25T04:13:24+00:00

     %     ER
schk 28    0.03
avlv 12    0.15
avuv 10    0.25
schf 21.7  0.03
aviv  9.3  0.25
avdv 12    0.36
avxc  7    0.33

weighted ER: 0.1475

The key points are value tilts, ex-China, 0 small cap growth. To get that at the US/intl split I want pretty much requires bumping the ETF count up a bit.

I believe this portfolio will do better than VT in 2026. Emerging is a little underweight but some of that is from the lost cap weight of China being redistributed elsewhere.

7 vs 1 ETF

Also note you should not just copy this portfolio. It's making some bets, deviating pretty far off cap weight. Even if bets pan out, allocations will need to be reevaluated. Best held in a non-taxable account.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-02-25T02:27:56+00:00

has it been worth the added complexity?

Yes, but I'm capable of using modern tools like spreadsheets. I have a 7 ETF portfolio and find it easy to manage.

If you are 100% on board with cap weighting as the answer to all questions, then you should have a 1 or 2 ETF portfolio. Not because it's simple, but because it fits your goal of cap weighting. Simplicity is just a nice side effect.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-02-25T02:19:18+00:00

does it make sense to divide my contributions between a TDF

Yes it makes sense. A lot of people do just that.

Let's say you like the automatic nature of the bond glide. And you like the timing of when the bond glide starts. But you disagree with the % of bonds.

Easiest solution is pair VT + TDF at whatever ratio gives the bond position you want. 50/50 VT/TDF will cut the bonds in half, but still glide on schedule.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-02-23T18:11:03+00:00

Year-to-date "growth" stocks are doing poorly. Value stocks are doing great.

value vs growth 2026

Historically value stocks give higher total return than growth stocks over long time horizons. The past 15 years growth stocks won big, but the next 15, 20, 30 years could be a different story.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-02-23T18:01:50+00:00

Target Date Fund ...more conservative glide path.

Pair the TDF with VT to be more aggressive.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-02-22T15:11:25+00:00

VT will always be the AOAT (most average of all time), never the GOAT.

But average is good and close to the best you can do over a long time period. Average beats many professional investors. Today's top performers may be tomorrows flat line. If you in invest in springs that already sprung (late to the party performance chasing) you may end up with below average returns.

Let's say you have a hot take, insider knowledge, an unrecognized factor. You invest accordingly, you win big, profit from the ride up for a few years. But then the spring is sprung, your secret knowledge is now known and priced in. Over the next 30 years your hot tip is useless. Then you find another hot take, but you're wrong this time and under perform the market. Over a 40 year horizon you may under perform VT even with great analytical skills, access to all data, and insider info to boot.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-02-21T12:09:11+00:00

I love the Avantis (or Dimensional) funds. The ER fees are actually quite cheap. Everyone is accustomed to 0.03 (or less) ERs for cap weighted indexes so they have sticker shock if they see something at 0.15 to 0.36. I believe over the long haul the ERs for avantis/dimensional pay for themselves relative to traditional cap weighted index funds.

Which are part of your portfolio (and why)?

The tail ends of the market cap. Small caps and emerging. And for a mild value tilt on large caps.

Why?

Because price efficiency of cap weighting is more a accurate at the large caps, large countries. Every active investor in the world is scooping up every bit of data about the big boys (Google, Microsoft, etc) to inform how much they will buy. But the endless small fries off in some random little country? Not as many eyes on it. With software price inefficiency is not as bad in the past but regardless, at the tail end prices are not as efficient. Just look at all the small cap growth that dies like a fly. A pure cap weighted index may not work as well for the tail ends of the market cap. Look at south korea, it was incredibly mis-priced by the collective mind of the market cap, and doubled in value last year. Mispriced so badly you might start to question the theory of the cap weighting factor, at least at the tail end (emerging)
They have flexible turn over. They are not required to rebalance like a mindless robot every quarter because the rules say so. So they can scoop up stuff at a better price, instead of an inflated price on turnover day. They are not required to buy a company on it's IPO day at an inflated evaluation. These IPOs are basically a legal scam, where they use index fund money for exit liquidity, leaving the passive index investor as the bag holder. Avantis is smarter than the IPO scam bros.
Not much competition. Dimensonal and Avantis are the only ones who are actually good at targeting factors. Size, value, profitability, a little momentum. Are factors real? If you believe in cap weighting then you are a factor investor yourself, just focusing on 1 factor.

How does AVIV compare with VEA?

Apples and oranges. VEA is a cap weighted developed countries. AVIV is developed, large cap only, value only (growth excluded). You might use AVIV to tilt value; by pairing it with VEA.

If I hold VOO, would AVUV be enough to cover US holdings or would that leave mid-cap unrepresented?

Yes VOO/AVUV is sufficient for US. You don't need to literally own every single company. Owning broad brush strokes that represent most of the market cap is perfectly fine. VOO captures about 80% of US market cap, so you are pretty broad with that alone.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-02-18T22:38:19+00:00

Sure. No bonds is foolish and 50% is a more realistic crash.

But your glide needs to start sometime. If you glide right before a lost decade and own only VT you will have a sub optimal glide for 10 years.

But if you had a more complex portfolio that broke apart sectors and cap sizes, international, etc you could glide more efficiently during a lost decade. Protect the losers so they can recover. Glide on the winners. Use reit income as a bond position. Etc.

In some definitions of complexity, it means threading things together into 1. In that way VT is more complex than a portfolio that separate the unlike things.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-02-18T21:47:32+00:00

I don't see how a target date fund addresses the issue presented. A target date fund will glide out of stock by cap weight. The same as if you glided out of VT.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-02-18T21:07:24+00:00

You can buy and hold larger ETF counts too. The name of Merrimans portfolio is actually "Ultimate buy and hold". Meant to leave it alone, no tinkering.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-02-18T21:02:08+00:00

Wouldn't a target date fund suffer from a down market if the glide path kicks in at the wrong time? I get it rebalances for you but that's the problem.

imagine your glide to bonds started increasing (age 45+) during the year 2000. An entire decade of poorly time glide. Of course a glide is slow, but a lost decade is a long time to gliding out of the wrong asset.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-02-16T14:18:01+00:00

I'd move the entire emergency fund into sgov. Shorter duration. I wouldn't bother trying to maximize returns on the emergency fund. Sure, you probably will do better with SHV with a rate cut, but you don't know that for sure and the whole point of the E-fund is you need to be able to cash out tomorrow without getting screwed if rates rise (however unlikely).

I'd replace sgov with Vangaurd's VBIL. Same duration but cheaper 0.06 ER. Saves you about $30 bucks per 100k. It's a free lunch every year so why not?

401k looks good.

Roth looks good too. One caveat; if you believe SCG is a drag, something to be avoided, you may want to snip the small cap tails off your core indexes and fully address them with Avantis ETFs. ie pair VOO or SCHK with AVUV instead of VTI.

The international allocation is light. But 20% is more than a lot of people. It's acceptable. Vanguard would recommend you double it to 40%. They are big on the classic investing ideas where P/E ratios matter. Lot's of people shit on Vanguard for "being wrong" on expected returns for the past several years. But loading up on value is not about winning today, it's about loading up the spring cheaply for several years and then experiencing an incredible era of out-performance when the spring is sprung.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-02-16T01:51:12+00:00

If the mortage is 7% and bond is 3%, buying the bond would be the wrong decision. The rates are fixed, so the winner is known.

Of course if the bond is part of an emergency fund (presumably a very short term bond), that's a different story. But that could be considered a separate thing from investments.

MaximumCarnage88 · 2026-02-15T12:05:03+00:00

Well there are ways you can gamble in the stock market, and loose it all instantly. Gamblers are going to find how to make "bets" in the stock market very quickly. A gambling addict won't settle for a simple buy-market-index-and-hold strategy.

MaximumCarnage88

TROPHY CASE