Website Update

We have released our first batch of the updated website. The new web pages are designed to help users to easily to navigate through various contents and features. The following are some of major changes/additions: 

• Home page: it now categorizes our offerings into brokerage investors, (401k) retirement plan investors, advanced investors and hands-off investors. We encourage users to browse these new set of pages. We of course will appreciate any feedback. 
• Favorite or Watch List: as part of the ongoing efforts to make our dashboard more user friendly, we have made the feature of ‘Favorite’ more usable: now if you are interested in monitoring a portfolio, you can click on the star next to a portfolio or a plan title. You can then see how these portfolios have performed and compared as follows: 

In the coming weeks, we will continue to release more changes. Please let us know what you think so that we can better service you. 

Vanguard Liquid ETFs Plan

We are a fan of Vanguard ETFs: they are mostly the least expensive (lowest expense ratios) in the markets. On the other hand, most of Vanguard ETFs are better implemented, benefiting from Vanguard’s long running expertise in providing index mutual funds. However, some of Vanguard ETFs are still thinly traded. Some of them are redundant. We thus decided to replace the existing ETF plan Vanguard ETFs with a new plan called Vanguard Liquid ETFs. Here are the detailed rationale behind the change: 

• We eliminated any  ETF whose daily average trading volume is less than 100k. Several users have pointed out this problem that made rebalance sometimes hard. 
• Each of the three major asset classes Emerging market stocks, Developed foreign stocks and REITs is represented by only one ETF VWO, VEA and VNQ respectively in new plan Vanguard Liquid ETFs. These three ETFs are the best of class. 
• In the US stocks asset class, among the 9 stock styles (i.e large, mid cap or small cap in combination with blend, growth and value), only mid cap growth ETF (VOT) is eliminated due to its low volume. Furthermore, we include the two highly regarded Vanguard dividend ETFs (VIG and VYM). 
• In the fixed income, in addition to Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF (BND), we also include Vanguard Short Term Inflation Protected Securities Index ETF (VTIP), as well as the well known Vanguard corporate short and intermediate bond ETFs. 

Here are the comparison for these two plans:

Portfolio Performance Comparison (as of 12/23/2013)

**YTD: Year to Date

The new tactical portfolio outperformed the old one while in the optimal SAA case, the old one betters the new one. However, we believe it is worth to switch to the new plan as the old one might use some of very illiquid ETFs. We will continue to monitor these ETFs and update the list accordingly as time goes. **YTD: Year to Date

Vanguard Select Mutual Funds

Even though we initially constructed the existing plan Vanguard All Index Funds Investor Class three years ago, we didn’t promote this plan as at the time, Vanguard had too many redemption (minimum holding period) requirements. Vanguard removed the minimum holding period requirements for all but a few funds last year. We believe for a user who has an account in Vanguard, using its mutual funds could be a viable and excellent choice to construct a good portfolio. On the other hand, we are also aware the fact that it is not always the case to have more funds in a plan as too many funds might actually confuse our algorithm. 

We thus construct Vanguard Select Mutual Funds that consists of all of Vanguard Select Funds Investor Class. These funds are suggested by Vanguard. However, the important REIT asset class is not covered  in the list and we thus add Vanguard REIT Index Inv (VGSIX) fund. These funds are all in investor class. Investors who are qualified should invest in lower cost Admiral class shares instead.  They have 1 month minimum holding period requirement for all of the funds. 

The following lists the 17 funds in the plan: 

Asset Class	Ticker	Description	Rating
REAL ESTATE       REAL ESTATE VGSIX Vanguard REIT Index Inv
Emerging Market       DIVERSIFIED EMERGING MKTS VEIEX Vanguard Emerging Mkts Stock Idx
INTERNATIONAL EQUITY       Foreign Large Value VTRIX Vanguard International Value Inv     Foreign Large Growth VWIGX Vanguard International Growth Inv     Foreign Large Blend VGTSX Vanguard Total Intl Stock Index Inv
US EQUITY       LARGE BLEND VFINX Vanguard 500 Index Investor      LARGE BLEND VTSMX Vanguard Total Stock Mkt Idx Inv      SMALL BLEND NAESX Vanguard Small Cap Index Inv      MID-CAP BLEND VIMSX Vanguard Mid Cap Index Inv     LARGE VALUE VWNFX Vanguard Windsor II Investor     Small Growth VEXPX Vanguard Explorer Inv    LARGE GROWTH VMRGX Vanguard Morgan Growth Inv
FIXED INCOME       Short-Term Bond VFSTX Vanguard Short-Term Investment-Grade Inv     Intermediate-Term Bond VFICX Vanguard Interm-Term Invmt-Grade Inv    Intermediate-Term Bond VBMFX Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Inv   WORLD BOND VTIBX Vanguard Total Intl Bd Idx Investor   Inflation-Protected Bond VTIPX Vanguard Shrt-Term Infl-Prot Sec Idx Inv

We note that in this list, Vanguard’s dividend funds are missing. It is also noticeable that Vangaurd didn’t select its famed Inflation Protected fund (TIPs) VIPSX in the list. On the other hand, in the international stock asset, both growth and value styles are covered. 

Here is the comparison among these portfolios: 

Portfolio Performance Comparison (as of 12/23/2013)

**YTD: Year to Date

See more detailed comparison >>

Unlike the ETF based plans, in this case, all of the select mutual fund based portfolios are better than the all index fund based portfolios. 

Both of the new plans are now featured on Vanguard Brokerage Investors page. These two plans can be used for other brokerage accounts too, as long as you are fine with the specific requirements the brokerage has. 

Retirement Income ETFs Update

We also updated Retirement Income ETFs plan. The main purpose for doing so is to

• Remove any ETF that has low trading volume (< 500k daily average volume)
• Remove redundant ETFs
• Add new ETFs

Earl Adamy put quite some efforts to help in this plan. We appreciate his help. 

Market Overview

As we entered the final days of 2013, markets have been in a euphoric mood, especially in the US stocks, international developed market stocks. Other than this, there hasn’t been much to brag about. 

For more detailed asset trend scores, please refer to  360° Market Overview. 

We would like to remind our readers that markets are more precarious now than other times in the last 5 years. It is a good time and imperative to adjust to a risk level you are comfortable with right now.  However, recognizing our deficiency to predict the markets, we will stay on course. 

We again copy our position statements (from previous newsletters): 

Our position has not changed: We still maintain our cautious attitude to the recent stock market strength. Again, we have not seen any meaningful or substantial structural change in the U.S., European and emerging market economies. However, we will let markets sort this out and will try to take advantage over its irrational behavior if it is possible. 

We again would like to stress for any new investor and new money, the best way to step into this kind of markets is through dollar cost average (DCA), i.e. invest and/or follow a model portfolio in several phases (such as 2 or 3 months) instead of the whole sum at one shot. 

Best Holiday Wishes!

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