etfguide.com Strategic Balance ETF Portfolio

The October 8th, 2006 Chicago Tribune had a short article on the proliferation of ETFs. This is true - between Barclay's, Vanguard, Powershares, Rydex, and now Wisdomtree, we're going to be buried in ETFs. This will make them all impossible to track (which is why I just track popular/large/important ones.

However, the article also quoted a man from etfguide.com on several things. It also gave details on his Strategic Balance Portfolio, which you'd normally have to pay to see. Here it is:

29% VTI - Vanguard total stock market ETF
21% EFA - Ishares Europe, Australia and Far East ETF
17% VNQ - Vanguard REIT ETF
15% cash
13% AGG - total bond market ETF
5% GLD - StreetTracks gold ETF

This is similar to a couple of other ETF portfolios you'll see here on my site. The differences? First, the cash. You could just set aside 6 months of living expenses and leave this part of the portfolio out if you want. Second? The gold. Another instance where someone took what was popular and performed well the past few years and added it to a portfolio. It's not a BAD idea. It's just a popular idea. The same could apply to the REIT portion of the portfolio. Most investment analysts would tell you this is too much REIT for an individual portfolio. Would it hurt you? Probably not. Is it popular to add lots of REIT to a portfolio because of REIT performance over the last 4 or 5 years? Sure is.