Sound Investing

In May, Paul Merriman, founder of The Merriman Financial Education Foundation, and Chris Pedersen, director of research, were guest presenters at two ChooseFI online events, via Facebook Live on May 9 and Zoom on May 16. On May 9 Chris and Paul made separate presentations: Paul on “12 Investment Decisions Guaranteed to Change Your Financial Future" and Chris on “2 Funds for Life.”  They were joined by Chief Analyst Daryl Bahls to answer questions. In a recent video/podcast Paul, Chris and Daryl addressed 15 questions that had not been answered during the presentation. In this video/podcast the trio address 17 more questions from the two presentations.

1. During retirement should you take money from the  target date fund or the more risky small cap value fund? 2:34
2. My wife wants to know, why don’t you recommend mid-cap funds? 5:08
3. How should I invest RMDs if I don’t need the money to live on? 9:04
4. What is the best strategy for investing for my 4 children, ages 17, 5, 5 and 3? 11:47
5. Is the Vanguard High Yield (VWEAX) fund still a good retirement fund choice?  13:55
6. The media reports the stock market remains overvalued in spite of the recent crash. Why should I want to buy now if the the market is expected to drop even more? 16:36
7. Is there a reason REITS would not be part of the 4 Funds Strategy? 21:26
8. When do you think you will be updating the Best in Class ETFs for the Ultimate Buy and Hold? 23:57
9. Is the 4-Fund Strategy appropriate for a 60 year old investor? 27:00
10. If target date funds are funds of funds, does that mean they have two sets of fees? 32:38
11. When you say Vanguard is investor owned, what does that mean?  36:38
12. Is the comeback portfolio the same as the 4 fund combo? 40:00
13. Could you use a TDF plus the 4 Fund Combo instead of small cap value? How would that strategy likely perform? 41:16
14. Is the TDF based on retirement age or your life expectancy? 44:55
15. Given that  small caps may struggle for the foreseeable future (due to the recent pandemic) should one focus more on large caps or is this the time to rebalance more heavily towards small caps as they are selling at a larger discount. 47:57
16. In any of your distribution scenarios in retirement, are you withdrawing cash to cover 2-3 years of expenses or simply withdrawing cash for current year living expenses? 53:54
17. I am intrigued by your 4-fund portfolio However, my respectful criticism of that portfolio is that it does not have any international exposure. There is a contributor on the Boglehead's forum who has supposedly done a series of backtesting and shown that the following combo has an identical long term returns as the UBH portfolio. The holdings: US LGB + US SCV + Intl LGV + Intl SCB. What are your thoughts on this portfolio? 59:26