I'm looking for a simple way to allocate mutual funds.?

Question

Maybe 4 equal parts of a balanced, stock, international and money market funds. Is that simple enough?

Answer 1

You are correct - diversify the funds. I would suggest:

Large Value Stock Fund ( Maybe index fund)
Small Company Growth Fund
International Fund
Bond Fund
Money Market

I would look at the funds expenses and the portfolio turnover. You are paying for these costs and you need to know if the fund managers are churning stocks. I would reject any stock fund that had a turnover of over 50% i.e. they sell half the entire portfolio every year. As for cost - under 1% for domestic stocks and under 2% for foreign stock funds.

Finally checkoout this site - it is unbiased and gives you an idea of what funds to avoid!

Answer 2

There is no simple way.

Balanced is always good(diversified with stocks bonds, money market) lower risk and volitility

Stock is different, Do you mean, blue chip, dividend fund, growth fund, agrressive growth fund, sector fund....These are all stock funds and all have different risks and possible reward scenerios.

International funds.??? do you mean the whole world, or just Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America, Or Emerging markets?? Risks are different, economies are different,Currencies come into play and affect return, and some areas are not transparent in their reporting practises.

Of course you didn't mention bond funds, that go up in value as interest rates go down, and go down in value as interest rates rise.

Money market funds...I only use them to "PARK" money while I decide which other type of investment I want to buy.

Maybe you should use an asset allocation model recommended by your mutual fund seller.

Answer 3

Sounds like a pretty good moderate growth portfolio, but a little vague. You probably want about 10% of your portfolio in aggressive growth, and perhaps slightly less in cash. Your stock funds should be split evenly between growth and value, as they tend to cycle inversely except when they're both doing well.