Comments on: The Three Best Mutual Funds For Your Taxable Account

By: Kyle

Kyle — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 21:29:01 +0000

I personally go with the total stock and total international fund in my taxable account, split down the middle. You couldn’t go wrong with the total world fund, though.

By: Question

Question — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 05:01:42 +0000

After maxing out all of my tax-sheltered accounts, I’m now about to begin investing for retirement in a taxable account. I’m torn between these two choices:

A) A two fund approach of VG Total Stock & VG Total International.
B) A one fund approach using just VG Total World.

I currently use their Target Retirement funds in my tax-sheltered, which are going to adhere to a 70/30 domestic/international mix. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with having only 40% domestic with VTWSX, but I really do like the simplicity of only having one fund. The fees are higher, but I hear those may come down if/when Admiral shares are offered and/or the fund grows in assets.

Do you have any feelings on that? Any advice you could provide to help sway my approach?

By: Mike P

Mike P — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:43:32 +0000

Hi Kyle.

Excellent explanation of an important concept.

I find it intriguing how completely most people miss out on the fact that taxation of growth is one of the factors that’s actually fairly controllable. (The other being investment costs.)