Can you have too many ETFs in your portfolio?
On the other hand, having too many ETFs can lead to over-diversification and excessive fees, as well as potential underperformance if the ETFs are not chosen carefully.
Experts agree that for most personal investors, a portfolio comprising 5 to 10 ETFs is perfect in terms of diversification. But the number of ETFs is not what you should be looking at.
Investors often wonder how much overlap is acceptable. While there is no universal threshold, a common guideline suggests keeping overlap between ETFs below 50 percent.
Can you over-diversify a portfolio? Yes. Holding 50 stocks rather than 25 may lower your downside risk somewhat, but it can also reduce your profit potential. And at that point, it may be better to consider investing through an index fund, or even a combination of several sector-based funds.
On the other hand, having too many ETFs can lead to over-diversification and excessive fees, as well as potential underperformance if the ETFs are not chosen carefully.
Unless you are very well versed with the markets and have expert knowledge about mutual funds, a good rule of thumb would be to own: Large Cap Mutual Funds: Up to 2. Maybe 3 at best. Beyond that, it doesn't make sense as there will be a great overlap in the shares owned by your mutual funds.
Setting a rule of five per cent helps investors avoid owning too many ETFs and essentially sets the limit at 20 ETFs (100/5) if a portfolio consists solely of ETFs. Deciding on the weighting of a position for a stock is very different than deciding on a weighting for an ETF.
"A newer investor with a modest portfolio may like the ease at which to acquire ETFs (trades like an equity) and the low-cost aspect of the investment. ETFs can provide an easy way to be diversified and as such, the investor may want to have 75% or more of the portfolio in ETFs."
Stock-picking offers an advantage over exchange-traded funds (ETFs) when there is a wide dispersion of returns from the mean. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) offer advantages over stocks when the return from stocks in the sector has a narrow dispersion around the mean.
Nearly all leveraged ETFs come with a prominent warning in their prospectus: they are not designed for long-term holding. The combination of leverage, market volatility, and an unfavorable sequence of returns can lead to disastrous outcomes.
How long should you hold an ETF?
Holding an ETF for longer than a year may get you a more favorable capital gains tax rate when you sell your investment.
You expose your portfolio to much higher risk with sector ETFs, so you should use them sparingly, but investing 5% to 10% of your total portfolio assets may be appropriate. If you want to be highly conservative, don't use these at all.
New paper suggests a portfolio of 100% stocks is better, even in retirement. The paper suggests the volatility fears of relying on stocks in retirement is overrated and outweighed by their consistently higher returns over bonds. Bonds also tend to get smashed at the same time as stocks, but take way longer to recover.
The research by three U.S. finance professors led by University of Arizona professor Scott Cederberg comes to the surprising conclusion that a portfolio holding 100% stocks and no bonds is best, even for people already in retirement.
Over-diversification increases risk, stunts returns, and raises transaction costs and taxes. Most financial advisers will tell you that diversification is the best way to protect your portfolio from risk and volatility.
Market risk
The single biggest risk in ETFs is market risk. Like a mutual fund or a closed-end fund, ETFs are only an investment vehicle—a wrapper for their underlying investment. So if you buy an S&P 500 ETF and the S&P 500 goes down 50%, nothing about how cheap, tax efficient, or transparent an ETF is will help you.
A balanced ETF—also known as an asset allocation ETF—is a fund of funds that owns two or more different types of assets. Most commonly they hold a selection of stock and bond funds, with fixed allocations to each asset class.
This investment strategy seeks total return through exposure to a diversified portfolio of primarily equity, and to a lesser extent, fixed income asset classes with a target allocation of 70% equities and 30% fixed income. Target allocations can vary +/-5%.
So, what's the ideal number of funds? Well, there is no right or wrong answer. It can depend on a number of factors including the number of funds you're comfortable monitoring in your portfolio, your investment objectives and risk appetite.
Investing doesn't need to be complicated or expensive. Build a dirt-cheap portfolio that can last a lifetime with just one stock ETF and one bond ETF.
How many funds should be in a diversified portfolio?
You should therefore only keep as many funds in your portfolio as you're comfortable monitoring. For example, if you hold 10 or 20 different funds, you'll need to keep a close eye on the changing value of all these investments to make sure your asset allocation still matches your investment goals.
SPY, VOO and IVV are among the most popular S&P 500 ETFs. These three S&P 500 ETFs are quite similar, but may sometimes diverge in terms of costs or daily returns. Investors generally only need one S&P 500 ETF.
iShares Core Moderate Allocation ETF (AOM)
This ETF aims to track the investment results of an index made up of stock and bond funds that is intended to represent a moderate target risk allocation strategy. The fund holds roughly 40 percent in stocks and 60 percent in bonds.
Disadvantages of ETFs. Although ETFs are generally cheaper than other lower-risk investment options (such as mutual funds) they are not free. ETFs are traded on the stock exchange like an individual stock, which means that investors may have to pay a real or virtual broker in order to facilitate the trade.
The largest Aggressive ETF is the iShares Core Aggressive Allocation ETF AOA with $1.81B in assets. In the last trailing year, the best-performing Aggressive ETF was AOA at 12.47%. The most recent ETF launched in the Aggressive space was the iShares ESG Aware Aggressive Allocation ETF EAOA on 06/12/20.
References
- https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/etf-vs-mutual-fund-it-depends-on-your-strategy
- https://curvo.eu/article/build-portfolio-etf
- https://www.thestreet.com/etffocus/trade-ideas/the-only-leveraged-etf-that-i-would-buy-hold-long-term
- https://www.justetf.com/uk/market-overview/top-50-etfs-with-the-highest-dividend-yield-in-gbp.html
- https://finance.yahoo.com/news/invest-100-000-turn-1-124500592.html
- https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMoneyGuy/comments/19fmhzg/new_paper_suggests_a_portfolio_of_100_stocks_is/
- https://www.investopedia.com/news/etf-open-secret-theyre-tax-loophole/
- https://www.fool.com/investing/2024/04/03/1-high-yield-dividend-etf-to-buy-now-for-passive-i/
- https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/23/how-dividend-investing-can-make-you-money-while-you-sleep.html
- https://www.etfstream.com/articles/does-size-matter-when-selecting-etfs
- https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/investment-products/etf/which-is-right-for-you
- https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/09/21/the-best-performing-stock-on-the-sp-500-since-1980.aspx
- https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/high-dividend-etfs
- https://www.trackinsight.com/en/education/how-many-etfs-should-you-own
- https://www.suredividend.com/safest-dividend-stocks/
- https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/sp-500-etfs
- https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/020916/etfs-can-be-safe-investments-if-used-correctly.asp
- https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0113/7-easy-to-understand-etfs-to-replace-a-savings-account.aspx
- https://www.investopedia.com/articles/basics/11/due-dilligence-on-dividends.asp
- https://www.bankrate.com/investing/best-dividend-etfs/
- https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/120415/how-dividendpaying-etfs-work.asp
- https://talkmarkets.com/content/how-much-money-do-i-need-to-invest-to-make-3000-a-month?post=431352
- https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dividend-etf.asp
- https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/this-high-yield-vanguard-etf-could-turn-$400-per-month-into-$18900-in-annual-dividend
- https://www.fool.com/investing/2024/03/24/you-can-do-better-than-sp-500-buy-this-etf/
- https://www.etf.com/topics/aggressive
- https://finance.yahoo.com/news/living-off-interest-1-million-164122384.html
- https://www.investopedia.com/articles/exchangetradedfunds/11/building-an-etf-portfolio.asp
- https://www.titan.com/articles/etf-drawbacks
- https://finance.yahoo.com/news/invested-1000-p-global-decade-133005715.html
- https://www.sofi.com/learn/content/how-many-stocks-should-i-own/
- https://www.etf.com/sections/etf-basics/dividend-etfs-vig-vs-schd-comparison-guide
- https://www.barclays.co.uk/smart-investor/new-to-investing/reducing-unnecessary-risk/how-many-funds-should-you-hold-in-your-portfolio/
- https://finance.yahoo.com/news/vanguard-p-500-etf-voo-112006029.html
- https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/investment-products/etf/risks-with-etfs
- https://www.investopedia.com/articles/mutualfund/07/etf_downside.asp
- https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/beyond-4-rule-how-much-can-you-spend-retirement
- https://www.fidelity.co.uk/markets-insights/investing-ideas/funds/how-many-funds-should-i-hold/
- https://money.usnews.com/investing/articles/best-etfs-to-buy
- https://www.investopedia.com/articles/exchangetradedfunds/09/etf-out-of-business.asp
- https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio
- https://groww.in/blog/how-many-mutual-funds-invest
- https://www.simplysafedividends.com/world-of-dividends/posts/2-how-to-build-a-dividend-portfolio
- https://money.usnews.com/investing/articles/best-dividend-stocks-to-buy-this-year
- https://www.investmentfundlawblog.com/resources/investments-by-funds/investments-investment-companies/
- https://finance.yahoo.com/news/best-balanced-etfs-mutual-funds-153351096.html
- https://finance.yahoo.com/news/schd-vs-sphd-dividend-etf-185901695.html
- https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/heres-how-you-can-collect-%2450000-in-dividends-per-year-in-retirement
- https://passiv.com/blog/etf-overlap/
- https://investor.vanguard.com/investor-resources-education/taxes/how-mutual-funds-etfs-are-taxed
- https://www.blackrock.com/us/individual/literature/fact-sheet/sma-target-allocation-70-30-etf-factsheet.pdf
- https://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/etfs-your-portfolio-experts-weigh-in-what-percentage-to-own
- https://www.canstar.com.au/investor-hub/buy-sell-hold-etfs/
- https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc404
- https://www.investopedia.com/articles/exchangetradedfunds/08/etf-choose-best.asp
- https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0812/how-to-live-off-your-dividends.aspx
- https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/dividend-yield/
- https://www.schwab.com/etfs/types/dividend-etfs
- https://www.investopedia.com/articles/exchangetradedfunds/08/etf-taxes-introduction.asp
- https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/best-balanced-etfs/
- https://moneywise.com/investing/voo-vs-vti
- https://www.etfcentral.com/etf-u/guides/how-many-etfs-should-i-own
- https://www.investopedia.com/dividend-etf-vs-s-and-p-500-7968097
- https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2014/07/are-your-investments-too-diversified/index.htm
- https://www.pillsburylaw.com/images/content/3/2/v2/3201/C-S-Advisory-07-22-2010-II.pdf
- https://etfdb.com/compare/highest-5-year-returns/
- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/4-3-2-1-approach-financial-freedom-royston-tan-%E9%99%88%E9%9F%A6%E9%BE%99-chfc-asep-ibfa-
- https://www.thestreet.com/etffocus/dividend-ideas/10-stock-etfs-that-pay-monthly-dividends
- https://stockanalysis.com/etf/qqq/dividend/
- https://www.canadianmoneysaver.ca/articles/3495
- https://www.franklintempleton.com/planning-and-learning/learn-about-investing/investing-principles/cost-of-timing-the-market
- https://www.investopedia.com/investing/monthly-dividend-etfs/
- https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/3-ways-to-build-all-etf-portfolio
- https://lakshmishree.com/blog/15-best-etfs-in-india-to-invest-in-2024/
- https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/071616/history-sp-500-dividend-yield.asp
- https://www.ig.com/au/trading-strategies/what-is-the-best-time-to-buy-and-sell-shares--211026
- https://money.usnews.com/investing/articles/dividend-stocks-to-buy-and-hold-forever
- https://www.etf.com/sections/etf-basics/dividend-etfs-vs-stocks-comparison-guide
- https://www.suredividend.com/pros-cons-dividend-investing/
- https://etfdb.com/compare/dividend-yield/
- https://www.kiplinger.com/article/investing/t047-c007-s001-two-vanguard-index-funds-you-need-for-retirement.html
- https://advisors.vanguard.com/assets/corp/fund_communications/pdf_publish/us-products/investment-profiles/0923.pdf
- https://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/09/buying-stock-or-etf.asp
- https://www.dividendmax.com/united-states/nyse-arca/financial-services/vanguard-sandp-500-etf/dividends
- https://www.thestreet.com/etffocus/dividend-ideas/benefits-of-dividend-etf-investing
- https://www.capitaltopics.com/blogue/is-100-stocks-really-the-best-option-for-your-portfolio
- https://mydividendsnowball.com/how-i-made-1000-a-month-in-dividend-income/
- https://www.investopedia.com/articles/exchangetradedfunds/11/advantages-disadvantages-etfs.asp
- https://seekingalpha.com/article/4664657-schd-why-pick-stocks-when-you-can-buy-this-etf
- https://www.financialtechwiz.com/post/voo-vs-vym/
- https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/10-best-dividend-stocks
- https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/investment-products/etf/dividends-on-etfs
- https://www.etf.com/sections/etf-basics/dividend-etf-vs-stocks
- https://www.etf.com/sections/etf-basics/how-tell-if-etf-overvalued
- https://time.com/personal-finance/article/how-many-stocks-should-i-own/
- https://www.stoddardfinancial.net/dividend-versus-growth-investments/
- https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/investing/warren-buffett-berkshire-hathaway-portfolio/