Vanguard balanced funds

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Mario2222
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Vanguard balanced funds

Post by Mario2222 »

Any recommendations for a good Vanguard balanced fund to buy for a Roth IRA account? 25 years Time horizon.
livesoft
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Re: Vanguard balanced funds

Post by livesoft »

Vanguard Balanced Index VBIAX
Vanguard LifeStrategy Moderate Growth VSMGX
or one of their cousins.

I suppose this is a fail of the Vanguard.com website as Vanguard only offers a limited number of balanced funds. I did not recommend their more famous ones.
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Mario2222
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Re: Vanguard balanced funds

Post by Mario2222 »

:thumbsup :thumbsup :thumbsup
livesoft wrote: Thu Jul 02, 2020 3:58 pm Vanguard Balanced Index VBIAX
Vanguard LifeStrategy Moderate Growth VSMGX
or one of their cousins.

I suppose this is a fail of the Vanguard.com website as Vanguard only offers a limited number of balanced funds. I did not recommend their more famous ones.
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jason2459
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Re: Vanguard balanced funds

Post by jason2459 »

For 25 year horizon? How aggressive do you want to be? For me VTSAX is pretty well balanced. To me VASGX would be moderate and VBIAX conservative.
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retired@50
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Re: Vanguard balanced funds

Post by retired@50 »

I suppose you could also consider the target date retirement fund series. The holdings of these funds are available on the Vanguard site. Depending on how much in bonds you're hoping to hold, you can browse the different years to get a sense of what they hold.

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Re: Vanguard balanced funds

Post by 123 »

livesoft wrote: Thu Jul 02, 2020 3:58 pm Vanguard Balanced Index VBIAX
Vanguard LifeStrategy Moderate Growth VSMGX...
+1 These are great choices for a balanced fund. But for a Roth IRA with 25 years to go I might be tempted to use Vanguard LifeStrategy Growth VASGX (80% stock/20% bond) if I had a Traditional IRA or taxable investment account where I held significant fixed income.
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grabiner
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Re: Vanguard balanced funds

Post by grabiner »

If the fund is your entire investment portfolio, the Target Retirement funds are designed for that purpose. If you intend to retire in 2045, then you want a fund with a high stock allocation now because you have years to recover from any decline, but a lower stock allocation in 2040 when retirement is close, and an even lower stock allocation after 2045 when you are drawing down the account. This is the design of Vanguard Target Retirement 2045.

In an IRA, you can change without a tax cost if your investment needs change. You might decide in 2035 that your investments have done well and you will be able to retire in 2040 instead, and switch from the 2045 to the 2040 fund.
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Taylor Larimore
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Balanced Funds ?

Post by Taylor Larimore »

Mario2222 wrote: Thu Jul 02, 2020 3:57 pm Any recommendations for a good Vanguard balanced fund to buy for a Roth IRA account? 25 years Time horizon.
Mario2222:

I am not a fan of balanced funds. Three primary reasons:

1. Their asset-allocation (stocks and bonds) doesn't change. Most investors change their desired asset-allocation during their lifetime.

2. Balanced funds are tax-inefficient. Either stocks or bonds can be in the wrong type account. If all your investments are in your Roth IRA, a balanced fund is ok.

3. Many investors are best served with tax-exempt bond funds not normally found in balanced funds.

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Taylor
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jpohio
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Re: Vanguard balanced funds

Post by jpohio »

You might consider Wellington, especially for an IRA
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Re: Vanguard balanced funds

Post by N.Y.Cab »

I’m a fan of the 3 funds portfolio but will be adding new money to the Balanced Index fund. After being frozen in place for 3 months, I can appreciate having a portion of the portfolio that auto-reallocate for me during difficult times.
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Re: Vanguard balanced funds

Post by tennisplyr »

I've held Vanguard Balanced fund for a number of years.
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KEotSK66
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Re: Vanguard balanced funds

Post by KEotSK66 »

jpohio wrote: Thu Jul 02, 2020 4:47 pm You might consider Wellington, especially for an IRA
+1

or maybe wellesley (vwinx)
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livesoft
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Re: Vanguard balanced funds

Post by livesoft »

Almost every single balanced fund that Vanguard offers has now been recommended in this thread.
https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-fu ... nd-returns
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ruralavalon
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Re: Vanguard balanced funds

Post by ruralavalon »

Mario2222 wrote: Thu Jul 02, 2020 3:57 pm Any recommendations for a good Vanguard balanced fund to buy for a Roth IRA account? 25 years Time horizon.
Is this your only account? It is usually better to coordinate investments among all accounts, treating all accounts together as a single unified portfolio, not focusing on just one account in isolation.

If this is your only account then either
(1) Vanguard Balanced Index Fund (VBIAX) 60/40 asset allocation, or
(2) Vanguard LifeStrategy Moderate Growth Fund (VSMGX) 60/40 asset allocation
would be a reasonable choice in my opinion.
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Re: Vanguard balanced funds

Post by Broken Man 1999 »

I can see migrating to a Vanguard balanced fund in a few years.

I think having our investments in such a fund would be a snap to manage (nothing to manage, in reality) and it would be a simple portfolio for DW when I assume room temperature, not to mention easy for my chosen DD to handle for us/DW.

Though we are at around 50/50 desired AA presently, a 60/40 equity/bonds would certainly work for us. We have a very solid bond base, so allowing equities to move to 60% adds little risk to our retirement standard of living. Should equities tank severely, we can always annuitize our Vanguard VA. And in 10 years or so, we have a boatload of I-bonds maturing. A boatload of taxes due also. I'm OK with that, no complaints at all.

I am not enthused by either of the "W" funds because of their limited holdings. Though, they have had a decent track record.

All our retirement holdings are tax-deferred, so radical changes do not create taxes for us.

Broken Man 1999
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