Talk:Vanguard REIT Index Fund

Taxes
Is it reasonable to put the fund's tax (in)efficiency discussion under Criticisms, and perhaps eliminate the Additional Considerations section (unless other relevant topics pop up)? Ken Schwartz 14:20, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
 * I think so, but you might add that tax inefficiency of a REIT fund is inherent to REIT, not because of what Vanguard is doing. PiperWarrior 15:26, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

Focus

 * The "narrow focus" is also not a fault of this fund. The fund covers the REIT sector pretty well. We shouldn't blame this fund for the fact that REITs make up a small part of the whole stock market. Tfb 16:40, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

tfb, I'd already added an Asset Class Purity section under Advantages to balance things. While the fund can play a role in a diversified portfolio, I think it's important to warn prospective performance chasers of its narrowness and potentially volatility.

It's sort of like warning about bubble risk or little % in small value for VTSMX. It's not the fund's fault that it covers the cap-weighted US market so well. Ken Schwartz 16:54, 2 June 2008 (EDT)


 * By the way, I'm not attached to the term Criticisms as a section heading. We could use something like Drawbacks or Disadvantages. We should probably be consistent with whatever term we choose, though there may be special cases which warrant exception. Ken Schwartz 17:29, 2 June 2008 (EDT)