New Year's resolution: get my 401k funds in order! THEY STINK!!!!!!!!! (accounts, income)

[Thinking-man]

Hi everyone...
I'm 30 and contributing the max to my 401k.....i have about 95k in there (2 separate accounts from two companies.).

i have 45k in one which has pretty bad returns:

1 year returns: -4.8%
3 year returns: 7.7%
5 year returns: 2.2%


my current company's 401k has about 50 in there

01/01/11 - 11/30/11 -1.6%


just bad!!!
i've been trying to stay almost exclusively in stocks (mutual funds) but it's clear that i don't know what the hell i'm doing.

here's my current mix:

24.67% VFINX Vanguard 500 Index Inv
16.40% VHGEX Vanguard Global Equity Inv
8.19% VLACX Vanguard Large Cap Index Inv
5.25% VMGRX Vanguard Mid Cap Growth Inv
4.28% VIMSX Vanguard Mid Cap Index Inv
12.20% VISGX Vanguard Small Cap Growth Index Inv
9.85% VTTHX Vanguard Target Retirement 2035
10.25% VTSMX Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Inv
8.93% VWUSX Vanguard Us Growth Inv


any thoughts? advice?

[long101]

If it makes you feel any better, Im have 94% stocks and down 4% for the year

[mathjak107]

we had 2 back to back recessions and a world of hurt. why should your stocks have been up the last decade?

they shouldnt ,they are only mirroring the world around us. there is nothing wrong with your funds.

[Thinking-man]

thanks guys....
my assumption was that since the DOW is back up above 12500, the balances would also rise......

[mathjak107]

the dow is back but internationals got creamed this year. nasdaq is also down for the year. im down because of the internationals. the international index is off 12%.

every model in the newsletter i follow from aggressive to conservative is down this year.

[mathjak107]

by the way you have lots and lots of overlap doing nothing,and could get rid of quite a few funds and just simplify things. one thing is a given and owning a target fund and then combining it with loads of other funds is an exercise in futility. it serves no purpose .

a target fund adjusts the mix by age(not something i believe in doing) and then you un-adjust it by having all these different stock funds. makes little sense.

having a large cap index fund and an s&p 500 is silly, especially when you have a total market fund too . fully 75% of the total market fund is dominated by the s&p 500 stocks any way..


the s&p 500 dominate most indexes so much that the wilshire 5000 which consists of almost all stocks actually has a sub index called the wishire 4500 which is the wilshire 5000 less the s&p500 stocks.

[Lincolnian]

This is the danger when everyone moves to 401k and out of defined benefit plans. What if a 10 year flat market becomes a 20 or longer flat or declining market?

There is too much money chasing too few quality growth investment opportunities.

[mathjak107]

thats a big reality that could happen. however a bad market for equities brings good markets usually to other asset classes.

the problem is we think in terms of only equities but its a big investment world out there.

learning to incorporate insurance products for income will be another option.

its not all about the markets its all about the plan.

[dsnellen]

Like Mathjak107 said, you have replicated your choices. Your fund selection has a correlation coefficient of 0.97. You need much better diversification. You really have two funds: a Global equity fund and an S&P 500 fund.