<wyu[at]talisys.com> wrote in message
news:1189228864.893027.260450[at]50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
- quote -

The brokerage has to offer the funds, though. For instance, E*Trade doesn't
seem to offer the Schwab Market Track funds I mentioned in a previous post.

The OP described an IRA account so small one might use a single balanced
fund for broad coverage. For such a small IRA account, something like
ThinkOrSwim might be a good match - 3 free fund trades per month (any fund),
no IRA fees (except closing). (Disclaimer: I have no experience with
ThinkOrSwim.)

- quote -

Impressive research; unfortunately, each of these is open only to employees,
retirees, etc.

- quote -

"The Elfun Family of funds is for the most part not open to investors
outside of GE."
Barron's, "The Best Mutual Fund Families", Feb 5, 2007
http://www.gefunds.com/common/docs/p..._MF_Survey.pdf

- quote -

"Shares of the Funds may be purchased by current and retired agents and
employees of the Start Farm Insurance Companies and by their family members.
..."
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da...htm#tx76521_14

Mark Freeland
BnetOnewsX[at]sbcglobal.net

On Sep 7, 4:27 pm, "nomail1...[at]hotmail.com" <nomail1...[at]hotmail.comwrote:
- quote -

Are you asking about brokerage or fund family? You can buy funds from
any brokerage -- you just may need to pay commissions. I ran across 2
more 100% index balanced funds:

ELDFX Elfun Diversified -- 0.20% ER
STFBX State Farm Balanced -- 0.13% ER

On Sep 6, 9:56 am, I wrote:
- quote -

Based on the responses so far, it seems that those are the "only"
brokerages to consider? Is that right? (Surprise.)

I tried to look at Wachovia, but I could not find any specifics
online. I'm not happy with Wachovia anyway because it seems to
require an annual fee for online brokerage services other than merely
looking at your account balance and positions.

(Even though I do not anticipate making trades in this particular
account, I want to have that flexibility.)

"Dave Dodson" <dave_and_darla[at]Juno.com> wrote in message
news:1189143546.707369.225870[at]o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
- quote -

You can use Lipper's fund screener to find a bunch of these funds.
http://funds.reuters.com/lipper/reta...ndScreener.asp

Select "Mixed Equity" Asset Type, and for Lipper Classification:
Mixed-Asset Target Allocation (Conservative or Growth or Moderate)

Finally, under creiterion #3 (Additional Fund Attributes), check off Index
Based Funds and No Load.

You'll get 4 Growth funds: Schwab Market Track Growth, Vanguard Balanced
Index (2 share classes), and Vanguard Life Strategy Moderate Growth.

You'll get 4 Moderate funds: Schwab Market Track Balanced and Conservative
funds, Vanguard Life Strategy Conservative Growth, and Vanguard Tax Managed
Balanced.

You'll get 2 Conservative funds: Vanguard Life Strategy Income, and Wells
Fargo DJ Target Today. These are likely too conservative (the WF fund is
12% equity, 33% bond, and 55% MM).

(The Fidelity Balanced fund doesn't show up because it isn't an index
[based] fund, but falls into the Target Allocation Growth category. The
Vanguard Tax-Managed balanced fund is inappropriate for the OP's IRA because
the bond side is invested in tax-exempt munis.)

People have already described the Vanguard and Fidelity funds. The Schwab
Market Track Funds are described here:
http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/...ack_portfolios

The Balanced fund is the closest Schwab Mkt Track fund to a traditional
balanced fund: 60/40 (equity/bond+cash). The market track funds use
Schwab's S&P 500 index fund, Schwab Small Cap Index Fund, Schwab Int'l Index
fund, and Schwab's total bond market fund as their underlying funds. Their
downside is that they add a large extra layer of expenses, viz. 0.50%.
Their upside is a very low minimum investment: $100.

If one insists on index balanced funds, the choices are really Vanguard and
Schwab. Between the two, Vanguard is superior IMHO (better performance,
cheaper funds, more dedicated to investor).

If one is not wed to index funds, then Vanguard STAR is designed as an
all-in-one fund, including international exposure. If one is willing to
accept a greater equity exposure, then Fidelity's 4-in-1 index fund is worth
consideration ($2500 min for IRAs) - it is 85/15 equity/bond; within the
equity, approximately 2/3 is large cap, 1/6 small cap, 1/6 international
large cap.

Mark Freeland
BnetOnewsX[at]sbcglobal.net

Dave Dodson <dave_and_darla[at]Juno.com> writes:

- quote -

VSMGX. approx 63% stocks, 30% bonds, rest is cash.
built out of 3 Vanguard indexes, plus their Asset Allocation
fund. The latter lets them adjust the balance a little bit.
It's also about 10% international.

A bit more aggressively, there's also VASGX, which
is 83% stocks, 10% bonds, 6% cash, about 15% int'l.

- quote -

FBALX - Also about 63% stock, 31% bonds, some cash
and a little less international - about 6%.
It is actively managed, and a good bit more volatile
than the comparable Vanguard fund listed above. And
it's fairly large ($26BB) but not huge. I've been
looking at this one lately and considering recommending
it to someone as a "set it and forget it" fund. I'd
actually like to see a little more international
exposure for such a one-stop-shopping kind of fund,
but it's a pretty nice mix anyway.

Fidelity's been advertising it a bit lately, too -
if you go to the fidelity web page, there's a
big ad for it right up front. I wonder what's led
them to do that (as opposed to, say, any of their
zillion other funds).

(I like some of the Vanguard offerings, but won't
use them in Fido brokerage accounts - because
the fees to do so are rather large)

--
Plain Bread alone for e-mail, thanks. The rest gets trashed.
No HTML in E-Mail! -- http://www.expita.com/nomime.html
Are you posting responses that are easy for others to follow?
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/06/14/quoting

On Sep 6, 11:56 am, "nomail1...[at]hotmail.com" <nomail1...[at]hotmail.comwrote:
- quote -

You might consider a target retirement fund keyed to your wife's
retirement age. These funds are on autopilot for someone who wants to
"select and forget" the investment. Fidelity, Vanguard, and T Rowe
Price have good ones. Compare asset allocations and expense ratio
between vendors for the target year that applies to your wife.

A couple of specific non-targeted balanced funds:

Vanguard LifeStrategy Moderate Growth. Expense ratio: 0.26%, Ten year
average annual return: 7.39%.

Fidelity Balanced. Expense ratio: 0.64%, Ten year average annual
return: 9.99%.

Dave

On Sep 6, 9:56 am, "nomail1...[at]hotmail.com" <nomail1...[at]hotmail.comwrote:
- quote -

I think for 100% index balanced fund, Vanguard may be the only option.
Fidelity & Schwab's balanced funds use a mix of actively-managed and
index funds.

I am looking for a place to park my wife's relatively small IRA
for a while (up to 30 years). Although the amount is large
enough for me to do some coarse asset allocation (e.g. 60%
stock, 40% bonds), it is too small to divide among too many
asset subclasses. So I am thinking of a balanced index fund.

What brokerage firms should I be looking at?

I know about Vanguard, Fidelity and Schwab. Any others?

(We have not decided on a long-term course for those funds.
The IRA is small enough that we are likely to simply liquidate
it entirely in a few years, when we are no longer subject to
early-withdrawal penalties. The decision will depend on other
factors that will be clearer to us when the time comes. For
now, I am assuming a long-term horizon.)