ETF Monkey

I recently wrote a series of articles for the Seeking Alpha website, for which I have the privilege of being a certified author . The initial articles covered, in detail, three ETFs from the Vanguard family which can be used very nicely to build a simple, yet incredibly well-diversified portfolio. These are the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF , the Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF , and the Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF .  Ultimately, those articles culminated in a final article in which I presented The ETF Monkey Vanguard Core Portfolio . In that article, I developed several suggested weightings for each of the three components, based on an investor's age and risk tolerance. I accomplished this by working from the guidance available by reviewing the portfolio composition and weighting of various professionally-managed  Vanguard Target Date funds. Finally, I selected one and built a hypothetical $50,000 portfolio, the performance of which I will track going forward. If

NOTE:  This article was written for exclusive publication on  Seeking Alpha . Per their guidelines, I am reproducing the first 250 words or less here, followed by a link to the source article for those interested in reading further. Every investor desirous of developing an ETF-based portfolio does well to start by selecting a few core holdings. In my view, such holdings should offer great diversification along with a rock-bottom cost structure. In a  previous article  for Seeking Alpha, I featured the  Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF  (NYSEARCA: VTI ). I concluded that one should seriously consider VTI as a core holding for the portion of your portfolio devoted to domestic stocks. However, there are several worthy competitors in the marketplace.  . . .

BlackRock, Inc. is the largest provider of ETFs, with over $809 billion in Assets Under Management (AUM) as of June 30, 2015 . BlackRock's ETFs are marketed under the name iShares . BlackRock was founded in 1988 by Laurence D. (Larry) Fink, Robert S. Kapito, Susan Wagner, Barbara Novick, Ben Golub, Hugh Frater, Ralph Schlosstein and Keith Anderson. Previously, Fink, Kapito, Golub and Novick had all worked for First Boston. Fink and his partners had been pioneers in the field of mortgage-backed securities. Initially, Fink and his partners received funding from Pete Peterson of The Blackstone Group. Their goal was to build a disciplined asset management firm, with an emphasis on risk management. In 1992, the firm adopted the name BlackRock. Ultimately, BlackRock became a public company in 1999, with broad employee ownership.

Today's action alert features the Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF . Have a quick look at the chart below. It reveals that, since March 2, 2015, this ETF has fallen 4.24% against only 1.32% on the S&P 500 index. Click to Enlarge

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NOTE: This article was written for exclusive publication on Seeking Alpha . Per their guidelines, I am reproducing approximately the first 250 words here, followed by a link to the source article for those interested in reading further. Summary This article is the "wrapper" that packages my first three articles for Seeking Alpha. We will build and track the ETF Monkey Vanguard Core Portfolio. The complete methodology used to build the portfolio will be outlined, as well as statistics outlining its contents, diversification, and weighted expense ratio. Lastly, I will share details on how to use a cool, free tool to track the portfolio such that you can try it yourself, if interested. In summary, all modesty aside, this is the article that you will want to share with any friends who are interested in trying out ETF investing for the first time.