I should start with saying that I know they are not ideal bogle being that they are actively managed. but they seem to have a good track record lasting multiple decades, and I like that it has a fixed range for stocks and bonds unlike target date funds which for my preference are too aggressive then get too conservative for my liking.
I have a target date fund with my 401k but my roth I like the balanced strategy in case god forbid I needed access to the money right when the market decides to tank. say I get a serious medical issue or some other serious event long before I planned to retire, that exhausted my emergency fund) I could then tap into my roth without penalty for my contributions. at least. I hope I never need that but I like having the option.
Fidelity doesn't have an index version of a balanced fund that I could find. and the fees though higher than an index fund aren't outrageously so, in my opinion. and I like the easy one stop, throw my money in and done. all the rebalancing and such done for me.
so between these funds I am curious which is the better choice. I know they are different because otherwise, why would fidelity have two funds that did exactly the same thing, and they do differ in performance. for instance in the 2008 crash the puritan fund held up better, but the past 10 years saw the balanced fund edge out slightly higher.
I need to distinguish between what is pure luck, the kind of thing that would make a person foolishly invest in ARKK because it did better over the past ten years, vs being a better strategy.
from what I can gather the puritan fund focuses more on large cap us stocks and the balanced fund adds more mid and small cap, and the balanced fund has more high quality bonds vs the puritan having more junk bonds. I could be wrong on that but that's what I read.
I think they also may differ in manager style. balanced has a team vs puritan I'm not sure as it doesn't seem as clear.
from what I can tell historically the puritan has done better, including managing downside risk such as in 2008, but given us large caps huge run may be likely to underperform going forward which may tip the scales in favor of the balanced fund doing better with its mid and small caps. its also possible the puritan if managed by only one guy (I'm not sure how they are managed) was just lucky in 2008 vs the team at the balanced fund then and would mean management risk could play a role. less so with balanced since they have a team that I assume could check each others biases and whatever.
if anybody here is knowledgeable on this stuff and could explain to me how these funds differ and the pros and cons for why you would pick one or the other, please let me know. Thanks for the help! on the surface they seem the same. same fees, same balance of 30-40% bonds, but they do differ some and perform differently. Thanks for the help!
I have a target date fund with my 401k but my roth I like the balanced strategy in case god forbid I needed access to the money right when the market decides to tank. say I get a serious medical issue or some other serious event long before I planned to retire, that exhausted my emergency fund) I could then tap into my roth without penalty for my contributions. at least. I hope I never need that but I like having the option.
Fidelity doesn't have an index version of a balanced fund that I could find. and the fees though higher than an index fund aren't outrageously so, in my opinion. and I like the easy one stop, throw my money in and done. all the rebalancing and such done for me.
so between these funds I am curious which is the better choice. I know they are different because otherwise, why would fidelity have two funds that did exactly the same thing, and they do differ in performance. for instance in the 2008 crash the puritan fund held up better, but the past 10 years saw the balanced fund edge out slightly higher.
I need to distinguish between what is pure luck, the kind of thing that would make a person foolishly invest in ARKK because it did better over the past ten years, vs being a better strategy.
from what I can gather the puritan fund focuses more on large cap us stocks and the balanced fund adds more mid and small cap, and the balanced fund has more high quality bonds vs the puritan having more junk bonds. I could be wrong on that but that's what I read.
I think they also may differ in manager style. balanced has a team vs puritan I'm not sure as it doesn't seem as clear.
from what I can tell historically the puritan has done better, including managing downside risk such as in 2008, but given us large caps huge run may be likely to underperform going forward which may tip the scales in favor of the balanced fund doing better with its mid and small caps. its also possible the puritan if managed by only one guy (I'm not sure how they are managed) was just lucky in 2008 vs the team at the balanced fund then and would mean management risk could play a role. less so with balanced since they have a team that I assume could check each others biases and whatever.
if anybody here is knowledgeable on this stuff and could explain to me how these funds differ and the pros and cons for why you would pick one or the other, please let me know. Thanks for the help! on the surface they seem the same. same fees, same balance of 30-40% bonds, but they do differ some and perform differently. Thanks for the help!
Statistics: Posted by okiedokie — Sun Sep 01, 2024 12:27 pm — Replies 2 — Views 229