Is it bad to have too many ETFs?
How many ETFs are enough? The answer depends on several factors when deciding how many ETFs you should own. Generally speaking, fewer than 10 ETFs are likely enough to diversify your portfolio, but this will vary depending on your financial goals, ranging from retirement savings to income generation.
While there is no universal threshold, a common guideline suggests keeping overlap between ETFs below 50 percent. In essence, if two ETFs share more than 50 percent of their holdings, it is deemed high overlap, which diminishes diversification benefits.
ETFs are considered to be low-risk investments because they are low-cost and hold a basket of stocks or other securities, increasing diversification. For most individual investors, ETFs represent an ideal type of asset with which to build a diversified portfolio.
You expose your portfolio to much higher risk with sector ETFs, so you should use them sparingly, but investing 5% to 10% of your total portfolio assets may be appropriate. If you want to be highly conservative, don't use these at all.
The disadvantages are complexity and trading costs. With so many ETFs in the portfolio, it's important to be able to keep track of what you own at all times. You could easily lose sight of your total allocation to stocks if you hold 13 different stock ETFs instead of one or even five.
Generally speaking, fewer than 10 ETFs are likely enough to diversify your portfolio, but this will vary depending on your financial goals, ranging from retirement savings to income generation.
However, it's important to balance diversification and complexity. Holding too many ETFs can limit gains and make it harder to manage, while holding too few can increase risk. Aim for around 10 to 20 diversified ETFs that align with your goals and risk tolerance.
Nearly all leveraged ETFs come with a prominent warning in their prospectus: they are not designed for long-term holding. The combination of leverage, market volatility, and an unfavorable sequence of returns can lead to disastrous outcomes.
A leveraged ETF uses derivative contracts to magnify the daily gains of an index or benchmark. These funds can offer high returns, but they also come with high risk and expenses. Funds that offer 3x leverage are particularly risky because they require higher leverage to achieve their returns.
In fact, 47% of all such funds have closed down, compared with a closure rate of 28% for nonleveraged, noninverse ETFs. "Leveraged and inverse funds generally aren't meant to be held for longer than a day, and some types of leveraged and inverse ETFs tend to lose the majority of their value over time," Emily says.
Is it bad to only invest in ETFs?
So if you're happy with a portfolio that performs comparably to the stock market as a whole, then sticking to S&P 500 ETFs alone isn't a bad idea. However, if you assemble a portfolio of individual stocks that perform better, you might enjoy a 12% or 15% return over time -- or more.
For instance, some ETFs may come with fees, others might stray from the value of the underlying asset, ETFs are not always optimized for taxes, and of course — like any investment — ETFs also come with risk.
Experts agree that for most personal investors, a portfolio comprising 5 to 10 ETFs is perfect in terms of diversification.
Calculate the Investment Needed: To earn $1,000 per month, or $12,000 per year, at a 3% yield, you'd need to invest a total of about $400,000.
It's relatively simple: You add up all of your investments, and withdraw 4% of that total during your first year of retirement. In subsequent years, you adjust the dollar amount you withdraw to account for inflation.
It's all about moderation
If you make a point to load your portfolio with stocks across a range of market sectors, you'll have more protection when one sector takes a beating. But while it's definitely a good idea to own a few dozen stocks, you don't want to load up on too many.
You should therefore only keep as many funds in your portfolio as you're comfortable monitoring. For example, if you hold 10 or 20 different funds, you'll need to keep a close eye on the changing value of all these investments to make sure your asset allocation still matches your investment goals.
One way to think about it is every three months taking whatever excess income you can afford to invest – money that you will never need to touch again – and buy ETFs! Buy ETFs when the market is up. Buy ETFs when the market is down.
ETFs can provide an easy way to be diversified and as such, the investor may want to have 75% or more of the portfolio in ETFs." To that end, Conzo says a more sophisticated investor may have additional needs.
There might be other practical considerations that limit the number of stocks. However, our analysis demonstrates that, whether you own ETFs, mutual funds, or a basket of individual stocks, a well-diversified portfolio requires owning more than 20-30 stocks.
How many funds should I have in my portfolio?
So, what's the ideal number of funds? Well, there is no right or wrong answer. It can depend on a number of factors including the number of funds you're comfortable monitoring in your portfolio, your investment objectives and risk appetite.
Over diversifying your portfolio reduces the magnitude of gains you could have from the good funds in your portfolio (since to invest in many funds, you'll be investing less in each fund). To put it another way, with wide diversification, you will not lose much, but you do not stand to gain much, either.
The largest Aggressive ETF is the iShares Core Aggressive Allocation ETF AOA with $1.87B in assets. In the last trailing year, the best-performing Aggressive ETF was AOA at 21.52%. The most recent ETF launched in the Aggressive space was the iShares ESG Aware Aggressive Allocation ETF EAOA on 06/12/20.
The S&P 500 is considered well-diversified by sector, which means it includes stocks in all major areas, including technology and consumer discretionary—meaning declines in some sectors may be offset by gains in other sectors.
For most standard, unleveraged ETFs that track an index, the maximum you can theoretically lose is the amount you invested, driving your investment value to zero. However, it's rare for broad-market ETFs to go to zero unless the entire market or sector it tracks collapses entirely.
