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Vanguard Total Stock Market Index etf - VTI

Vanguard Total Stock Market Index etf (VTI) is ETF based on CRSP Total stock market model developed by top UChicago economists. It is a combined index of top 2500 stocks (based on market cap) representing almost 95% of the market cap of total stock market. Vanguard Total Stock Mkt Idx Adm (VTSAX) is underlying mutual fund for this ETF. If one wants to do automatic periodic monthly investment, one should buy VTSAX instead (as most of brokerage allow periodic investment in mutual fund only ). Money invested in a given company is proportional to their market cap weightage and so giant and large cap ones get most of money (70%) and rest goes to mid caps and small caps. S&P 500 based large cap stocks represent approx 70-75% of total domestic stock market capitalization and so investing into a mutual fund/etf based on this index provides a broad large cap  coverage for sure. However remaining 25-30% domestic stocks fall into mid cap (15-20%) and small cap (10-15%) market cap. ...
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William Bengen’s seminal study about 4.5% Safe Withdrawal Rate for 30 years of inflation adjusted retirement income

Most commonly used retirement income planning strategies use actual expences , which I believe is more practical and includes one's spending habits and chosen life style. One of the most popular strategy uses 55/45 stock/bond conservative  retirement portfolio equal to 22 times  of desired initial yearly  needed expences (after accounting social security benefits). For example, say someone retires at age 67 and starts collection 50K social security benefit as joint household. With fully paid house, say household expences are 60K per year. So household needs remaining 10K from retirement portfolio to meet all expenses. Using above rule of 22, one just needs 220K (22*10K) portfolio to provide needed retirement income for rest of retirement years. Now, let's visit other scenario where household wants to retire earlier , say by age 62. Social Security benefits are reduced (25%) to around 40K per year in that case. Now household needs retirement portfolio to provide remaining ...
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iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) - Passive fund Based on Semiconductor technology index

For those considering a tilt  to specific technology  asset class in their portfolio, high PE of this asset class is always concerning. However, to my utter surprise, semiconductor  technology specific passive   iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) happens to have dirt cheap  PE of merely 21 (as compared to 29 for technology heavy NASDAQ 100 - QQQ). Also, amongst all the technology asset class non leveraged etfs , SOXX performance is almost  number one  for all 1, 3, 5 years horizon. With dividend yield of over 1% and projected earnings growth of 17%, this ETF is projected to generate 1+17=18% annual return for next 5 years. It invests into ICE Semiconductor Sector Index which is primarily based on top 30 (based on market cap) global semiconductor companies. It's expense ratio of 0.43% is little bit on higher side. However, it's still one of least expensive focused technology index ETF.
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