Our portfolio leans somewhat towards the conservative side.  Our overall target allocation is 45% equities, 45% bonds, and 10% cash.
When it comes to the allocation within bonds I have not seen much in the way of literature that recommends an allocation regarding types of bonds/durations.
Our current allocation in specific funds as a percentage of our entire portfolio is: 15% short term, 8.5% short term tips, and 16.5% intermediate (the rest of the bonds are in a target date fund).

I have some active managed mutual funds(getting hammered by yearly tax distribution) in one of my brokerage accounts. I would like to know the best tax effective way to sell these funds?

“I’m giving you a love that’s true
And gonna make you love me, too
So get ready, get ready
‘Cause here I come.”
adapted from “Get Ready”
The Temptations, 1966
 
The Motown rhythm and blues quartet may well have divined the arrival of actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Can’t stop them now, ladies and gentlemen—they’re already here.
Leave it to the frantic asset managers who brought you the load fund and then repackaged it as no load with hidden excessive fees to invent a product to compete with the fabulously successful passive (or index) ETF.

To follow up on a recent post by Steve Abramowitz:
A Morningstar article published 3/11/25 addressed this subject looking at performance over the past 10 years.
It found that less than one out of every four active funds topped the average of their passive rivals over the 10-year period ended December 2024.
Long-term success rates were highest among bond and real estate funds.
The prospective payoff for choosing a winning fund versus the penalty for picking a loser.

IN THE 1990s, Mark Cuban started one of the first internet companies, a video streaming service called Broadcast.com, and later sold it to Yahoo for several billion dollars. With some of the proceeds, he bought the Dallas Mavericks NBA franchise and sold that as well, taking home another several billion dollars.
And for 16 seasons, Cuban appeared on the reality TV show Shark Tank, in which entrepreneurs present ideas to a panel of prospective investors.

Need a vacation from our turbulent market? Go first-class with Vanguard’s Total International Stock Index Fund. Why do I need foreign stocks? After all, they’ve drastically underperformed the S&P in the last few years—and let’s face it folks—the world is in turmoil.
The whole idea of plunking some money down on foreign stocks gives many investors the heebie-jeebies. You’re not a victim of home country bias, you’re just being prudent, right? Aren’t almost all foreign economies—especially government-heavy and 

“It’s déjà vu (all over again),” is a quip often attributed to beloved baseball philosopher Yogi Berra. He might as well have been referring to the highly regarded and much awaited 2024 S&P Global Report on the comparative performance of actively managed and passive mutual funds. Its conclusions will come as no surprise to readers of Humble Dollar: Index funds drubbed those run by portfolio managers.
Here’s a quick read. Most actively managed stock funds underperformed their relevant benchmarks.

Given that we seem to be entering “interesting” times, I’m revisiting my rebalancing strategy
to ensure my approach remains calm and rational.
I’ve generally got a vanilla approach with a 60% stock and 40% bond and cash mix with low-cost index funds and 3-5 years of cash/cash equivalents worth set aside for living expenses.
My re-balancing strategy is generally “Do it once a year or if any one major category drifts more than 5% from it’s target.” 

We sold our S&P 500 shares from one retirement account to roll them into another, perfectly timing the market peak. I’d love to boast it was our shrewd insight that nailed the sale, but honestly, it wasn’t. We were just moving money from our 401(k) to our Vanguard IRA. Picture a typical morning—coffee in hand, idly glancing over our account balances during our usual monthly check-in.
No brilliance needed—just sheer luck. Some label it dumb luck,

THE U.S. STOCK MARKET has historically delivered similar returns under both Democrat and Republican administrations. For that reason, my view is that investors shouldn’t worry too much about who occupies the White House, and I tend to stay away from investment discussions that involve politics.
But sometimes, the news coming out of Washington dominates the headlines in a way that can’t be ignored. Such is the case today. Moreover, with the stock market faltering recently,

Just finished my annual investing phone call with my daughter. We hold this meeting annually before she files her taxes to make tweaks to her portfolio for the upcoming year. With Vanguard she has a brokerage account, traditional IRA , and a Roth IRA. She also has a 401K, and HSA through her work. These I am all familiar with.
The one component of her portfolio I am not familiar with is Acorns. I hadn’t paid much attention to this component as it was just rounding of purchases from her credit card.

THIS MONTH MARKS the five-year anniversary of the start of the pandemic. That makes this a good time to look back and ask what lessons we might learn.
In early 2020, when COVID-19 was first identified in the U.S., the stock market dropped 34% in the space of just five weeks. But later in the year—after the Federal Reserve stepped in with its bazooka—the market rebounded, ending the year in positive territory. For full-year 2020,

I was recently reading a bit on the iShares offering iBonds, essentially laddered bond ETFs.
https://www.ishares.com/us/strategies/bond-etfs/build-better-bond-ladders
The advantage I see is that these are not perpetual bonds like an ETF (as in the ETF will cease to exist as of the maturity date and return the money) and, unlike an individual bond offering, are slightly more diversified. They also come in silos of flavors (U.S. government, corporate, municipals and TIPS).
I think (am not sure) that at maturity the number of shares multiplied by the final NAV will be returned (happy to hear if anyone has more insights into how this works).

Over the last year or so, I have been on the lookout for an ETF that is by itself dedicated to the beleaguered but recently resuscitated 60/40 portfolio. Surprisingly, it’s been a long and tedious slog.
At 80 and beset by assorted health challenges, I am realistic in supposing that I will pass before my younger and healthier wife. I know Vanguard’s Wellington (VWELX) would fit the bill, but Alberta will have enough responsibilities to shoulder without having to worry about any mutual fund restrictions or redemption fees that might someday be imposed.

I decided 10 days ago to make a small (0.2% of my portfolio) in Ethereum through the Fidelity ETF. I decided on Ethereum over Bitcoin only because Ethereum had fallen in price quite a bit at the end of January.
Just curious how many of you have any crypto investments and if so how much of your portfolio and which crypto currencies (all Bitcoin?)
I must say that I’m a little more exposed to this industry as my son is with a cryptocurrency brokerage and digital asset organization.