Investment Products
Last updated August 2, 2021
Many investment products are available to help you achieve your financial goals.
The table below includes investment products relevant to most investors.
The main investment products are stocks, bonds and funds (mutual, ETFs) that
hold a variety of stocks and bonds.
We've included a popular, low-cost fund for each product type in the second column
(we are not compensated for these recommendations).
You should be able to purchase any of these funds with most brokerages.
Please realize that historical annual returns are not an indication of future performance.
In fact, most experts expect assets to return significantly less over the next decade.
We averaged over feedback we received from experts to provide
expected annual returns over the next decade (as of August 2, 2021), included in the table.
Please realize no one can predict such things accurately. Higher
expected average returns typically go hand-in-hand with higher risk and/or volatility.
Notice the rightmost column, which provides a recommended upper limit on how much many experts recommend
investing in each category.
This article contains a simple, high-level
discussion of many of these asset classes.
| Category | Fund | Historical Annual Returns | Expected Annual Returns (next decade) | Max Recommended Allocation |
|---|
US Stocks |
VTI |
11% |
4% |
80% |
International Stocks |
VXUS |
9% |
7% |
50% |
Real Estate |
VNQ |
9% |
5% |
25% |
20+ Year US Treasury Bonds |
TLT |
5.5% |
2% |
40% |
7-10 Year US Treasury Bond |
IEF |
4% |
1% |
35% |
Treasury Inflation-Protected Bonds |
VTIP |
<1% |
1% |
15% |
Gold |
IAU |
11% |
1% |
10% |
Cryptocurrency |
BTC |
>300% |
N/A |
3% |
Please click here for a more complete list of investment options.
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