Is there a REIT index fund that is as broad and comprehensive as the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index is for stocks?
What about for commodities? There must be a comprehensive index fund that a novice investor can buy into.
I'm not interested in buying individual REIT's or individual sectors of the commodities market. I want to purchase these two as broad indexes to add to my portfolio to provide additional diversification.
Just so you get an idea of what I am trying to do, I currently invest $34,000 a year in my employee 401k and 457b (the maximum allowable).
This is how my portfolio is broken down:
- 20% bond aggregate index fund (SSgA Passive Bond Market Index)
- 20% Stable Fund
- 25% large-cap index fund (VIIIX)
- 9% mid-cap index fund (SSgA S&P mid-cap 400 index)
- 8% small-cap index fund (SSgA Russell 2000 index)
- 18% international index fund (MSCI All Country ex U.S index)
My employer, unfortunately, does not offer an index fund for REIT's or commodities. So, I must purchase these outside of my job and put them in a Roth IRA.
I've heard of some names, such as the "MSCI US REIT Index", and a couple of funds that track this (VNQ and VGSIX). Is this the benchmark index?
I have also heard of some names for commodities that may be surrogates for the entire commodities market, but I'm not sure if they are (S&P GSCI, RICI, DJ-AIGCI, CRB).
Whatever benchmarks you recommend, please be sure that the REIT index includes residential, commercial and industrial, while the commodities index must include precious metals (including gold), as I don't want to purchase a separate index for these.
I will probably put $2,500 a year into each index to max out my Roth IRA.
The only disadvantage I see to doing this is that I cannot rebalance my entire portfolio annually, as stocks and bonds will be separate from commodities and real estate.
