[l2ridehd]

That is the fundamental difference in our investment style. I would suggest that if you are only 15% international then by default you are 85% US which to me is really the huge gamble. I try to map as close as possible to the entire market. Which for equities is about 68% US, 21% Europe and 11% Asia & Emerging markets. The only place I vary slightly from the equity map is I place about a 5% extra bet on small cap stocks. So a 5% tilt away from large cap. I do that both for US and International. Small cap stocks have outperformed Large cap stock in every 5 year window you measure. So a slight tilt improves overall performance by about 110 basis points. As for bonds I also try to map to the global mapping of that market, but that is a little more difficult so I am slightly over weighted to the US market and over weighted to short term and high yield corporate.

I set my IPS to the AA I have determined best for me, re-balance every time I have more then a 5% drift and stay the course using low cost index funds.