My employer sponsored 401k is with Fidelity and I recently tasked myself with building a long-term, diversified portfolio on their platform.  I’ve built out a portfolio that has a heavy weight in US equities, but also captures a large amount of both developed and emerging markets.

At the time of this post, Fidelity offers 70 commission-free iShares ETFs of various categories and classes, so I was able to pick and choose from a large array of ETFs in order to build out a portfolio.

Portfolio Tenants

• Overweight equities given that I am in my mid-30’s.
• Limited bond exposure due to rising rates.
• High international exposure (~38%) to potentially outsize risk/reward outside the US market.
• Keep holdings to less than 12 to ease monthly re-balancing.
• Increase US Small-Cap exposure due to a belief that they will outperform over the next 20 years.

General Portfolio 

Addition of IEUR (iShares Core MSCI Europe ETF)

I found that IXUS (iShares Core MSCI Total International Stock ETF) and IEMG (iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF) did not sufficiently provide enough weight for my liking towards major European countries.

Adding IEUR (iShares Core MSCI Europe ETF) to the portfolio brought the United Kingdom, France, and Germany to an exposure level that was more in my risk tolerance levels.

Exposure percentage summary of each ETF by country:

* iShares® is a registered trademark of BlackRock Fund Advisors and its affiliates