Portfolio 1 of 6

One fund, held well

Buy every listed company in the world in one fund, in its cheapest form, in whatever account suits you, and hold it. It is the plain starting point for money you are investing in stocks.

What you buy

The one fund, what it holds, its share, its fee on $10,000 and which account to hold it in
Fund	What it holds	Share	Fee on $10,000	Account
VT Vanguard Total World Stock ETF	Every listed company in the world	100%	$6	Any account

One fund, so which fund goes in which account is never a question. Roughly three fifths of VT is the US market; hold it beside a US fund such as VTI and you own the US twice. If you would rather set the split yourself, VTI at 0.03% and VXUS at 0.05% do the same job for half the fee.

What $10,000 did

$10,000 became: $297,000; November 1990 to December 2025, before tax
Grew a year: 10.1%; After fund fees
Worst fall: −52.8% $4,720; October 2007 to February 2009; back to even in 63 months
Costs a year on $10,000: $6; 0.06% fee

What $10,000 became: what each finished on
Series	Start	Finish
One fund	$10,000 in 1990-10	$296,713 in 2025-12
60/40	$10,000 in 1990-10	$187,716 in 2025-12

One fund against a plain 60/40 mix (60% stocks, 40% US government bonds), 1990 to 2025. Simulated from index data, not fund records, using VT’s assumed market exposures and current fund fee. The cheap stock-index benchmark on other pages is a separate portfolio.

The 60/40 mix became $188,000. Best calendar year: 2003, up 36.8%. Worst: 2008, down 39.8%. In 2020 it made 20.0%; in 2022 it lost 18.3%.

The worst fall

−52.8% $10,000 fell to $4,720 and took 63 months to get back.

Falls from the last high: the worst fall of each
Series	Worst fall
One fund	−52.8%
60/40	−27.2%

How far below its last high $10,000 sat, month by month, against a plain 60/40 mix. Zero is the last high; every dip is a fall from it.

It was back above $10,000 in January 2013, 63 months after the October 2007 peak. The 60/40 mix fell to $7,280 over the same months and was back in 35 months.

What it beat, and by how much

This fund owns the world's listed companies for a low fee. The case for it is that it is simple and spread wide. Nothing in it depends on guessing which manager or strategy will beat the market.

A lower fee helps when the new fund holds what you wanted to own anyway. Comparing a typical active fund with a typical index fund, the research found a fee gap of 0.49% a year. What you save depends on the funds you actually replace, on trading costs and on any tax from selling. Swapping one already cheap index fund for another does not earn you that gap.

Who it is for

It suits long-term money you have decided to put in stocks, when you want one fund and little upkeep. It can still fall deeply and stay down for years. How much to keep in cash or bonds instead is a separate decision, and it turns on what you will need to spend and what you can bear.

How to hold it

The four habits

What you keep depends on costs, taxes and decisions you can repeat.

Compare total costs. Start with broad funds that hold what you want to own. The fee after lending, the gap between buying and selling prices, and your broker's charges all count. A cheaper fee does not make two different portfolios the same thing. The fund list separates these costs.

Use the accounts you actually have. Check what you can put in, what you can take out, how it is taxed and which funds it offers. With one fund there is no ranking of funds to place, but the choice between taxable, pre-tax and Roth accounts can still matter.

Check what the fund pays out. An ETF can pay out fewer taxable capital gains than other kinds of fund, though the label alone does not make one tax-efficient. Compare the fund's own payouts and costs with what else your account offers.

Avoid selling you did not need to do. Putting off a taxable gain leaves more money invested. Selling can still be the right move: to spend, to change the mix, or to buy something better after costs. Set the tax bill against the reason for the change.

What could go wrong

In the ten years to February 2009 US stocks returned −2.55% a year, so $10,000 put in at the start of that decade was worth about $7,700 at the end. Today the seven largest US companies are 34% of the S&P 500 (July 2026), and US stocks cost about 41 years of average profits, a level seen in only 19 of 1,748 months since 1881, almost all of them in 1999 and 2000. That price has predicted deeper falls, not lower returns. Index-fund investors as a group earned about 1.1% a year less than the funds they held.

Should you stop here

Many people should. Portfolio 2 keeps 70% here and leans the rest toward cheap, profitable companies and rising shares with three more funds. Portfolio 3 does the same with nine funds and a bigger lean. Portfolio 4 adds a trend-following fund alongside stocks, plus a little gold and inflation-protected bonds. Portfolio 5 puts half the money in bonds and gold, for someone who wants smaller falls. None of them puts a floor under what you could lose.

The long history

Simulated, from US stock index data. Over 1932 to 2025 the one-fund model grew 11.2% a year, and $10,000 at the October 2007 peak fell to $4,970 by February 2009, a fall of 50.4%. It was not back above $10,000 until March 2012, 53 months later. Foreign markets use US stock data here, with VT’s current fee taken off. Nobody earned these simulated returns, and nobody who lived through those markets knew how they would end.