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And some consider them to be a little light on international funds
Very true. Everyone has their own thoughts on weighting. If you do the 3-fund portfolio, with index funds in US stock, US bonds, and international stocks, well, then you've got the international stocks covered. What weighting? Depends.
Some make the point that US companies do a great deal of business overseas, so you're already getting some international exposure that way. Others want to get in on the international stocks directly. Pluses and minuses to either approach, for sure. I'm mainly not too keen on the whole currency-exchange thing. Besides the fluctuations in stocks, then you also get in on some of the screwy things that governments will do with their currencies, and the resulting perceptions from the populations of any affected countries - good or bad.
I figure I'm not going to have any idea which sector's going to do well, so right now, I'm trying to stay somewhere around a total stock market index, along with a bit less than my age in bonds. (Age 31, so bonds would be 26% of investment assets.) Though thanks to the lousy choices in the 401k, my total allocation ends up being tilted closer to something like an S&P 500 index - which isn't necessarily a bad thing either, but it's expensive to own it. (There
is a small cap fund in the 401k. It's also one of the more expensive ones there. Oh, and there
is a money market fund available, at 0.66% ER. Yield since inception a few years ago: 0.00%. Maybe I'd see some positive numbers if they showed more significant figures on that. )
If only I could figure out a good way of encouraging management to get a few low-cost funds added... I think the only way would be to find something in the Department of Labor's laws that says that a plan like that is not ERISA compliant. All I've seen thus far is that the fees can't be "high," or that if they are "high," you still need to have some low-cost options available. Nice and vague. :\
And I don't want to make it sound like "I'm gonna get the gov'ment all on you guys!" More like, "Hey....if the DOL sees this, there could be problems, and their lawyers might be able to beat up our lawyers and take their lunch money. Incidentally, there's a good way to solve this, which can benefit a lot of us."