For me, like some of the readers above, I’m just waiting for enough money to transfer to other funds……TRFunds come in handy when you’re just starting out.

Anyhow, thanks for the thoughts. Gives it another angle to look at.

I’m going to wait a little while before I move my money into the target funds to see whether I can beat them with my own mix.

So far, I’m losing, lol.

For the time being, I don’t mind having my money sit in a target retirement fund, but it’s really just a holding place until I have the minimum needed to diversify a little further.

Very informative post, thanks Flexo.

I think the important idea to remember here is that these funds might not be ideal for everyone, but they are a WORLD better than not investing at all. Don’t put off investing because you think you need to do months of research first.

Personally, I’m not losing sleep over the fact that my Roth IRA is a little too conservative right now.

Even with all their flaws they mostly achieve their purpose, so a complete novice could do a lot worse than picking a TR fund. It’s a solid choice for a novice or uninterested investor to let everything sit in a TR fund for a year while they do their homework and decide what to really do. The alternative is to throw darts at a wall and I’ve seen people come up with some really odd (poor) choices.

Also as Tom described, the fee minimums make it impossible to get your desired asset allocation when you’re first starting out. TR funds are a reasonable compromise to get something pretty close until you have enough invested to implement your desired asset allocation.