Our S&P 500 ETF holds large and mid-sized companies, and it outperformed our Russell 2000 small cap ETF during the week. Both of these ETF’s are very low cost, and add important diversification to our Blue Harbinger 15 and to our Lazy Person Portfolio.
Important to note, the S&P 500 ETF pays dividends at the end of each January, April, July and October, which means its dividend payment will be showing up soon if it’s not already in your account. If you don’t need this dividend for your own personal spending purposes, then it is important to reinvest the cash received so it doesn’t add up and drag down the returns of your account over the long term.
Ideally, we want zero cash in a long-term investment account, but generally speaking it is not the end of the world if you have 1% cash in your account. But if you accumulate much more than 1% then you should really think about getting that invested as soon as possible. As a reminder, most discount brokers (E-Trade, Scottrade, TD Ameritrade) offer automatic dividend reinvestment programs, and it’s a good idea to take advantage of these programs if you are a long-term investor and don’t need the cash right away. However, if you do need the cash then it’s always especially nice to see those dividends come rolling in quarter after quarter.
You can read our complete Russell 2000 Small Cap ETF thesis and research report here, and you can view the same for our S&P 500 SPDR ETF (SPY) here.