ETF, my first investment

[savemachine]

Hi everybody, I am new here, and this will be my second thread. As of October of last year, I finally have a real job which I could call a career. I am now looking into investments, and I've opened my very own sharebuilder account yesterday with a deposit of 320 dollars, and hoping to continue to put 100 dollars in each month.

After I've trouble you with my first thread regarding my ignorant on Taxes, I am going to ask again to please help me regarding on ETFs.

I think I've fallen into a trap where everything looks good and promising so I've ended up divided my investment into 8 ETFs. The percentages are as followed.

VTI 31.5%
EFA 23%
AGG 12.5%
EEM 9%
EWJ 9%
IYM 9%
IJR 3%
IYR 3%

Is it a good idea to distribute them like this? I am trying to diversify them, but I don't know if 8 of them are too many, and whether or not I should just put money and concentrate on a couple of funds.

Whatever help that can be given is great appreciated .

Thanks

PS: Question about ROTH IRA coming soon, sorry guys.

[sweeps]

SM, the allocation looks fine to me. But honestly only you can determine what allocation is right for your personal situation.

Don't forget that over time your allocations could get out of whack. You may have to adjust your future contributions or make some real-time trades to keep them at your desired percentages.

[Ima saver]

When i first started investing, I open many many mutual funds cause I could not decide which ones were "right" Now I regret having so many and I have sold some. But when I sell them, I have to pay the taxes on the gains. I still have too many and wish I had stuck with 3 or 4 tops.

[kristinecfp]

Couple of concerns here...

First, you don't usually need 8 different funds to properly diversify. Can you consolidate those 8 to maybe 5 ETFs? Are some of them overlapping each other as far as investments the ETFs invest in? Could you find one ETF that invests in a broader category that would cover 2 or more of the ETFs you have selected (i.e., does the international ETF also invest in Japan?)?

Second, which Sharebuilder plan did you sign up for? Are you planning on spreading out your $100 per month across all 8 ETFs you mentioned? If you signed up for the basic Sharebuilder plan, that could be costly. On the other hand, any of the other Sharebuilder plans would also be costly if you are only able to invest $100 per month.

For both reasons, I would start out with very broad ETFs that would still allow you to be diversified. This will reduce your transaction costs, and simplify your portfolio. Just my 2 cents...

[savemachine]

Thank you everyone for the replies.

Kristin: I have no idea whether or not some of these funds overlap, but I'll have to research more. This is my first investment, so I really have no idea what I am doing . And right now I am on the standard plan free trial which will take care of 6 investments and the other two will cost me 2 dollars each. After that I will switch right back to the basic plan which will be 4 dollars per transaction. I am planning to invest 100 dollars a month to only one of the ETFs at a time, and I won't spread them out at the same time. If you see anything that could be a problem regarding what my plan is (it works so well in my head) please let me know. I appreciate all the inputs I can get.

And as for whether or not those ETFs fund overlap, I will try to look into it. I honestly don't know how I will do that, but I will definitely do it before the day of the transfer comes (Tuesday).

Thank you

SM