Thanks for the very well thought comment Larry. As you point out “Fund of funds” can be tricky with their costs. Also, fund of funds holding international stocks may have additional unrecoverable withholding taxes from dividends compared to funds that hold stocks directly.
I almost hesitate to wade into these waters. It’s the dilemma of “keeping things as simple as possible” vs “as efficient as possible”. However, I think I need to trust my readers that they can handle getting into the weeds on important issues.
So, long story short, I’ll eventually (my writing list is long at the moment) write an article on the caveats of “fund of funds” models.
There is no truly free lunch.