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Talking Real Money - Investing Talk

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Talking Real Money - Investing Talk

Don McDonald

Investing, Education, Business, How To

4.5810 Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2026

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Don and Tom dissect a Morningstar article naming the “best core stock funds” for 2026, noting the sharp decline in recommended actively managed funds and the dominance of low-cost index funds. While they applaud the shift away from expensive stock pickers, they argue Morningstar’s “core” approach still leads to unnecessary complexity and heavy large-cap (especially S&P 500) concentration, with little exposure to small-cap, value, and emerging markets. They advocate instead for simple, globally diversified, factor-tilted funds like DFAW, AVGE, or AVGV. Listener questions cover switching from AVGE to AVGV inside an IRA (risk tolerance matters), improving a 32-year-old’s 401(k) allocation (use a Roth IRA to add small/value exposure), and a sharp analogy comparing passive investing to driving with traffic rather than weaving aggressively for no gain. 0:04 Investing in a “wonderful world” by ignoring noise 1:14 AI audio tools that may replace editors (and shorten meetings) 5:06 Morningstar’s 2026 “Best Core Funds” list shifts toward indexing 6:39 Why “core” still means large-cap heavy and incomplete diversification 9:50 The problem with piling into multiple S&P 500 funds 12:14 Why Dimensional and Avantis are missing from the list 13:26 One-fund global solutions: DFAW, AVGE, AVGV 17:44 Listener analogy: aggressive driving vs. active investing 19:08 IRA question: Switching from AVGE to AVGV and risk tolerance 20:34 32-year-old’s 401(k) allocation and using a Roth IRA to add small/value 28:40 Retirement workshop plug and who should attend 30:21 Free fiduciary advice vs. actually hiring an advisor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:03.0

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0:09.0

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0:12.0

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0:16.0

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0:18.0

I'm taking you to see the wizard.

0:20.0

There's no going back. Whatever you're into, it's right here. I'm taking you to see the wizard. There's no going back.

0:21.8

Whatever you're into, it's right here.

0:24.1

Prime Video.

0:25.1

Click or tap the banner to find out more.

0:31.3

Reality Radio for a really great future.

0:38.0

We're talking real money.

0:40.3

We live in a wonderful world for investors these days.

0:44.9

It's a really great place to live if you're an investor as long as you learn one simple trick.

0:54.0

And that is kind of ignore the noise. There's a lot of advice and information out

0:59.3

there that's silly, that just is sort of a waste of time. And one of the sources of data and

1:05.8

information that we respect the most is Morningstar yet.

1:13.9

Hi, I'm Don McDonald, along with Tom Cock.

1:18.7

This is the Talking Real Money, Exciting, Fun-filled, Making More Money, Makes Sense,

1:24.9

podcasts that you tune to every doggone day and will for the rest of your natural life,

1:27.8

because even if we're gone, we're going to have AI replace us.

1:29.7

Sooner rather than later, by the way. For Tom, it's like, yeah. Wait, AI can,

...

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