It's more about tax efficiency. if you open an IRA, you're likely going to be contributing on a Roth basis, meaning that you'll never pay taxes on the growth, whereas in a 401k, you're likely contributing on a pre-tax basis, meaning you will pay taxes on that money. With a taxable brokerage account, you'll be paying taxes on every disbursement, meaning anytime you sell or receive a dividend.

So, generally speaking, you'll want:

• Roth accounts (Roth IRA, Roth 401k, etc) - highest expected growth
• pre-tax accounts (IRA, 401k) - lowest expected growth
• taxable brokerage - lowest capital gains (so low dividends)

In practice, that usually means:

• highest growth - growth stocks
• lowest growth - bonds
• lowest capital gains - value stocks

This can be as complicated or as simple as you'd like. For me personally, I have:

• Roth - US stocks - i think these will continue to outperform longer term
• pre-tax (401k and HSA) - other stocks & bonds - this is where I rebalance
• taxable brokerage - international stocks (for the foreign tax credit)

My overall portfolio composition is the same, I just shift around where I keep each asset class based on tax efficiency.