Monday, April 04, 2011

More on permanent portfolio

The concept of a permanent portfolio was popularized by Harry Browne. Here's another person's allocation for a permanent portfolio (link).

If I were asked, I would tend to favor something simpler for average folks. The simple Simon version is 25% each in stocks, bonds, gold, money markets or CDs, and rebalance using bands or once a year. If using ETFs 25% to VTI (Vanguard Total Stock Market) or perhaps split some to VXUS (Vanguard Total International), BND (total bond market), GLD (or PHYS), SHY or just money in the account. Simple is often better for long term investors.

Even simpler might be 50/50 VTI/BND for the investment account, some CDs and some physical gold. Again rebalancing one a year or with bands (a large market move in one or more sectors triggers a rebalance). Rebalancing is easiest if done with new money coming in, as that doesn't require selling and the taxable event in taxable accounts.

The one linked tends towards to lean towards what is hot right now, and anti-dollar themes. To illustrate the point about tilting towards the news and what is hot, I can use the example of gold. One of the best times to load up on gold was in 1999, when gold was $300 and most saw as "dead money" after a decade of poor performance. The U.S. had a Federal budget surplus, employment was near the theoretical "full employment." Stocks were doing so well, that many baby boomers were counting their chickens for an early retirement. Someone tilting then may have underweighted gold and overweighted tech stocks, and would have done poorly because of that tilt.

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