Thanks buddtholomew, no doubt it's a topic that's been discussed to death! I'll definitely take the time to search through the forums.

This is the only area of the Permanent Portfolio that leaves me a little confused, so I thought I'd run it past you all to hopefully get my head straight about it... 1. Am I right in saying, that the general advice is to check our portfolios, once a year (at the same time), say, Jan 1st could be our...

Thanks so much for the responses! That's really helpful, and I particularly like the peaktotrough.com site, when I get the time I'm going to dig into the data more.

New to the forum, my first topic, so please be gentle! :D I recently got interested in the Permanent Portfolio having read Fail-Safe Investing and then Rowland & Lawson's book. Was pleasantly surprised to find this forum dedicated to it, and looking forward to participate more in the future. I'v...