Is my thinking incorrect? If I buy 30 year treasuries - does that mean that I am committed to PP for 30 years?  I have a hard time committing to a 30 year strategy. Plus, I  have my own personal opinion about the risk of the 30 year - including a selected default mechanism, ie the Treasury defaultin...

Here is where PP has its drawback. It lags the overall equity market when stocks are rising. The PP is defensive in nature. So if we are truly in a bullish stock market, treasuries, gold and cash will drag on your performance.

If we are truly going to experience a bull market, PP will lag. Not sure if that would spell trouble, but maybe similar to 2012 performance.

Hi Pointedstick, Was the  Budd directed at me? If so, let me address your concern. I think most everyone has a difficult time buying an asset class that is in decline. My question which was answered most eloquently by Melveyr - is that perhaps the PP is signalling a prosperity phase. No one knows fo...

With the recent sell off in gold, and treasuries, and the rise in equities - is the PP reflecting a transition to prosperity? Would be interested in the opinion of Craig, Mediumtex, Gumby, Moda and Machine Ghost since they have experienced transitions periods before. Or is it too soon to tell? It wi...

I've noticed that the PERM etf has some price disconnect with PP and PRPFX - case in point  - Friday' close was +.57% - where as PP was down (-.22%) and PRPFX was down (-.87%) - that is a huge disconnect.
Thoughts?

Ever since the new PERM etf came out - PP has not done so well - i know it will - but they say when an etf comes out that tries to catch a "fade" of investing - it marks a top for the fade. I know it is illogical to think this way with PP but it still creeps into my thoughts.

But the author believes 2 asset classes need to be in "vogue" but I believe the premise is only one asset class needs to be in strong growth mode to offset decline and stagnation in other classes. http://seekingalpha.com/article/404601-choose-carefully-before-making-a-permanent-move?source...

the futures portfolio that i am watching to an $11K hit and that is with just one contract in gc, tf and zb
stay tuned to see if it climbs back up - it is just a fun (simulated) experiment.

Hi Clacy - you are correct in that the contract size in dollars is not equal. What i am trying to do is to balance the volatility much like bonds up - stocks down by roughly the same amount expect when that component is in vogue. I chose TF because the mini es moves are small for one contract compar...

Has anyone attempted to implement PP utilizing the futures market? GC=Gold, ZN=US Bond, ES=sp 500 but you could use TF=Russell to equal volatility of the GC ZN. I am going to run a continuous hold on 1 contact in GC, ZN and TF and see how it compares to an etf version (utilizing vti for the eft vers...

Would this be a good alternative for the cash component? It appears to cash you out with your original investment at the target date plus earning yield.
http://www.guggenheimfunds.com/etf/fund/bscc

One could look at this as buying opportunity - if one is currently funding a retirement portfolio. I purchased additional shares because I am confident PP will be higher. I cannot say that about equities. If PP drops another 5%, I will deploy additional funds. Plus you have your rebalancing bands. I...

Thank you to all,
especially Triple B and Clive
for taking time to type out examples. You make perfect sense, now that I see on paper. And hopefully others can refer to your posts when they also don't get it.
Cheers,
Mike

I am still trying to understand the time decay issue utilizing leveraged etfs in PP. I have been monitoring a 2x portfolio using sso, ubt, dgp and shy and it has gained 42.27% vs the return of non-leveraged PP of 20.66% (42% vs 20% is pretty darn close tracking for more than 1 yrs worth of data imho...

I believe with the Ivy Portfolio you would rebalance at the end of the month, so if an asset class breached the Moving Average, you would wait until the end of the month to see if it recovered before initiating a buy or sell. If you look at the short term graph in the link, you can see that there we...

Does anyone have a strategy that utilizes the cash/short term treasury component of PP to buy one of the other assets when there is a significant decline but has not yet reached a volatility band? Seem to me this would be a great way to utilize the cash, and then replenish the amount with a dedicate...

CabronJames
I am curious as to why you chose a 3 market PP instead of the traditional 4 with a cash/short term Treasury component? Or maybe you have a cash component if another form?

Craig-you wrote in the FAQ  segment. "Do I need to hold the bond for the entire time? No. You will sell the bonds when they have 20 years left of maturity under the Permanent Portfolio strategy. You will then buy new 25-30 year bonds to replace them." How does this work with rebalancing ba...

Can they do that? How can an quasi-government entity dictate interest rate ceilings? Bottom line - would it matter to HB investment theme? Here is the full article By Jennifer Ablan NEW YORK | Wed Jun 15, 2011 5:03pm EDT http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/15/us-pimco-fed-gross-idUSTRE75E5XC20110...

What would Harry Browne say about the Federal Reserve buying Treasuries? Would he still recommend them as part of his strategy? It appears to me that the Fed has greatly interfered with the free market system by purchasing more than 70% of supply.  I realize that with Browne's strategy, at least one...

GTAA - expensive fees - (my reasoning for buying) throws a 200 dma buy/sell into different non-correlated asset classes- IAU, IEI, MDY, SHY - Shorter duration treasuries, strength in midcaps IAU, MDY, SHY, UDN - I think the dollar is toast (at least over the foreseeable future) And of course, plain/...

Thanks Clive - awesome and very detailed information. Really helps me understand - cheers!
mike in pepsicola

Clive - thank you for your thoughtful reply! The US treasury bond market (non-etf) is a mystery to me. How does one implement a 5 yr ladder portfolio? Sorry for the basic question - but i have to figure out how to accomplish this with 4, individual retirement accounts for the 25% of our total portfo...

It appears MDY - the mid cap etf is making new highs. In looking at a 10 year history, the component seems  to perform similar to VTI in overall fluctuation, but it is responding quite well to the current market environment. Is there a downside that I am not seeing in MDY vs VTI? I am intrigued by i...