Try your model with 1/3 in each of stocks, long bonds, and gold. You'll probably like what you see. Although keeping some percentage in cash, maybe 10%, can help with rebalancing. Unfortunately this approach will give you a longer duration in bonds/cash which won't be pretty when rates rise.

I hold some electronic gold and some physical gold. I'm endeavoring to reduce the former and increase the latter. I agree that if nuclear war hits, gold probably won't be very useful for a while. But, I think it could be tremendously useful in re-establishing one's financial life after the dust has ...

For me, one big difference between different types of calories is that some types of calories make me feel satisfied, and other types of calories (usually the less healthy ones) just make me want to eat more.

Bedraggled, what kind of telescope(s) do you have?

I have a few, but little time to use them.  As for today's Mercury transit, it is cloudy here right now.  Astronomy can be a bit frustrating, because it seems that the weather doesn't cooperate very often.

Agreed 100%.  And not just a 3-year focus, but a 3-year focus on real returns, as you suggested.  That's where the PP differentiates itself from a lot of portfolios.

I think this thread is talking about two different kinds of wackos, and it might be helpful to differentiate them (although several commenters have already touched on several of these points): 1.  The first wacko believes in a living God who works actively in people's lives, even today in the 21st c...

Who said it was less whacko?  They are two sides of the same crazy coin.

What does this mean:  "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's"?  I am a born-again Christian, having received the Holy Spirit speaking in tongues just like in the Bible.  I have no interest in getting involved in politics, because it's just a distraction from what i...

So, the buy/sell signal has to repeat itself two months in a row before you act?

InsuranceGuy, can you give us some more details?  It sounds like you are testing a monthly checking strategy.  Is it a 12-month lookback period each month?  You mentioned some consistency tests to avoid whipsawing.  What are those tests?

How often have you had to rebalance since 2012, or whenever you started?

I'm not trying to make a cult out of it, but if there were a consistently better plan than the pp, Harry Browne seems like he'd be smart enough to find it and sell it. I mean, people expect this stuff to be hard and to be complex, and he probably could have sold a lot more copies if the strategy ha...

I like it.  I imagine it will be a bit more volatile than the PP, but with greater reward in the long run.

I'm doing something similar in my 401k, because it has a cheap bond index fund available, plus I feel stupid having a big chunk of cash in a long-term vehicle when I'm nowhere near retirement.

PS,

Does that modified GB look like this:  20% LCB, 20% SCV, 40% BLV, 20% gold?

So, over the last 10 years, you've gotten a CAGR that was 2.8% higher than the HBPP, with minimal extra effort, and the MaxDD was only 2.5% greater based on monthly results.  To me, that just seems awesome.  I wish I could give you a high-five or fist bump over the internet.  If I knew how to use em...

IG,

You should write a book.  That performance seems phenomenal to me.  Thank you for sharing your ideas with us.  Do you happen to know the MaxDD for the HBPP over that time period?

So I do Top2 Yearly with other asset classes in addition to the PP classes.  I have only been tracking my results monthly so my MaxDD is probably more than the number in my monthly spreadsheet.  Anyways, from 2006-2015 I had 9.7% CAGR with MaxDD -14.5% from Feb 2008 to Oct 2008. Is that CAGR real o...

Yes, I agree with you 100% that reaching the target audience will be the hardest thing. I think there are two types of one-on-one advice that are currently being offered.  The first is fairly expensive (especially from a young person's perspective) from someone like a certified financial planner.  T...

I've been thinking of starting an online business to provide investing advice to young people who want to get started investing in 401k's, IRA's, etc., but need some help.  I read an article yesterday based on a survey that reported that what these young people really want is a one-on-one advisor.  ...

2.5% extra CAGR a year, with little added potential drawdown risk, is huge , especially considering that a lot of people rebalance each year anyway.  All this involves is just looking at the previous year's results for each asset, and then switching your momentum assets if necessary, which as I post...

Whatever the true MaxDD for the PP, the recovery time is about half what it is for a lot of other portfolios.  It's good to know beforehand that 20 to 25% drawdown is possible.  That way if it happens, you can just clench your fists and hold on, rather than capitulating and locking in losses.

stuper - since you asked, here is what the PP+SCV looks like using the same data only trading semianually.  For those of you at home, this is still a 12 month lookback just trading 2x/year instead of once.  The patterns and ideal pick are very similar across the two scenarios.  Could be worth it if...

IG,

I sent you a PM.

I think that Dual Momentum seems worth the bother to either increase your return or reduce your MaxDD.  It really just means a few extra trades 1 day/year. Next up I'm going to try and get Russell 2000 daily results back to 1979 and run that through a similar process for the PP+SCV scenario.  It ma...

InsuranceGuy, There is something I noticed in both of our results that is very intriguing to me.  With a PP+Top-2-MOM strategy, the maximum single year drawdown increases as you increase the percentage allocated to the Top 2.  This is what I would expect.  However, with a PP+SCV+Top-2-MOM strategy,...