I'm not saying I'd rather live in Russia than here. I'm saying that I'd rather live in a world where our foreign policy wasn't influenced by the Lockheed-Martin-type corporations who just want to foment trouble so they can sell more missiles and buy more yachts for their CEOs. Every time you hear so...

A lot of people in this world (most of them outside of the U.S., but a few of them inside, such as myself) would view our military/industrial complex as a lot closer to Satanic than any threat posed by the Russians. My point is that, even if the Russians were trying to influence the election, there ...

Trump doesn't sugarcoat things like most politicians. He just calls a spade a spade. Any president could have been subject to an investigation like this, and certainly they would have found something on any one of them, including Washington (seriously). I can't keep track of these things anymore, bu...

According to the Drawdowns calculator at portfoliocharts.com, the PP has an ulcer index of 2.5 and a 100% cash portfolio has an ulcer index of 3.3. These are based on historical real returns. The ulcer index sort of integrates the area above the drawdown curve and thus incorporates both the duration...

Are you familiar with the calculators at portfoliocharts.com? You might try playing around with some of those. The drawdown calculator will tell you the deepest drawdown and how long it took to recover. For your situation, where you might need the money in as little as two years, I might choose some...

No, you don't seem to understand. Unless the PP as a whole is in positive territory every day, then it's not working properly as advertised. It's all or nothing. Either LTTs and gold always go up more than stocks go down on each and every day, or else forget about it, I'm going back to bogleheads or...

Tyler, I certainly hope you are right about gold prices in the 1970s. That would be wonderful, if accurate. An alternative viewpoint could be that prices ran up quickly, pulled back a bit, and then continued running up until 1981, but still based on gold trying to find an equilibrium price after bei...

I think the problem is that the PP hasn't really been tested in a situation where bond yields are on a long-term upward trend. The period prior to 1981 doesn't really count in my eyes because the U.S. was just coming off the gold standard, and the skyrocketing gold price helped the PP immensely. Nob...

Try looking at the period of 1998 - 2008 also. Good luck to them. Those are the people that end up selling their stocks at a loss in downturns because they over-estimated their risk tolerance.

Vanguard LT Bonds (BLV) has a lot of non-US Treasury bonds such as corporate bonds. If you are trying to use the PP philosophy, those don't fit. For safety, a US PP only uses US Treasury bonds.

Cortopassi, your experience is about the same as mine. I am determined to pass on more investing guidance to my children than what I received from my parents, which was zero. When I read Craig and Tex's PP book, it was like a light bulb went on in my head. It just makes so much sense, but nobody eve...

That's the point. You shouldn't try to compare the two. They are two different things completely. Like trying to compare a giraffe with an orange. One is higher risk/higher reward. The other is lower risk/lower reward. You get to choose. Just remember that when you pick "higher reward", yo...

Aren't you happy that it's up 5.7% in the last 12 months? Sure beats a savings account at the bank.

Keep in mind though that a PP has historically suffered drawdowns as much as 20% or more, so it's definitely not as safe as a savings account.

Cmon, Budd, you have posted your overall portfolio many times. Mine is a lot closer to a PP than yours. The lesson I have learned from the PP is to keep a good percentage in LTTs and gold -- i.e., at least 10 to 15%, enough to actually make a difference -- because those things are either negatively ...

60/40 12-month return is 9.9% Stocks have been on a 10 year tear, so of course the PP has been lagging. A 60/40 or 70/30 isn't going to look very good if we hit another 10-year stretch like 1998 to 2008. I know for me personally that having so many down years over that time frame would make it very ...

I just went to etefreplay.com. Over the last 12 months, the PP is up 5.7%. Year to date, the PP is down 0.8%, which is exactly the same as a 60/40 stock/bond fund. I'm baffled by the angst in this thread.

Are there rebalancing rules?

Is this a thing where you check once a month but only trade if your absolute momentum signal changes or if you need to rebalance?

Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.

Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.

I think what we are looking at is probabilities. Most likely the 70/30 is going to out-perform the PP over a 15-year time frame, but there is a chance that it won't. Do I really want to take that chance? Harry Browne was very smart when he said to hold the PP with the money that you can't afford to ...

It really doesn't take zen. When the PP experiences a drop, compare the current drop to drops that have happened in the past using a back-testing tool like portfoliovisualizer.com. If the current drop is no larger than drops that have happened previously, then shrug your shoulders and find something...

If your PP is your emergency fund, then maybe that is why you are so worried about short-term dips. Historically, the PP as an overall portfolio has had drawdowns as much as 20% or more, so I'm not sure that a PP is meant to be an emergency fund. On the other hand, it should be okay to view the cash...

Budd, what is your time horizon for possibly needing to withdraw money from your portfolio?

Whatever term applies to Obama's portrait, it should be very interesting to see what Trump's portrait looks like. I'd lay better than even odds that Obama won't hold the title of wackiest portrait for more than 8 years. At least Trump will make sure his portrait is made by Americans (oh, the racist ...

Would the term "special snowflake" apply here?

I propose a portfolio which is a traditional permanent portfolio mix with a bitcoin variable portfolio sidecar. Hows: 24% gold 24% cash 24% stocks 24% long term bonds 4% bitcoin Turns out the back testing is amazing. Sure, the backtesting of that portfolio would be amazing at this point. It would b...