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,...

InsuranceGuy, Very nice spreadsheet.  Thank you for sharing that.  Much more elegant than my own.  My returns are slightly lower than yours because, I think, I used "cash/money market" returns for cash rather than "short term treasuries".  Overall my results are consistent with y...

Seems like a free lunch.  The chart below shows the rolling 5-year average real returns for the two portfolios. Don't be fooled.  It's an artifact of using low sample data.  If you only sample once a year as with annual returns, you miss the sequence of downside risk in-between.  In all cases, mome...

The percentage of the time in the Top 2 for each asset was as follows: Large Cap Blend              26.1% Small Cap Value              28.4% Long Term Treasuries      17.0% Gold                              18.2% Cash/Money Market        10.2% LCB and SCV were in the Top 2 together 34% of the time. ...

Here are the real inflation-adjusted CAGRs and worst year returns for different percentages of the Base portfolio (5x20 golden butterfly) plus remainder in the Top 2 assets from the previous year, trading once per year and backtested using annual returns only.  Notice that at 30% Base plus 35% each ...

I downloaded annual returns from portfoliovisualizer.com to create my own backtesting spreadsheet for the PP+SCV+Top-2-MOM strategy.  The numbers work out a bit differently from InsuranceGuy's but generally the same.  It seems like much of the outperformance was in the 1970s when gold was going craz...

InsuranceGuy, I have some questions about your HB+SCV+top 2 MOM strategy.  Let's say that stocks do good one year, better than everything else.  That means the next year you would have 76% of your portfolio in stocks (38% in large cap, 38% in small cap value) with only 8% long bonds, 8% gold, and 8...

InsuranceGuy, I have some questions about your HB+SCV+top 2 MOM strategy.  Let's say that stocks do good one year, better than everything else.  That means the next year you would have 76% of your portfolio in stocks (38% in large cap, 38% in small cap value) with only 8% long bonds, 8% gold, and 8%...

This strategy to me is very intriguing.  I almost find it to sound too good to be true.  If I'm reading this right, you're saying that we might get a 2 - 3 % increase in real CAGR over the HBPP and keep the maximum single year drawdown at about the same level or even lower.  Is that correct?  Am I r...

I've used TaxAct online for several years and have been very happy with it.

The estate tax exemption is $10.9 million per couple.  I'm pretty sure we'll be under that, so I don't see what we have to fear from the Revenuers.

I believe once the gold passes to our heirs, then they get a stepped up tax basis to the current price per ounce of gold in effect at that time.

dragoncar wrote:

Reub wrote: So is the PP only as good as its gold component?

These days, yes

This may come as a shock, but gold is really the only thing that differentiates the PP from a boglehead portfolio.

Reub wrote: Who will take care of your physical gold when you are 90 and possibly in a nursing home?

It will be sitting in the bank safe deposit box waiting to pass to our heirs via our wills.

My wife will be 60 before too long.  Her Roth IRA is invested as a 4x25 HBPP, but of course the gold is in an ETF.  One of my goals is to increase our amount of physical gold, because most of our gold is in ETFs in our Roth IRAs and in my 401k.  I'm thinking that when she hits 60, maybe we should se...

With a lot of these crummy 401k plans, the best you can do is try to minimize fees and minimize portfolio management.  As a first cut, I would look at the funds available and see what is available with a low expense ratio (hopefully less than 0.2%) and what is available as passive funds (not activel...

Tyler, You mentioned that much of the emerging markets great performance was prior to 1994.  I think a really good addition to your charts, which would help see such trends over time, would be a chart with the portfolio real CAGR on the y-axis and years on the x-axis.  It would have say three lines ...

How frequently are you checking and trading?  Weekly?  Monthly?  Quarterly?  Yearly?

I'm thinking about getting a bit more aggressive with my overall portfolio, as I still have about 20 years to retirement.  I've been playing with various ideas involving higher allocations to stocks over at portfoliocharts.com.  I know it may not be the best time to get heavier into stocks, so maybe...

I need to make a decision for my 401k plan.  There is an S&P500 index fund available called the Vanguard Employee Benefit Index Fund, and it has a super low expense ratio of 0.01%.  Unfortunately, it is actually a collective investment trust.  I've read some disparaging comments about such trust...

I believe that a lot of homosexuals are born that way They are ALL born that way. The notion that it is somehow a choice is a myth perpetuated by the church.   i am not sure that is true..... it is a premise taken on to strengthen the case for rights, but biology being what it is, i suspect the rea...

Tyler, Would there be any chance of adding another asset to your charts:  zero-coupon long term treasury bonds (e.g., EDV or ZROZ)?  You would probably have to do some kind of synthetic calculation to get older data.  I'm not certain on the details of such a calculation, but it may not be very diffi...

Bill Bernstein's book "Deep Risk", addresses your issue about gold.  We talked about it here: http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/permanent-portfolio-discussion/considering-pp-have-questions/msg83163/#msg83163 My conclusion from Deep Risk was that gold doesn't really respond very well to...

Melveyr, Good to hear from you again.  The way I look at the gold allocation in the PP is that about half of the allocation makes sense in terms of providing a nice, non-correlated asset that can help to counterbalance the portfolio, and provide some rebalancing opportunities, when both stocks/bonds...

I like the Mt. Everest analogy. I also like the 35% rebalance band, which keeps me from having to rely on skill and fortitude. Here's a question that's been discussed before.  If long bond yields are below a certain percentage (say X percent) and we hit a 15/35 rebalance band on any asset, instead o...

Also, what would TLT be at if the long bond rate were at 1%?