mathjak107 wrote:gold has been more about timing the markets than time in the markets.

This is only true if you just buy a bunch of gold and sit on it. If you also hold an equally-weighted, negatively co-related asset in your portfolio, you can harvest capital gains from gold through re-balancing.

Needless to say, I really chose the wrong moment to buy gold. The odds of an asset going down as soon as you buy it is almost 100%. The PP is a "cover all bases" portfolio. Something is always going up and something is always going down. And yet, you must bite the bullet and recognize tha...

The premium for physical + the spread you pay to the dealer + the costs of storage is collectively the expense you accept for the systemic security that physical gold provides your portfolio. That being said, there are strategies you can use to mitigates those expenses. For example, I believe that h...

years ago i had a package of stock certificates i had to get to the broker get lost in shipping . i sold them and owed a whole lot of interest on them by the time they were located . i will never do that again . Thank you for sharing. That is a good point about the hassle involved. I guess in a rea...

I could but there is plenty to read by doing some google searches. Equal weight vs risk parity or mean variance portfolios. I did, and I read this paper that I found ( How Inefficient are Simple Asset-Allocation Strategies? ) The TLDR conclusion that the paper makes is: Our main finding is that the...

Kbg wrote:Practically speaking though, risk is highest when volatility is lowest which is exactly the worst place to be when that asset goes off the inevitable periodic cliff and in major SHTF events most correlations spike.

Can you elaborate on this?

Normally I wouldn't give an actively managed ETF a second glance, but the new Canadian Global Risk Parity ETF (HRA.TO) has caught my eye. It is a Horizon ETF, but the management of the fund is sub-contracted out to 'ReSolve Asset Management Inc.' , or as some of us might know them better, the guys t...

While I admire Harry Browne's strategy and invest a portion of my portfolio using an adapted-Permanent Portfolio, I do not worship at the altar of Harry Browne. In part, Browne and his apostles prepared for a post-apocalyptic world requiring physical gold to survive. I just do not believe the Walki...

Some questions: If your modified PP under-preformed the HBPP for a period of weeks, months or even years, would you be able to stick with your system, or would you bail? What are the real-world costs of running this modified PP? How much will transactions cost you? How many extra taxable events will...

That's a great summary! Minor quibble here: Rent expenses are certain and predictable. Home-ownership expenses are infamously variable and unpredictable. Having significant liquid assets built-up first is advisable; this runs counter to the conventional wisdom of "building wealth through home-...

I keep 5% of my "cash" allocation in physical bills. This serves as a hedge against systemic risks such as: capital controls; bank holidays; infrastructure failures; and local or limited-duration national emergencies. However, I keep no more than 5%, as physical cash is susceptible to thef...

Everyone and their grandma tilts small-value, nowadays. The historic SV "premium" may therefore prove to have been an overcrowded trade looking back 10, 20 years from now. EM's have potential for huge gains because they have potential for huge busts and drawdowns. It is commonplace to pred...

Some thoughts and musings: It is easy to trick yourself into considerably inflating your housing expenses (as a percentage of your income) by convincing yourself that its an "investment" ; buying is probably more efficient for building net-worth than renting, but only if relative housing ...

IMHO, if the difference between renting and buying in your area is truly 25% of your income then buying is probably a bad deal. Now if you can find a less expensive home where payments are close to rents and you can maintain a 50% savings rate while accumulating equity, that could make a lot of sen...

Would you rather have a 50% savings rate for 15 years but have to pay rent and build no home equity in that period, and having to continue sacrificing cashflow to rent payments into the future; OR Would you prefer to have only a 25% savings rate and a 15 year mortgage, but have a paid off home at th...

It seems to me that deciding where new contributions go is actually a matter of deciding what re-balancing band strategy you are committing to. And deciding what re-balancing band strategy to commit to is really a matter of practicality, utility and function rather than of comparing returns and vola...

...higher returns and lower volatility. Do you mean lower volatility in just the equity portion, or the entire portfolio? Over the entire portfolio. (Real Returns) 50% CANADIAN EQUITIES 50% U.S. (within 25% HBPP equities allocation) Overall Portfolio Stats (1971 to 2015) Average Gain (Geometric) 5....

I've been experimenting with the Canadian HBPP and mixing U.S. exposure into it (see my other thread). What I've found through backtesting is that, in the long run (going back to 1971), mixing U.S. equity exposure into the Canadian HBPP (50% CDN equity, 50% U.S., within the HBPP 25% equity allocatio...

YEAR USD/CAD VTI/US$ VTI/CA$ TLT/US$ TLT/CA$ SHY/US$ SHY/CA$ 2007 1.074387 5.37% 5.74% 10.29% 11.06% 7.35% 7.90% 2008 1.065788 -36.98% -39.41% 33.81% 36.03% 6.62% 7.06% 2009 1.141433 28.89% 32.98% -21.80% -24.88% 0.35% 0.40% 2010 1.030533 17.42% 17.95% 9.05% 9.33% 2.28% 2.35% 2011 0.989323 0.97% 0....

Is there a convincing, logical case to be made for exposing the Canadian HBPP to US$ assets? Arguments: - The U.S. Permanent Portfolio is, perhaps, inherently superior to any foreign version, because the U.S. controls the world reserve currency ... It seems to me that the U.S. HBPP therefore has a b...

MachineGhost wrote: What's important when you modify the PP --- especially the bonds -- is make sure all the assets are at risk parity or they won't be able to do their job.

How do you calculate that?

buddtholomew wrote:Japanese rates have no where to go but up.

Yup... since I was five years old.

I just did my final 401k rollover after retiring and was forced to decide whether to buy bonds or not to balance the portfolio. I buy individual bonds on Fidelity and the lowest rate on any in my portfolio is 3.125%. I had a hard time purchasing any bond at a lower rate than that so I just bought T...

U.S. Treasuries are the international "flight-to-safety" in the event of a deflationary crisis (i.e. 2008). Sure, rates "can't get much lower", but they absolutely can stay low for extended periods of time (as the last 8 years has proven). But holding long U.S. Treasuries isn't ...

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/holy-grail-hedge-fund-strategy-handle-black-swan-size-world-war-i-1576915 It was funny reading this article because I kept thinking, "Oh, this article is building up to an introduction to the HBPP!" ...But then the article ends with a shrug of the shoulders and a ...