Stay cool...

[craigr]

Hi All,

I swung back by to say hello. To the long-time posters here, thanks for keeping the lights on!

It's interesting times out there and my core Permanent Portfolio position allows me to sleep at night. I was just looking at some quick charts over at etfreplay.com and the Permanent Portfolio is doing great. It clearly beats a global stock/bond benchmark and now matches the extremely volatile 100% stock portfolio at least over the last 36 months. It did this with a small portion of the volatility.

I remember 10+ years ago people on other forums predicting LT bonds interest rates "had nowhere to go but up."

Another financial guru said gold prices would be $300 or so an ounce within a year.

Then I remember before Trump was elected an infamous economist from the NYT was advising people to sell their stocks as the market would surely crash.

Where are these predictions now?

I can't offer any direct advice to anyone, but as for me I've just been rebalancing as needed to the core portfolio and have been ignoring the financial news. Financial news and market timing is completely worthless predicting anything and often counter-productive as the markets have well moved by the time they've said anything. The little guy can't outrun Wall Street.

The best strategy for me still is to be widely diversified and keep with a mechanical rebalancing strategy that forces me to sell high and buy low. I have been doing the above now with the Permanent Portfolio since before 2008 when I started investing this way and it has always served me well.

I wish everyone well and hope you've been able to enjoy the stability and peace of mind I've had from the Permanent Portfolio over the years. I was happy to find Harry Browne's advice on it so long ago. It's great to see that it still serves the intended purpose of growing ones life savings in a safe and conservative way.

All the best,

-- Craig

[Smith1776]

Oh, captain! My captain!

Welcome back, Craig. And thanks for your insight. Always interesting to hear your perspective.

P.s. I’m almost done my computer science degree

[dualstow]

[tomfoolery]

Another financial guru said gold prices would be $300 or so an ounce within a year.

The only gold I like is in my wife's jewelry!

How's retirement? I think your blog came down several years back.

[craigr]

Another financial guru said gold prices would be $300 or so an ounce within a year.

The only gold I like is in my wife's jewelry!

How's retirement? I think your blog came down several years back.

I'm not retired, I'm just extremely busy on a new company. But despite any rumors to the contrary, yes I still use the Permanent Portfolio as my core holding and am glad I do. And yes, the wife's jewelry comment was hilarious. Same as the people predicting the death of LT bonds, etc.

I've made way more money ignoring financial predictions than I ever had following them. Market timing is total bunk and I advise everyone to avoid it and stick to a mechanical rebalancing system.

[europeanwizard]

Happy to hear you're still working on the new company, Craig! The book was pivotal to me, it offered a recent picture of the PP and allowed me to start investing.

[Kevin K.]

Thanks for the timely and thoughtful post Craig! It's also an opportune moment to thank you for introducing me to the Permanent Portfolio and Harry Browne many years ago on that epic thread over on the Bogleheads forum. Your writing has been and remains a light in the darkness and has saved me from many an ulcer and/or sleepless night.

[AdamA]

Thanks for the timely and thoughtful post Craig! It's also an opportune moment to thank you for introducing me to the Permanent Portfolio and Harry Browne many years ago on that epic thread over on the Bogleheads forum. Your writing has been a remains a light in the darkness and has saved me from many an ulcer and/or sleepless night.

Agree. I'm on year 10. Thanks Craig!

[Jack Jones]

Echoing others here...it's nice being able to enjoy this beautiful day on the East Coast while others are fretting about what to do as the stock market implodes.

Edited to add:

[Smith1776]

IMG_5883.jpeg (114.1 KiB) Viewed 2329 times

The PP in action doing exactly as it was designed to do -- I've been sleeping as soundly as ever through all this turmoil.

Stocks in VVL have plummeted 8% today alone.

ZFL and KILO.B are long bonds and gold respectively which have made up the losses with 4% increases each.

ZFS is cash and is holding steady as usual.

[dualstow]

Is that a Robinhood screen?

[Smith1776]

LOL no. It’s a platform called Wealthsimple. And they’re friggin taking over Canada.

They started out with roboadvisor portfolios, then brokerage accounts, and now they’re even opening bank accounts.

Their claim to fame is zero fees. In the brokerage platform for instance they only make money on currency conversion spreads. No account fees or trading commissions. They don’t even sell order flow (or so they claim). And since I only buy assets traded on Canadian exchanges, I’m fee-free effectively.

Robinhood. I have no interest in infinite leverage or saying “guh” every other sentence.