Bridgewater All Weather ETF

[Smith1776]

There is officially an All Weather/Risk Parity ETF made available by the Bridgewater themselves.

https://www.ssga.com/us/en/intermediary ... r-etf-allw

https://www.ssga.com/us/en/intermediary ... eather-etf

Looks pretty darn good. Crucially, the asset allocation is dynamic and the fund uses leverage. Not something that the average retail investor can easily replicate themselves. I've bought some shares.

[mathjak107]

looks interesting

[coasting]

I've bought some shares.

That was fast, inception date was just March 5th! You are good with the 0.85% expense ratio?

One of the things that has always stood out to me regarding the gold ETFs is they all seem to be organized as trusts and not registered under the "1940 Act". Nevertheless, I still use them for the ~20% of my gold allocation that is not physical.

I notice that the title page of ALLW prospectus says "SSGA Active Trust". Under the Risks section:

• Subsidiary Investment Risk: The Subsidiary is not registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as
  amended (“1940 Act”) and is not subject to all of the investor protections of the 1940 Act. Thus, the Fund, as an
  investor in the Subsidiary, will not have all of the protections offered to investors in registered investment
  companies. In addition, changes in the laws of the United States and/or the Cayman Islands could result in the
  inability of the Fund to operate as intended and could negatively affect the Fund and its shareholders.

What's the bit about the Cayman Islands? Oh, here it is (searching for Subsidiary):

• The Fund may also seek exposure to commodities (e.g., agricultural commodities, energy commodities, and metals commodities) by investing in commodity-based ETPs and a wholly-owned subsidiary, an exempted limited company organized under the laws of the Cayman Islands (“Subsidiary”) and managed by the Adviser, that will invest in commodity-linked derivatives (e.g., swaps on commodity indexes and futures contracts on commodities) and commodity-based ETPs. The Fund’s investments in the Subsidiary generally provide the Fund with exposure to commodity-linked derivatives and commodity-based ETPs within the limits of the federal tax laws, which limit the ability of investment companies, like the Fund, to invest directly in such instruments. The Fund will not invest more than 25% of its total assets in the Subsidiary.

So they had to create this subsidiary based in the Cayman's in order to invest in commodity-linked derivatives?

[Smith1776]

The relatively high ER irked me at first, but then I realized that the dynamic asset allocation and leverage of this fund was something I couldn't realistically implement on my own. So I'm okay with paying the 85 bps.

It's also nice to just have 1 fund that doesn't need any futzing!

[boglerdude]

Not much discussion https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=450970

https://www.lazyportfolioetf.com/alloca ... l-weather/

https://old.reddit.com/r/Bogleheads/com ... ather_etf/
^ "1.7x 25/60/15 allocation"

I think thats 25% stock, 60 long bonds (15 yr), 7.5 gold and 7.5 commodity.

Dont like that its actively managed but would be nice to not have to rebalance, commodity exposure with no hassle, and leverage. But I want to be able to dump all long bonds at 2%. I got trolled by the "convexity" talk here when the 30 year was at 2%

[Smith1776]

Not much discussion https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=450970

https://www.lazyportfolioetf.com/alloca ... l-weather/


^ "1.7x 25/60/15 allocation"

I think thats 25% stock, 60 long bonds (15 yr), 7.5 gold and 7.5 commodity.

Dont like that its actively managed but would be nice to not have to rebalance, commodity exposure with no hassle, and leverage. But I want to be able to dump all long bonds at 2%. I got trolled by the "convexity" talk here when the 30 year was at 2%

Good points, boglerdude. I have been on both sides of the convexity argument over the years.

I would buy even more shares of ALLW if it wasn't for the FX conversion fees from CAD to USD. My brokerage also doesn't support Norbert's Gambit. Trying to think of some alternatives for cheap but non-sketchy conversion methods.

[Smith1776]

Did anyone else here buy any shares of ALLW? Even just for funsies?

[mathjak107]

thinking of it but haven’t done it yet

[Smith1776]

I'm really excited to see how this thing performs. Bridgewater and All Weather for the everyman. Love it.

After accounting for the leverage, it looks like the total portfolio exposure is 183.97%.

[Smith1776]

Also nice to see some money is flowing in.

Launched last week at $50 million AUM. Currently at $53 million.

[seajay]

Also nice to see some money is flowing in.

Launched last week at $50 million AUM. Currently at $53 million.

mathjak107 decided to throw some loose change into it?

[Smith1776]

Also nice to see some money is flowing in.

Launched last week at $50 million AUM. Currently at $53 million.

mathjak107 decided to throw some loose change into it?

lmao

[mathjak107]

that’s buds pocket change

[dualstow]

I think Budd had 8MM. That’s sad that he decided to sell his gold. I would have liked for him to see it hit 3000.

[mathjak107]

if i remember correctly, i think the treasury bonds were the biggest issue with him and rightfully so..

i know it was my biggest issue with the pp , which i stated for years when rates were so low and had no where to go but up.

returns on tlt are still negative for ten years now at a minus .86% cagr return

[Smith1776]

I guess by buying ALLW I'm very much back on the gold train since its an explicit part of the fund's investment domain.

[Smith1776]

Yeah, regarding the long treasury: truly equalizing risk across assets means that at the very least the allocation to bonds would have to vary based on the current interest rate, since bonds are way more volatile at low interest rates than high. Not to mention the expected returns become muted.

You can either decrease the allocation when rates are low, decrease the leverage, or decrease the duration (or all of the above), but at least one of those things must be done. It looks like this fund is dynamically allocating based on exactly those principles, which gets me super excited.

[Smith1776]

A couple of great videos from the man himself on about All Weather.

Short one:


Long one:

[boglerdude]

Doesn't credit Browne.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M95m2EFb7IQ

[Smith1776]

$66 million AUM as of yesterday.

[yankees60]

$66 million AUM as of yesterday.

That is nothing in the world of investing!

[Smith1776]

$66 million AUM as of yesterday.

That is nothing in the world of investing!

True! But it's nice to see the growth and trajectory!