The Vinny Portfolio
Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2021 4:57 pm
Vinny, what's your current, pre-pp portfolio?
And please sign your name Vinny so we know it's you.
And please sign your name Vinny so we know it's you.
Many thanks for asking me to do this. Just yesterday I'd updated everything in Quicken (aside from gold prices, which I've not done since 2008).
I put together something which I've never done prior and which made me feel a lot better about how I've invested.
I will show it here and then provide some background / commentary below it.
The Vinny Portfolio
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1) First column is outside retirement accounts
2) Next 9 columns are various retirement accounts
3) Far right column shows the percentage of each investment of total portfolio
4) "% of Total Portfolio" is percentage of total portfolio that is in each account
5) Below that is the percentage breakdown for each account between Fixed & Equity (gold currently immaterial).
6) My investing career started with my first IRA contribution of $1,500 in 1982 for my 1981 tax return.
7) Late 80s I started accumulating money and religiously followed Dick Fabian's Telephone Switch Newsletter for about four or so years (mathjak knows about this newsletter).
I left that newsletter and followed other similar (all equity or all cash) newsletters for about the next six years.9) 1997 stopped that and left everything where it was...putting any new money into cash.
10) In 1998 I did Roth conversions for everything that I was able to do so.
11) At the end of 2000 to 2002 time period...an IRA in which I'd put in $30,000 had peaked at $130,000 was sold for $25,000.
12) I'd read a few William Bernstein books. In January 2003 I put into practice his advice from his books and sold all I had at that time and put it all into new allocations. They were all Vanguard index funds and the ones in bold above.
13) Since then (almost 19 years)...I've put all new money into cash. Have never added to or sold any of those January 2003 investments.
14) Last year during the scary days of March 2020...I converted all my cash holdings at Vanguard to the Treasury Money Market Fund. I viewed it having created a barbell - on one end was fairy risky equity investment with corresponding high reward possibilities and on the other end a no risk investment with no returns.
I think that represents about all I've done for the last 40 years when it comes to investing.
I know that I could have had a much larger portfolio if I'd invested some of all those investments of the last 19 years into equities rather than just cash but I see that I'm actually too high weighted in equities now as they represent 51% while fixed is only 49%.
Part of my inertia in implementing the Permanent Portfolio is the thorough analytical way I approach things. But in the last five year or so I've been making so much money with this current portfolio that it's taken the urgency off moving to something with less return but which is far more appropriate for my needs.
