That's a given and I understand it.
How do you handle things going forward? If I contribute new money to either the VP or PP, depending on which is doing worse at the time, then essentially I am market timing, and may be indirectly shifting PP into VP due to fungibility of money.
One option is to split new contributions 50-50 to each. This seems to make sense in my situation since I am planning to set up a 50% PP 50% VP split. Perhaps someone with 90% PP and 10% VP may want to contribute 90% of new money to PP, and 10% to VP.
I came to a 50%-50% split because I have been a very good saver, and very lucky in my speculating, such that I have twice as much money as I "need" for my age. I'm under 30 and have twice as much in my IRA as the average American 50 year old. So even if my VP drops to zero, I will still be above the bell curve.
Or perhaps one could say ALL new contributions go to PP only. The theory being that you are using the VP because you feel you can beat the PP. And if that's correct, you shouldn't need new money added to the VP because your PP will always be lagging
