Portfolio on 5.22.20

Up 1.1% for the week. The cash is gone now for the first time since February 28th. The portfolio is up about 3% since that day, while the S&P 500 is about flat over that horizon. Year to date the strategy is up 4.2%, clipping the S&P 500 by 11.9% for the year. All the…

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Portfolio on 5.15.20

Up about a tenth of a percent. The new portfolio is interesting. The foundation — the relationship between returns, volatility and correlation — is pretty standard right now. Slightly conservative, but not much. However, the standard deviation of everything is similarly elevated and a bit more correlated than usually. That’s why the portfolio can’t shake…

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The Road Not Taken

You have a journey to make.  You need to head west 15 miles as the crow flies over a mountain ridge, and then go 15 miles down the valley on the other side. So you head out for a drive. The start of the trip entails climbing up and over the ridge, and is full…

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Portfolio on 5.8.20

Up a quarter of a percent for the week. Moving back into more cash as bond volatility has gone up quite a bit and correlation is rising. On May 8th, 2020, the strategy rebalanced to: 35% SPY , 26% TLT , 19% GLD , 20% Cash

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Optimum Portfolio: Two Assets and Cash

Time to get to some unfinished business. A few months ago I said I would shortly discuss adding cash to create a small geometrically optimized portfolio. I’ve taken too long to get this post out. So here is the process to maximize the geometric return of two assets and cash. Additionally I’ll show you how…

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Portfolio on 5.1.20

Down three fourths of a percent for the week. My statement last friday hopeful for new highs did jinx the winning streak, although the April close still set a new monthly top. It got within a percent of a new daily high on Wednesday before making a U turn these last two days. Still lightening…

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Portfolio on 4.24.20

Up just under half a percent for the week. Slow and steady gains. I’m going to jinx everything now: the portfolio is nearing the all time high set back in late February. From a monthly perspective, it’s already in place to set a new high next week. The strategy is lightening up further on cash,…

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How Big is Your Drawdown?

The S&P 500 just experienced a 20% peak to trough drawdown in rapid fashion. It’s the third fastest pullback from an all time high in history, lagging only behind 1929 and 1987. What a minute. That’s wrong? It was much more than 20%. And many, many people have written about how this the the fastest…

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Portfolio on 4.17.20

Up one percent for the week. Still gaining solidly each week. Not as strongly the market itself, but the strategy isn’t sitting out the rally either. A reader mentioned that I should chart the allocations of the strategy since I started publishing it every week. I agree. So here is a chart of the performance…

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Portfolio on 4.9.20

In this malaise of working from home, I totally forgot markets were closed on Good Friday, and did not rebalance on Thursday. I’m going to have to rebalance on Monday. The strategy gained 2% for the week. A great week under normal conditions. Geometric Balancing aims to make every week feel like a normal conditions,…

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