Up about seven tenths of a percent for the week. The market is starting to look pretty normal. Volatility is a little high, but not much. Correlations are a little lower than normal, but not extreme. This is slightly defensive portfolio, but opportunistically so as the total portfolio correlation is low (which is why the scale at the top is approaching 1.5). On July 17th, 2020, the strategy rebalanced to:
44% SPY , 36% TLT , 20% GLD
Updated Portfolio Algorithm
Speaking of the portfolio at the top, I’m going to update it over the weekend so that when the data connection breaks it shows the most recent known portfolio, and not dashes. If it’s older than 30 minutes, it will be yellow. If for some reason it’s 12 hours old, it will be red.
Please remember, I’m not a professional programmer (or a professional investor). I believe the input data from the web is usually accurate, but it’s definitely been wrong before. My filters might not always catch those errors. So the numbers at the top are for entertainment and information purpose only and are not advice (as are the the values in these updates).
Thanks for this blog. I’m new to investing and this stuff is fascinating, even if over my head most of the times. I’ve been thinking about using this strategy, but I’m restricted to mutual funds. Is it possible to find mutual funds that mimic gold and bonds? If so, do you or your readers have suggestions? Thanks!!
I would expect VUSTX is close to TLT. But I haven’t studied it to understand if that true, nor do I know what restriction it may have. So I can’t truly answer the question. There are other similar long US treasury bond funds.
Gold is much trickier. Most “gold” mutual funds invest in gold companies, not gold itself. These are different assets, and I can’t think of anything that invests in only pure gold, but there may be one.
Jojo, presumably you are talking about only investing in a 401(k)? It would probably be very difficult to closely mimic this strategy with the usual restrictions in that account type. You might check, but some plans have a “self-directed” option that is not heavily advertised – I had one for years before I realized it, but it allowed me to invest it like any other account. If so, you can use leveraged ETFs (UPRO, TMF, UGL) to mimic the exposure, you’d just have to play with the math up top (portfolio% x total_portfolio_leverage / ETF_leverage).
Unfortunately, you are unlikely to have that option in a 401(k), in which case you’d have to share your options to know if there is a close substitute.
Thanks, Trent! Yes, I’m in a Schwab self-directed retirement account but I’m still limited to only mutual funds. So I found SGGDX which seems to mimic the price of gold. And I found this to mimic the TLT: Wasatch-Hoisington U.S. Treasury Fund WHOSX. Hopefully those are close enough?