Mad Money Machine

by Paul Douglas Boyer

Lazy Portfolio Results for 3, 2 and 1 Years

Here’s an early look at how the professional Lazy Portfolios have performed for the past 3, 2, and 1 years ending 31 December 2009. These are cumulative returns, with dividends reinvested. Data comes from Yahoo! Finance into my spreadsheet. There may be errors in the data. Some funds may not yet have reported dividends for 2009, for example. I have sorted the results by the 3-year performance.

Lazy Portfolio 3 years 2 years 1 year
Permanent Portfolio Fund (PRPFX) 21.7% 8.3% 18.2%
Harry Browne Permanent Portfolio ETFs 20.1% 4.6% 7.5%
Bogle Tax-Sheltered 2.7% -5.9% 16.0%
Scott Burns’ Couch Potato Portfolio 1.3% -6.8% 18.4%
FundAdvice Ultimate Buy & Hold -2.4% -9.7% 19.2%
Scott Burns’ Six Ways from Sunday Portfolio -3.1% -12.1% 23.3%
Scott Burns’ Margarita (also Andrew Tobias) Portfolio -3.8% -13.0% 23.3%
Andrew Tobias’ Lazy Portfolio -3.8% -13.0% 23.3%
Ted Aronson’s Lazy Portfolio -3.9% -14.3% 33.3%
William Bernstein’s No Brainer Cowards Portfolio -4.4% -8.6% 22.8%
Bill Schultheis’ Coffeehouse Portfolio Vanguard -4.6% -7.4% 19.0%
Scott Burns’ Five Fold Portfolio -4.9% -10.1% 20.7%
John Wasnik’s Nano Investment Portfolio -5.8% -10.1% 19.9%
Frank Armstrong’s Ideal Index Portfolio -7.2% -12.3% 22.3%
William Bernstein’s Basic No-Brainer Portfolio -7.9% -12.9% 19.9%
David Swensen’s Lazy Portfolio -8.1% -12.6% 23.0%
Bill Schultheis’ Coffeehouse Portfolio Three ETF -8.4% -12.7% 19.5%
Bill Schultheis’ Coffeehouse Portfolio ETFs -8.5% -9.0% 17.5%
Scott Burns’ Four Square Portfolio -11.0% -14.6% 24.5%
Jim Lowell’s Sower’s Growth Portfolio -11.8% -19.1% 33.3%
Merriman Vanguard Equity -15.9% -20.9% 32.4%
MMM SMILER Funds -16.1% -20.1% 37.2%
IFA Index Portfolio 100 Bright Red -18.7% -20.7% 33.4%
MMM Do It Yourself Funds -17.5% -20.4% 33.5%
MMM Do It Yourself ETFs -19.5% -21.2% 31.6%
Ben Stein Retirement -34.0% -24.3% 19.7%
Ben Stein 2007 N/A -16.2% 26.9%
WisdomTree N/A -21.9% 28.0%
(Results computed with data from Yahoo! Finance. IFA Data comes from ifa.com.)

Here are some takeaways from the table:

  1. These portfolios have different objectives, different asset class mixtures, and different risk profiles. Simply comparing them on historic returns is not a way to pick one for an investment.
  2. Therefore, a better way to view these would be to look at them on a return vs. risk graph where risk is defined as the standard deviation of the portfolio. Then we could see at a glance which portfolio has the more desired “top-leftedness” (meaning it had higher return for its level of risk).
  3. Only two of the portfolios invested in gold, the two top performers. Future results may vary.
  4. I believe most funds have no load.
  5. I changed the Harry Browne Permanent Portfolio cash holding from VFISX to SHY which results in a slightly lower return (about 1% less). I would prefer to hold it in a money market fund, but Yahoo! Finance does not give me historical returns for them.
  6. Remember, this table probably has errors!

Mon, January 4 2010 » Blog

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