Here’s your monthly Lazy Portfolios update (not that you’re watching that often).
click for full-size ugly graphology
Let’s look at 1 and 2 month returns just for fun, ok? First, returns for September 2011:
Next, returns for August and September 2011 combined:
Ouch Rick Ferri! I think it was this time last year when I went to the Bogleheads convention and Rick Ferri laughed at the idea of owning gold. Who’s laughing now, Ricki? Difference between bottom and top is almost 22%. That’s shocking.
And of course, full Year-To-Date returns for 2011 through September:
Wow, only two Lazy Portfolios are positive this year. Guess who???
It is striking that the PRPFX mutual fund is off so significantly from the pure Harry Browne ETF version. It is probably due to the fact that PRPFX holds some silver, which got killed, and foreign currencies, which were down against the dollar.
Whoosh, getting whipsawed in 2011. Let’s step back and take a slightly longer term view of the performances of the Lazy Portfolios. (Caution, none of these portfolios were rebalanced!)
One thing that is particularly striking is that PRPFX took a much sharper dip so far in September than the pure Harry Browne 4xETF portfolios. I suspect this is partly due to the fact that PRPFX owns some silver (down very sharply) and also some foreign currencies (down due to rising dollar).
Me still likey the Permanent Portfolio, even though what was once up about 12% for 2011 is now up (only) 6.5%.
Biggest Losers on the chart (caution, not rebalanced) were Dilbert (-1.9%) and Vanguard Windsor (-1.5%), and MMM Do It Yourself Funds (-0.7%). Glad I got out of that idea.
The divergence between the Permanent Portfolios and the other Lazy Portfolios might actually cause me to turn on the microphone and fire up a new podcast. Wow, lovin’ the PP.
I was feeling a little left out earlier this year… on my portfolio returns that is. But now I am feeling pretty good. Not that feelings should have anything to do with it! Table as of 10 August 2011.
One-twelfth of 2011 is already behind us and it appears that the Permanent Portfolios have decided to give the other Lazy Portfolios a head start on the year. Said another way: The Permanent Portfolios are ON SALE! Here is the table of returns through January.
ID#
Portfolio Name
YTD Return
P16
Vanguard Windsor
3.1%
P21
Scott Burns’ Six Ways from Sunday Portfolio
2.2%
P19
Scott Burns’ Four Square Portfolio
1.6%
P13
David Swensen’s Lazy Portfolio
1.5%
P20
Scott Burns’ Five Fold Portfolio
1.3%
P5
Taylor Larimore 4 Fund
1.3%
P4
Taylor Larimore 3 Fund
1.3%
P8
William Bernstein’s Basic No-Brainer Portfolio
1.2%
P6
Rick Ferri Core Four
1.1%
P14
David Swensen’s Yale Endowment
1.1%
P17
Scott Burns’ Couch Potato Portfolio
1.1%
P11
Bill Schultheis’ Coffeehouse Portfolio Vanguard
1.0%
P7
William Bernstein’s No Brainer Cowards Portfolio
1.0%
P18
Scott Burns’ Margarita Portfolio
1.0%
P12
FundAdvice Ultimate Buy & Hold
0.9%
P15
MMM Do It Yourself Funds
0.8%
P22
Larry Swedroe Simple
0.7%
P10
Ted Aronson’s Lazy Portfolio
0.2%
P23
Larry Swedroe Min Fat Tails
-0.3%
P9
Dilbert World’s Simplest
-0.3%
P3
Permanent Portfolio Fund (PRPFX)
-0.7%
P1
Harry Browne Permanent Portfolio (ETF)
-1.8%
P2
Paul Boyer Permanent Portfolio (ETF)
-2.7%
The individual components of the Permanent Portfolios are as follows:
VTI +2.0% – Total Stock Market
TLT -3.1% – Long Term Bonds
IAU -6.4% – Gold
SHY +0.1% – T-bills
—-
VBR +0.6% – Small Cap Value
VWO -3.4% – Emerging Markets
And for reference, here the components of all of the Lazy Portfolios we track here.
For those of us who love to back-test different lazy portfolios, today we can spend our snow day using Simba’s spreadsheet, newly updated with 2010 returns.
I forgot that his comparison page only goes back to 1985 and that I was the one who modified the page to go back to 1972. Guess I’ve got some work to do.