Mad Money Machine

Proof You Gotta Own Some Stock

You gotta own some stocks, but how much? I took the Paul Boyer Permanent Portfolio and varied the percentage of stock ownership from 0% to 100% in 5% increments while keeping gold, long term bonds, and cash divided equally among the remaining amount. Then I plotted each portfolios return vs. risk for 1975 through 2009. Take […]

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Two and 3/4 Years of Lazy Portfolios

Not satisfied with just 2010 Year-to-date results? How about results from January 2008 through September 2010? Here is the graph: (click for larger graphic) If you cannot read this, it says that the permanent portfolios are up about 20% since January 2008 and just about everything else is still negative.

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Lazy Portfolios Thru September 2010

Here is a chart plotting the end-of-month returns for the lazy portfolios. Wow, what a roller coaster ride if your portfolio was 100% in stocks. On the other hand, wow, what a nice smooth ride if you were in one of the three permanent portfolios. The Paul Boyer Permanent Portfolio remains in the lead with […]

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Video Lessons: Proper Benchmarking and Alpha

How can you properly determine if your investment have met your expectations? Watch “Proper Benchmarking and Alpha” for a lesson on measuring risk against a complete set of important factors. These videos are based upon IFA’s Quote of the Week Issue #82. Part 1: Part 2:

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Lazy Portfolios Thru August 2010

The Permanent Portfolio style lazy portfolios continue to do well. Listed below is a table of YTD results for 25 portfolios or funds that I am tracking. The contents of each portfolio are listed in an earlier post. The Paul Boyer Permanent Portfolio continues its lead, having returned 9.8% so far in 2010. It differs […]

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The Siren Songs of Active Management

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Lazy Portfolios Through July 2010

The permanent portfolios continue to do well. See previous posts for full details about the contents of each lazy portfolio. The Paul Boyer Permanent Portfolio has risen 1% per month so far with small volatility. 12.5% VBR, 12.5% VWO, 25% TLT, 25%, GLD, and 25% SHY. You can do it! ID# Portfolio Name YTD Return […]

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Lazy Portfolios Thru June 2010

We have arrived at mid-year 2010 and can now take a look at the half-year results of the lazy portfolios we have been tracking. It looks like the Paul Boyer Permanent Portfolio has gained 1% per month this year. Just four of the portfolios are positive with three of them based around the Permanent Portfolio […]

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Permanent Portfolio volatility in May

Dave sent this to me and said I could post it for all of you. Nice analysis of how the Permanent Portfolio did last month. Permanent Portfolio performance during the very volatile month of May This May was the worst May since 1940.  The Dow and VTI (total stock market) both had losses of -7.9%.  Volatility has […]

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Lazy Portfolios Thru May 2010

Here are the Year-To-Date returns of the Lazy Portfolios through the end of May 2010. The components of each portfolio are listed at the end. The “Paul Boyer Permanent Portfolio” is my modification of the Harry Browne Permanent Portfolio where instead of investing 25% in the total US stock market, we invest 12.5% in US […]

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Mark Hulbert Writes About the Permanent Portfolio

In his MarketWatch article today, Mark Hulbert writes, Would you be interested in an all-weather portfolio that, despite hardly ever changing its composition, performs creditably in almost all market environments? Hulbert characterizes the Permanent Portfolio this way: Browne’s idea was to invest in a basket of asset classes, each one of which has a low […]

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