Random Roger's Retirement Planning

MAY 19, 2025

Here's how Portfoliovisualizer builds a simple Swensen portfolio. From 2020 on, VBAIX outperformed four times. The portfolio certainly is simple enough but where bonds with duration are concerned, the world got a little more complex in recent years. Portfolio 1 is an attempt to be true to the RA paper using AGG for bonds.

Risk Tolerance

Financial Symmetry

JUNE 24, 2025

As Will points out, studies have shown that people feel losses in their portfolio twice as much as they feel the gain. There’s also recency bias at play: The market downturns of 2022 and the COVID-19 shock in 2020 linger in memory, making us forget the equally compelling history of market recoveries and long-term growth.

Certification

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

MARCH 2, 2025

As is often the case for this subject, someone talked about building a dividend portfolio and living off the dividends. The yields of Portfolios 1 and 2 are now higher than SCHD due primarily to XYLD having a higher payout than it used to. Generically, dividends are not tax efficient. They are taxed at ordinary income.

Taxes

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

JANUARY 5, 2025

I would say, and I think he was on a similar page, that in a diversified portfolio that goes narrower than a very broad based index fund will probably have a couple of "good" dividend stocks in it. Long terms gains get better tax treatment everything else being equal. The TLDR is buying stocks just for their dividends is a bad idea.

Taxes

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

FEBRUARY 12, 2025

The idea is that you get the full beta (stocks and bonds) return with just a portion of the portfolio often with futures or some other form of leverage, leaving dollars left over to add alternatives all in pursuit of better nominal returns or better risk adjusted returns. The fourth portfolio more closely aligns with what we do here.

Portfolio

Validea

MARCH 7, 2025

Key Criteria for Stock Selection To find small, fast-growing companies, this strategy evaluates stocks based on a diverse set of fundamental metrics: Profit Margins A minimum after-tax profit margin of 7% is required, ensuring the company maintains strong profitability within its industry. annual return (477% cumulative).

Portfolio

Workable Wealth

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

When you actively contribute to your workplace retirement account, invest in a separate portfolio , and funnel money into your savings account, it can be difficult to open – let alone manage – another account. Contributions are pre-tax, investments grow tax-free, and distributions are taxed as ordinary income.

Taxes

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

DECEMBER 22, 2024

That leads to a Tweet from Krishna Memani who worked at Oppenheimer for a long time and who has been running the Endowment at Lafayette College since 2020. This brings us to the heart of today's post about trying to build a set but don't completely forget portfolio. In the models below, every back test has a 5% weighting to BTAL.

Portfolio

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

DECEMBER 28, 2024

Bonds with duration are now more volatile than they used to be and that volatility is less reliable than it used to be making them a less effective diversifier for the equity portion of a diversified portfolio. Where Portfolio 3 should zero out, it's pretty close to doing just that.

Portfolio

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

JANUARY 17, 2025

WAAV seems Permanent Portfolio inspired which is why I threw in AQRIX and PRPFX along with VBAIX as a proxy for a 60/40 portfolio makes sense as a benchmark. Both the ACWI and SPY versions outperformed AQRIX which is sort of a risk parity fund and PRPFX which is the Permanent Portfolio. The results are a mixed bag.

Portfolio

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

NOVEMBER 21, 2024

It did decline about 5% in the 2020 Pandemic Crash and in 2022 it was up 1.36%. There's no way to fit that many into a portfolio without having a portfolio of diversifiers hedged with a little bit of equity exposure which I don't think would be optimal. The backtest runs from the start of 2011 to the end of 2020.

Asset Allocation

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

MARCH 18, 2025

A portfolio that goes narrower than an S&P 500 500 or total market fund probably has some exposure to low vol, dividends and the others. I took what he was saying to be expressed as follows in a portfolio. And compared to just VBAIX in Portfolio 2 The longer term result is interesting.

Marketing

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

JULY 22, 2025

The worst deviation between the two was in 2020 when Portfolio 2 lagged by 740 basis points. The deviation was greater than 300 basis points only three times, including 2020. And we'll close out on an email I received touting a model portfolio that gave specific allocations, not symbols but market segments.

Portfolio

Yardley Wealth Management

JULY 9, 2025

14 That was seen in the first half of 2020, when the Nasdaq Composite led the way down as U.S. In the past few decades, professional money management firms have created investment solutions that allow investors to buy shares in portfolios that closely mirror the performance of a certain index. That’s where we come in.

Marketing

Carson Wealth

NOVEMBER 11, 2024

Many noted how the 2022 midterms came in much closer to expectations and that maybe this time so would the presidential election, but this is yet another election involving President Trump that saw his eventual numbers come in better than expected, similar to 2016 and 2020. when President Biden won in 2020. The S&P 500 soared 2.5%

Marketing

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

NOVEMBER 9, 2024

Investors of course love dividends but share buybacks and debt reduction are more tax efficient than dividends which are taxed at ordinary income rates. It offered no crisis alpha though in the 2020 Pandemic Crash and in 2018 it was down 13.5% 1 thing you can add to your portfolio to diversify returns and risk."

Investments

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

DECEMBER 27, 2024

From its all time high in July 2020, TLH is down 41%. If Torsten Slok from Apollo is right, it might get worse causing a 2022 repeat for 60/40 portfolios. Think of the equity portion of your portfolio as 100% (not of your dollars, just whatever dollars are in equities). The price might literally never recover.

Portfolio

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

FEBRUARY 14, 2025

Torsten Slok blogged about how ineffective bonds have been in terms of providing any return or diversification benefits lately in the context of a 60/40 portfolio. The third portfolio is just the Vanguard Balanced Index Fund (VBAIX). Despite all the leverage, Portfolio 1 has a very smooth ride including up a lot in 2022.

Portfolio

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

APRIL 3, 2025

I saw where this was the worst single day drop since one of the bad days during the 2020 Pandemic Crash. Nate Geraci Tweeted out that "a ny sort of market, economic, or political turmoil offers a window into your financial advisor, portfolio manager, etc" Tough but fair. Markets got pasted today of course.

Portfolio Management

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

MARCH 3, 2025

Looking at the 2020 Pandemic Crash, that was a fast decline but it played out over several weeks and while in real time we could recognize it as more of a crash than a long slow bear market, it didn't feel that fast. Moving to markets which hopefully we understand just a little better. All of this is my playbook for these types of events.

Clients

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

JANUARY 23, 2025

Have some number of month's worth of expected expenses in cash or cash proxies and have some of the portfolio allocated to first responder defensive holdings, like BTAL for me, and some of the portfolio in second responder defensives like managed futures. It's very simple. Keep it simple and diversify your diversifiers.

Management

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

OCTOBER 28, 2024

When they talked about portfolio allocations he said they want to have enough in managed futures to have an impact on the portfolio. Portfolio 1 as follows Portfolio 2 is 50% VOO and 50% iShares 7-10 Year Treasury ETF (IEF). All five funds really struggled from 2015-2020 but there was variation among the five.

Risk Management

The Big Picture

APRIL 29, 2025

Their focus is on generating alpha with high conviction concentrated portfolios. We learned everything, you know, across from accounting to auditing to, to tax and valuation. 00:05:36 [Speaker Changed] And I just wanna emphasize, we’re not talking the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. They, they trained them together.

Management

The Big Picture

JUNE 23, 2025

And sometimes portfolios come into the office. So for sure, February, March, 2020, you know, even treasuries, high quality investment grade, you know, the whole thing e everything was seeing dislocation, right? Or could we take a low cost bond, ETF as sort of the core of that portfolio? The big one was COVID.

Portfolio

Your Richest Life

JANUARY 9, 2025

2024 Recap: Interest Rate Changes and Future Cuts 2024 brought the first interest rate cuts wed seen since 2020. Tax cuts, tariffs and immigration policies could shake up the U.S. Trying to time the market usually leads to losses, so focus on diversifying your portfolio and staying the course as the economy settles.

Economy

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

FEBRUARY 23, 2025

The "endowment" result is very close to red line VBAIX every year except 2020 when it lagged by almost 600 basis point and 2022 when it outperformed by about 500 basis points. If any of us had constructed this portfolio and implemented it for ourselves, it would have been a very acceptable result.

Math

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

APRIL 11, 2025

Early this week, I referenced a comment by Meb Faber that essentially said, you did what you did to try to protect your portfolio, hopefully it's working but that this point you just need to sit back and relax. SCHD hasn't really provided crisis alpha on this go around but it did in 2020 and had a great 2022.

Portfolio

Investing Caffeine

MAY 1, 2025

COVID-19 Pandemic (2020) With over 3 million deaths worldwide and a grinding halt to the global economy, markets initially fell roughly -35%. Diversify Your Investments: A well-balanced portfolio across asset classes helps reduce panic. Since WWII, weve had 12 recessionseach followed by a full recovery to new record highs.

Media

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

JANUARY 22, 2025

I backtested as follows with Portfolio 3 below being Vanguard Balanced Index Fund (VBAIX). The backtest assumes the new RDMIX would be the core holding of a portfolio but I didn't find anywhere that talked about how to position the fund. with Portfolio 4 being VBAIX. None of them helped though in the 2020 Pandemic Crash.

Asset Allocation

The Big Picture

JANUARY 21, 2025

You would offer three of their stock picks where they were probably touting stocks they wanted to unload from their portfolio. 00:12:41 [Speaker Changed] If nothing in your portfolio is performing badly, you’re not diversified. I did it during the coronavirus collapse in 2020, and I did it again in 2022. Right, right.

Investments

Carson Wealth

JULY 10, 2025

With shifting tariff policies, proposed tax cuts, and a potentially higher federal deficit, market stability might seem like a distant opportunity. The best way to help protect your investments from market volatility is through robust portfolio construction and diversification. Maintain a diversified, balanced portfolio.

Risk Tolerance

Yardley Wealth Management

JUNE 25, 2025

We frequently remind clients that creating an effective withdrawal strategy is both an art and a science—requiring a careful balance of longevity, tax efficiency, and income needs. 2 The Taxed Portion of Your Portfolio This part of your portfolio has no special tax advantages.

Retirement

Carson Wealth

APRIL 4, 2025

On the other hand, another stated goal is to raise 100s of billions of dollars of revenue from tariffs (to perhaps pay for tax cuts), but in that case you dont want import substitution and reshoring of manufacturing. What About Markets, and Portfolios? Thats not the case today. What do you do with a foreign plant now?

Manufacturing

Carson Wealth

APRIL 7, 2025

In fact, the S&P 500 fell more than 10% on Thursday and Friday, something that last happened in March 2020 and the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) before that. A diversified portfolio at an appropriate risk tolerance remains the best path in this kind of environment. They get charged a 40% reciprocal tariff to make things fair. (A

Marketing

The Big Picture

JULY 15, 2025

And fire extinguishers were positions we would take in the portfolio that we could pull off the wall and put out the fire in the portfolio. Like having, you know, cash or gold or all these different things that we would include in our multi-asset portfolios so that people would feel more confident in what was going on.

Numbers

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

APRIL 27, 2025

In fact, in a relatively elevated interest rate environment, a well diversified bond portfolio may provide positive returns. They are not intended to constitute legal, tax, securities or investment advice or a recommended course of action in any given situation. Some of the points made in supporting their argument are worth exploring.

Taxes

Random Roger's Retirement Planning

FEBRUARY 9, 2025

To be clear though, the Mystery Fund is not intended to be a single portfolio solution. In 2020 and 2023 the fund was unchanged versus up a lot for the other two. In real life, the Mystery Fund isn't suitable as a one portfolio solution despite being in the ballpark. The result is close but the fund isn't valid for that purpose.

Portfolio