Mostly Voices [0:00]

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. A different drummer.

Mostly Mary [0:19]

And now, coming to you from dead center on your dial, welcome to Risk Parity Radio, where we explore alternatives and asset allocations for the do-it-yourself investor. Broadcasting to you now from the comfort of his easy chair, here is your host, Frank Vasquez.

Mostly Uncle Frank [0:37]

Thank you, Mary, and welcome to episode 30 of Risk Parity Radio. It is time for our weekly portfolio review of the six sample portfolios at www.riskparityradio.com on the portfolios page. Before we do that, let's just take a look at the general conditions of the market last week, the markets, I should say. It was another volatile week. The S&P was up 7.32%. The NASDAQ was up 9.01%. Gold was up 3.87%. Long-term treasury bonds represented by TLT was up 1.3% and our REIT fund in the sample portfolios, REET, was up 4.8%. Before we get to the portfolios, I think there is some lessons to be learned over this past month. If you look at where these markets were about a month ago, they're in about the same place that they were. And so you've seen all of this volatility surrounding the election. but the markets ultimately did not go anywhere. I heard that there was a Wall Street Journal poll of investors in that something like 63% of investors had made adjustments prior to the election going into the election. And I would imagine that most of those 63% probably lost money out of this thing. If you had taken your money out of markets last Friday, the Friday before the election and then waited until after the election to put it back in, you could have lost five or six percent just on that decision alone. It's here that we need to remember the advice of Jack Bogle that in times of volatility, don't do something, just stand there. And that is what we did in our risk parity style portfolios. So let's take a look at them, going through all six of them. They were volatile too, but not nearly as volatile as the markets because of their diversification. The first one, the All Seasons portfolio, our most conservative one, was up 3.19% and it is now up 0.94% since inception in July. and it's pretty much just paying for its distributions as it goes. The next portfolio, one of our core portfolios, the Golden Butterfly, was up 3.48% last week and it is up 5.39% since inception in July. The next portfolio, the Golden Ratio portfolio, that one was up 4.4% last week. partially due to those REITs that are in it. And it is up 5.14% since inception in July. And going to our most complex portfolio, the Risk Parity Ultimate Portfolio. This one was up 3. 96% last week, and it is up 3.76% since inception in July. And again, all these portfolios are pretty much back to where they were about a month ago. They are all easily supporting their distributions, which are between 4% and 8% for the experimental ones we're going to get to now. And the first of our two experimental portfolios, the Accelerated Permanent Portfolio. That one was up similar to the stock markets last week. It was up 7.77%. and it is up 6.01% since inception in July. And then our most volatile portfolio, the aggressive 50/50, was up 8.81% last week and it is up 5.05% since inception in July. And again, all of these figures are on the portfolios page at www.riskparityradio.com. One of the other things you'll see on that page is a monthly summary that we are building out of the six sample portfolios along with three references to compare them to VTSAX representing the total stock market, VWENX representing a 60/40 portfolio, and VWIAX representing a conservative 3070 or 3565 portfolio. It's not terribly illuminating so far. What you can basically see there is that the All Seasons portfolio is the least volatile and most conservative, and then the three sort of standard Risk parity style portfolios, the Golden Butterfly, Golden Ratio, and Risk Parity Ultimate are next in line there in terms of volatility. And then you can see how much more volatile the two leveraged experimental portfolios are, the Accelerated Permanent Portfolio and Aggressive 5050. And they seem to be right now pretty well comparable to the comparison reference portfolios. But it'll be more interesting to see month by month as these get built out to see how these compare. It's kind of a good way to eyeball volatility month to month. And with that, I see our signal is beginning to fade. This has been a short session. If you have emails or messages you want to send me, send them to frank@riskparityradio.com that's frank@riskparityradio.com or you can fill out the contact form on the page at the website www.riskparityradio.com. I did receive a nice little message from Bill this past week asking to look at RPAR, which is a risk parity style ETF that just came online at the end of last year. And I have done a little bit of work on that, and we will be going over that on Wednesday when we pick up for our next session on Risk Parity Radio. Thank you for tuning in.

Mostly Mary [7:34]

This is Frank Vasquez with Risk Parity Radio, signing off. The Risk Parity Radio show is hosted by Frank Vasquez. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Please consult with your own advisors before taking any actions based on any information you have heard here, making sure to take into account your own personal circumstances.