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 Queen Mary [0:18]

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 [0:36]

Thank you, Mary, and welcome to Risk Parity Radio. If you are new here and wonder what we are talking about, you may wish to go back and listen to some of the foundational episodes for this program.

Voices [0:49]

Yeah, baby, yeah!

Mostly Uncle Frank [0:51]

And the basic foundational episodes are episodes one, three, five, seven, and nine. Some of our listeners, including Karen and Chris, have identified additional episodes that you may consider foundational. And those are episodes twelve, fourteen, sixteen, nineteen, twenty-one, fifty-six, eighty-two, and one hundred and eighty-four. And you probably should check those out too, because we have the finest podcast audience available.

Voices [1:26]

Top drawer. Really top drawer.

Mostly Uncle Frank [1:30]

Along with a host named after a hot dog.

Voices [1:34]

Light in the Francis.

Mostly Uncle Frank [1:37]

But now onward, episode four hundred and fifty-six. And we are back.

Voices [2:12]

Yes!

Mostly Uncle Frank [2:13]

And we had a wonderful time.

Voices [2:15]

The best, Jerry. The best.

Mostly Uncle Frank [2:18]

Seeing everything from Cape Town to Kruger, and every animal from African penguins to African lions.

Voices [2:27]

Do you suppose we'll meet any wild animals?

Mostly Uncle Frank [2:30]

We might.

Voices [2:32]

Animals that that eat straw? Uh some, but mostly lions and tigers and bears. Lions and tigers and bears. Lions and tigers and bears. Oh my! Lions! Lions and tigers and bears! Oh my!

Mostly Uncle Frank [2:51]

Speaking of lions, I narrowly escaped being eaten while I was taking a video of some lions sleeping on a rock. The guide and Mary made the following suggestions in the narration to the video.

Guide [3:07]

The only thing that we we need now, Frank, for your beautiful photos or best photos is if you maybe go and sit on that rock.

Mostly Queen Mary [3:19]

Go there. Yeah, and uh hang pieces of meat on yourself.

Guide [3:23]

Yeah, we'll be taking videos.

Mostly Queen Mary [3:26]

Make yourself a nice necklace of warthog ribs.

Voices [3:30]

Yeah.

Mostly Uncle Frank [3:32]

Needless to say, I did not take them up on their suggestions.

Voices [3:37]

That's not an improvement.

Mostly Uncle Frank [3:39]

And so I am still with you today.

Voices [3:45]

Go away and let us alone. Oh scan, huh? Afraid, huh? How long can you stay fresh in that can? Come on, get up and fight, you shivering junk. Put your hands up, you lopsided bag of hay. No, that's getting personal, I am. Yes. Get up and teach him a lesson. Well, what's wrong with you kicking him? I hardly know.

Mostly Uncle Frank [4:11]

And today on Risk Party Radio, it is time for our weekly portfolio reviews of the eight sample portfolios that you can find at www.riskparty radio.com on the portfolios page.

Voices [4:24]

You can't handle the dogs and cats living together. But before we get to that, I'm intrigued by this. How you say emails.

Mostly Uncle Frank [4:34]

And first off. First off, an email from Jimmy.

Voices [4:40]

Hey Jim Baby! I see you brought up reinforcements! Well, I'm waiting for you, Jimmy Boy.

Mostly Uncle Frank [4:48]

And Jimmy writes.

Mostly Queen Mary [4:50]

Hi, Frank and Mary. I just became a Patreon member because your podcast is the straight stuff.

Voices [4:56]

That is the straight stuff, oh funk master.

Mostly Queen Mary [4:59]

But I'm concerned I'm developing a gambling problem.

Voices [5:02]

Oh, there it is. Winner winner chicken dinner.

Mostly Queen Mary [5:09]

My portfolio is 50% stock, 25% VGLT, 10% gold, 10% ZBMF, and 5% cash, and I need to buy a house.

Voices [5:21]

My boys need a house.

Mostly Queen Mary [5:28]

That's nice. Outside the portfolio, I have set aside 50% of the purchase price for a down payment. For the other 50%, I am looking to finance. Suppose my portfolio is about $5 million and I'm looking to finance $500,000 on the house. So I have to come up with 10% of the portfolio. I listened to your episode discussing margin loans versus mortgages, so I have some ideas on that. But one other option I'm throwing around is utilizing some leverage within the ETF holdings. You have a gambling problem. For example, could I replace 10% of my stock and the 10% managed futures with 10% RSST, return stacked SP plus managed futures, and use the 10% left over on the house? Or some combination of RSST and G O V Z if I want to spread the leverage. RSST uses rolling futures, and G O V Z is just a slightly different product, so the theoretical cost of borrowing should be lower. I am retired early, 40%, working with a roughly 4.8% withdrawal rate, but able to flex spending and have options to make side income if I really need to. Do I have a gambling problem? Jimmy.

Voices [6:45]

You want to see a man, boy? I'll show you a man. Kick me in the Jimmy!

Mostly Uncle Frank [6:53]

No way.

Voices [6:54]

I said do it!

Mostly Uncle Frank [6:56]

Well, first off, Jimmy, thank you for being a donor to the Father McKenna Center.

Voices [7:01]

Yeah, baby, yeah!

Mostly Uncle Frank [7:03]

As most of you know, we do not have any sponsors on this program. We do have a charity we support. It's called the Father McKenna Center, and it supports hungry and homeless people in Washington, D.C. Full disclosure, I'm in the board of the charity and am the current treasurer. But if you give to the charity, you get to go to the front of the email line, which is a pretty long line these days since I've bet on hiatus. It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care. It's about three months long, and I do have a stack of donor emails to go through, including all the ones today, which I'm sure will cause further backups. We do have some nice news to report from the Father McKenna Center. While Mary and I were gone, the walk for McKenna was held that you all participated in to raise money in the top of the t-shirt campaign. And I'm pleased to report the Father McKenna Center raised over $180,000 in that campaign, which is well over 10% of our budget for the year. And I'm even more pleased to report that you, our listeners, were responsible for about a third of that total. And then we had over 450 people come for the walk itself on September 27th. And we're still putting out a little social media about that. We have started a YouTube channel for the Father McKenna Center with a couple of videos up there right now featuring our director, our executive director, Dennis D, who's a former client of the Father McKenna Center, and one of our volunteers. We are fortunate to have a recent intern who has majored in media communications come on board, who's going to help us put that together. But I'll see if I can link to that in the show notes. And in other news, our executive director, Dennis Dia, has also been nominated as an honoree at the annual dinner put on by SOR. SOAR stands for Support Our Aging Religious, so supports retired priests and sisters. And that is an awards gala that will be held at the Embassy of Italy on November 7th, 2025. Mary and I will be attending. But if you're interested in that, I will also put that link in the show notes so you can check that out. But it's quite an honor for Dennis and it's well deserved. There are two ways to give to the charity. You can become a patron on Patreon, which you can do through our support page at www.riskpartywriter.com, like Jimmy has done. Or you can go directly to the Father McKenna Center website on the donation page and give that way. Either way, you get to go to the front of the email line, but make sure you flag your donation in your email so that I can duly move you to the front of the line. But now getting to your questions in your email, Jimmy. Looks like you are doing quite well. Yes, Cat, now I should be ruler of the world. With or without a gambling problem. And you pose an interesting question as to whether you could use a small amount of leverage in your portfolio. I think the answer is probably yes. Although I don't have any scientific or databased analysis for this, since these funds are relatively new. But it doesn't sound like you're making any significant changes here to the portfolio and you are maintaining essentially the same proportions of stocks to bonds to alternatives, which I think is the important thing really here, so that the portfolio does not get out of balance. What I really don't know is whether the managed futures component of RSST is going to perform like DBMF or like typical managed futures allocations, although I don't have any reason to suspect that it would not. You may have to be more flexible on your withdrawals simply because adding leverage does add more volatility to the portfolio, as you can see from the sample OPTRA portfolio in particular, which follows this return stacked kind of model. But that portfolio has effectively about forty percent leverage in it, or one point four to one. Whereas what you're talking about seems to have a leverage component of only about one point one to one. So it's not really significant. That's what I'm talking about. I think what might be more significant is the potential tax liability if you are selling a large portion of your funds to fund $500,000 on the house. That could potentially give you a big tax bill depending on what you're selling and whether you can tax laws harvest against that in some way. And that argues more for the taking the margin loan on it, because the interest on the margin loan is going to be tax deductible against the ordinary income in the account itself, if it's a taxable account. So in deciding what to do here, I would definitely take into account the tax implications of whichever avenue you choose to adopt here.

Voices [12:08]

Well, you have a gambling problem.

Mostly Uncle Frank [12:11]

If you do take a margin loan, make sure you are doing it at a place like Interactive Brokers, where you are going to get the best rates. Because you are not going to get good rates at places like Schwab or Fidelity for something like this. I am quite interested to see how these return stacked funds perform over time since they're relatively new. So you'll have to report back to us after you lose most of your money at the casino. Just kidding. The money in your account. It didn't do too well, it's gone. But that's the best answer I got for you at this point. Hopefully it helps. Thank you for your donation and thank you for your email.

Voices [12:51]

See, Jimmy was one of the most feared guys in the city. I mean, he was first locked up at 11 and he was doing hits for mob bosses when he was 16. See, hits never bothered Jimmy. It was business. But what Jimmy really loved to do, what he really loved to do was steal. I mean, he actually enjoyed it. Jimmy was the kind of guy who rooted for the bad guys in the movies. They called him Jimmy the Gen. Tommy, help the lady. Drivers loved them. They used to tip them off about their really good loads, and of course, everybody got a piece.

Mostly Uncle Frank [13:24]

Second off. Second off, we have an email from Anonymous.

Voices [13:30]

I have no name.

Mostly Uncle Frank [13:34]

And Anonymous Rights.

Mostly Queen Mary [13:36]

Frank and Mary, thanks for all you do for the Father McKenna Center as an advocate for children and for the DIY investor community. A receipt from my company's charity program is attached, and they will be matching my donation. Please have the center use the charity donation ID in case follow-up is needed to receive the match.

Voices [13:55]

Show me the money! Jared, you better yell! Show me the money!

Mostly Queen Mary [14:00]

Risk Parity Radio has given me a solid blueprint for investing and confidence to go into retirement in the next few years. I was referred to Risk Parity Radio in February this year and started in episode one. I've never had a need to submit a question because your finest audience always seems to ask the question I would have had. Maybe I will submit a question one day now that I am listening in real time.

Voices [14:26]

I'm sorry, but all questions must be submitted in writing.

Mostly Queen Mary [14:30]

No questions at this time, and I wish to stay anonymous over Podcast Land. However, I will reach out to you guys one day when my wife and I are driving down I-95 on the way to the beach for a week in the summer. Maybe we can meet for a cup of coffee. In the meantime, I will keep listening and will sign off with the only piece of advice I could fit into short correspondence. Do not put ketchup on your hot dog. Best regards, Anonymous.

Voices [15:01]

Get your hot dogs! Hot dogs!

Mostly Uncle Frank [15:06]

Well, first off, I will certainly take that advice. I prefer my hot dogs with a little spicy mustard, along with some relish and onions if available. Second off, thank you for being a donor to the Father McKenna Center. Your donation is greatly appreciated. And I'm glad we are performing a service for you here and that you are getting something out of it as you go into retirement in the next few years. Mary and I would love to meet with you and your wife if you are around. We recently met with another one of our listeners just before our vacation, our listener Rafa, and we had a very nice dinner.

Voices [15:45]

Ah, good afternoon, sir, and how are we today? Better better? Better than a bucket on my throw up. A gasto, a bucket for monsieur.

Mostly Uncle Frank [15:55]

Including some squid ink paella at a fine Spanish restaurant.

Voices [16:01]

A wise choice, monsieur. And no, how would you like it served? All uh mixed up together in a bucket? Yeah.

Mostly Uncle Frank [16:08]

I am always amazed at how interesting, talented, and generous this audience is. It truly is the finest podcast audience available.

Voices [16:18]

Top drawer. Really top drawer.

Mostly Uncle Frank [16:22]

And so I look forward to your questions in the future and meeting you for a cup of coffee, so as it might be.

Voices [16:30]

One trick is to tell them stories that don't go anywhere.

Mostly Uncle Frank [16:34]

Perhaps you'll have a name next time. Thank you again for your donation, and thank you for your email.

Voices [16:43]

But first, first you must travel a long and difficult road. I cannot tell you how long this road shall be, but fear not the obstacles in your path. For fate has vouchsafe your reward. Do the road may wise. Yeah, your hearts grow weary, still shall ye follow the way, even unto your salvation. Last off.

Mostly Uncle Frank [17:34]

Last off an email from Matthew.

Voices [17:37]

What does Matt Damon say on that Bitcoin commercial?

Mostly Queen Mary [17:39]

Fortune favors the brave!

Mostly Uncle Frank [17:42]

And Matthew writes.

Mostly Queen Mary [17:43]

Hi Frank, I made a donation to the Father McKenna Center. My partner and I recently retired and have traditional portfolios. We are looking to transition to risk parity style portfolios to take some risk off the table and enjoy higher safe withdrawal rates. We are putting together a plan we can easily implement, stick to, and execute. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this portfolio. In episode 7, when defining the Holy Grail principle to find and combine the least correlated asset classes we can find, you mentioned that you probably need four or five asset classes. Well, this portfolio only has three asset classes, stocks, bonds, and gold. But when I ran it through the portfolio matrix at portfolio charts and it came back ranked number one by a nice margin and has a 6.2% safe withdrawal rate. With that being said, do you think a fourth or fifth asset class is absolutely necessary? Or is this portfolio sufficiently diversified and uncorrelated? The portfolio assets and allocations are 20% US large cap growth, 20% US small cap value, 15% ex US international large cap value, 20% gold, 15% long-term treasuries, 10% intermediate treasuries. So that's 55% stocks, 25% treasury bonds, and 20% gold. The subclasses of stocks are fairly uncorrelated. I was looking at VUG with DFIV.51 correlation and AVUV.62 correlation. However, AVUV's correlation with DFIV is .73, so not great there, but not bad. Also, I could use VGIT and VGLT for the bond funds, which have a correlation of 0.87, and together would have an effective duration of 11 years and maturity of 16.7 years. Or I could use a single bond fund, TLH, which seems to effectively replace both in this 23rd and 13rd setup. It has a duration of 12 years and maturity of 17 years. Would it be better to hold the two separate bond funds, or would this one fund work just as well? Not sure if it's better to have the two to take advantage of Shannon's demon in some unusual interest rate slash yield curve slash bond prices situations, or for some other reasons. Lastly, do you have any guidance on withdrawal frequency? Is there any real advantage or disadvantage to monthly, quarterly, or annual withdrawals? Thanks so much for what you do for us DYI investors. Our gratitude and appreciation honestly can't be expressed in words.

Voices [20:28]

So I have to say I love you in a song.

Mostly Queen Mary [20:47]

And that is simply awesome. Regards, Matthew.

Voices [20:51]

And we have the tools, we have the talent.

Mostly Uncle Frank [20:55]

Well, first off, Matthew, thank you also for being a donor to the Father McKenna Center. And your donation is greatly appreciated. Now, as to your questions. First, I would consider the portfolio that you're describing with stocks, treasury, bonds, and gold to actually have four asset classes if you're talking about retirement, because we can include cash as a separate asset class. But whether or not you do that, you are well within the parameters that we look at as rules of thumb for constructing a portfolio with a high safe withdrawal rate. And just to remind the audience what those parameters are, it's to have somewhere between 40 some percent and 70% in stocks in the portfolio divided essentially into growth and value, to have between 15 and 30% in intermediate and long-term treasury bonds, to have between 10 and 25% in alternative assets that are uncorrelated with stocks and bonds, such as gold or managed futures, and then to have less than 10% in cash or cash equivalents. And the portfolio you have described definitely falls into all of those parameters. And so it's not surprising that it is a high safe withdrawal rate. Now, as I've also said before, the main use of tools is simply for comparison purposes, and all of the portfolios that have safe withdrawal rates within, say, half a percent are going to be relatively similar. And so whether it's one is 6.2 and another one is 6.1 or 6.0 is probably not a relevant consideration. It's when you look at those full 1% differences between well-diversified portfolios and not so well-diversified portfolios that say only have stocks and bonds in them. That's when you're looking at some real comparative differences. The main key here is that once you've settled on something like you have is that you are going to stick with it and not be making major changes when you see certain assets perform poorly over periods of time, because they will. If you have a well-diversified portfolio, you are probably always going to have something performing poorly and it may perform poorly for many years. Whereas some other asset may perform very well for many years. And one of the biggest problems that amateurs have is that they're looking at the past five years as if they're going to predict the future or as if there's been some paradigm shift or we're in a new era of such and such or whatever.

Voices [23:28]

A crystal ball can help you, it can guide you.

Mostly Uncle Frank [23:32]

That is where people get into trouble because then they skew their portfolio to the best recent performing asset, which typically will then underperform in the next period.

Voices [23:44]

Now you can also use the ball to connect to the spirit world.

Mostly Uncle Frank [23:49]

And that is exactly what you do not want to do. You do not want to make big changes in your portfolio based on recent performances.

Voices [23:57]

Forget about it.

Mostly Uncle Frank [23:59]

I think your fund selections seem fine to me. They are well-performing funds with relatively low expense ratios and all the categories you're talking about here. So I don't really have any comments on those. As for your selections of bond funds, I probably would go with the two funds, the intermediate and the long-term fund, rather than the single bond fund TLH. I think the relative performances of the funds is going to be very similar over time, but using the Vanguard Intermediate and Long-Term Treasury bond funds will get you a slightly lower expense ratio on those. And so if you don't mind holding two rather than one in that instance, that would be just fine. It's not a big decision point though, and it should work well either way. Now your last question was about withdrawal frequencies, considering monthly, quarterly, or annual withdrawals. And I think this has more to do with the way you do your budgeting or allocating for expenses. For us, it's more convenient to do it monthly because we look at this every month and kind of look at our expenses and evaluate whether we're having a larger expense in a particular category in a certain month, whether due to property taxes or some other thing, and then make a larger withdrawal to cover those sorts of things, and that way we're only selling pieces of our portfolio as we go to cover the expenses we actually have. If you are going to do quarterly or annual projections of expenses, then it probably makes sense to do your withdrawals on that kind of basis as well. But this choice has a lot more to do with managing cash flows than it does with anything else. Obviously, the simplest way to do it would be the way we are handling the sample golden ratio portfolio, where we have just allocated a year's worth of expenses or more than a year's worth of expenses into a money market fund and are just pulling from that the whole year round. That's the simple way to do it. I'm not a smart man. It's probably not the most efficient way, however. And I can tell you, in years like this where we have one asset gold that's up now over 50% for the year, we are very pleased to be selling pieces of that as we go to fund our retirement expenses, because it also works as a kind of rebalancing along the way, so that we have a smaller rebalancing to do once we get to our real rebalancing date. I'm very pleased you're getting so much out of the podcast. The tools and the talent, as it were.

Voices [26:34]

Real Wrath of God type stuff. Exactly.

Mostly Uncle Frank [26:37]

And that you are not paying extraordinary fees off to financial advisors.

Voices [26:50]

And starts to drink your milkshake. I drink your milkshake. I drink it up.

Mostly Uncle Frank [27:03]

Because I think that money is much better used either giving it away or taking extravagant vacations to exotic locales, where you too may be eaten by lions someday.

Voices [27:16]

Lions and tigers and males.

Mostly Uncle Frank [27:42]

Thank you for being a donor. And thank you for your email.

Voices [27:59]

Look at the bees.

Mostly Uncle Frank [28:03]

Well, yes, the bees did show up in the end of last week, at least in the stock markets. Things like gold and treasury bonds were actually up last week. But just looking at those markets, the SP 500, represented by VOO, is now up 12.30% for the year so far. The NASDAQ 100, represented by QQQ, is still up 15.74% for the year so far. Small cap value continues to be the big laggard this year. Representative fund VIOV is down 1.06 for the year so far. But gold continues to be the big winner. And I think it's having its best year since about 1979.

Voices [28:53]

I love gold.

Mostly Uncle Frank [28:56]

Representative fund GLDM is up 52.80% for the year so far. And I think a lot of traditional financial advisors are having a lot of difficulty explaining this to some of their clients. There's this odd story that they tell themselves and tell their clients that the 70s are never going to happen again.

Voices [29:15]

Wrong!

Mostly Uncle Frank [29:16]

And therefore, I've heard at least two of them on podcast look at the price of gold in 1980 as the starting point, which, as we know, is not the starting point for tradable gold. That was ten years earlier.

Voices [29:29]

That's not how it works. That's not how any of this works.

Mostly Uncle Frank [29:33]

But the reason they seem to pick that date is that was an intermediate term high at the time, and so it makes the price of gold look worse subsequently. But that's just bad use of data.

Voices [29:46]

Are you stupid or something?

Mostly Uncle Frank [29:48]

This is also problematic in a lot of these calculators like Bolden that do projections for gold of like 1.5%, which is completely ridiculous since it's outperformed the S P 500 system. Since the beginning of the century.

Voices [30:01]

Stupid is and stupid does, sir.

Mostly Uncle Frank [30:04]

But you have to ask yourself if all of these people are essentially lying about this and using bad stories to justify what they're doing, then what else are they screwing up with?

Voices [30:15]

Am I right or am I right or am I right? Right, right, right.

Mostly Uncle Frank [30:19]

Anyway, moving on. Long-term treasury bonds represented by the fund VGLT are up 7.41% for the year so far. Rates represented by the fund REET are up 5.71% for the year so far. Commodities represented by PDBC are up 1.31% for the year. Preferred shares represented by the fund PFFV are up 2.3% for the year so far. And managed futures are managing to be up 5.87% for the year so far, at least represented by the fund DBMF. Moving to these sample portfolios. First one's the all seasons. This one is a reference portfolio. It's only 30% in stocks, 55% in intermediate and long-term treasury bonds, and the remaining 15% in golden commodities. It's up 0.29% for the month of October. It's up 11.78% year to date, and up 21.35% since inception in July 2020. Moving to these kind of bread and butter portfolios, first one's gold and butterfly. This one's 40% in stocks divided into a total stock market fund, and a small cap value fund, 40% in treasury bonds divided into long and short, and the remaining 20% in gold, GLDM. It's down 0.02% month to date. It's up 14.78% year to date, and up 53.72% since inception in July 2020. Next one's Golden Ratio, and I have a new favorite clip to roll out thanks to a math video from PBS that I found. This one's gonna be one of my favorites. Here it is.

Voices [31:56]

The Golden Ratio. What's the answer? What's the answer? What's the answer? The Golden Ratio. The Golden Ratio.

Mostly Uncle Frank [32:13]

But looking at the portfolio, this one is 42% in stocks divided into a large cap growth fund and a small cap value fund, 26% in long-term treasury bonds, 16% in gold, 10% in managed futures, and 6% in cash and a money market fund. It's down 0.28% for the month of October so far. It's up 14.2% year to date, and up 48.41% since inception in July 2020. Next one's the Risk Parity Ultimate. This is our kitchen sink portfolio with a little bit of everything in it, and I'm not going to go through all 12 of these funds, but it's down 0.53% now for the month of October. It's up 13.92% year to date and up 35.96% since inception in July 2020. Moving to these experimental portfolios involving leveraged funds. Don't try this at home.

Voices [33:14]

Uh what? It's gone. It's all gone.

Mostly Uncle Frank [33:18]

First one is the accelerated permanent portfolio. This one's 27.5% in a levered bond fund TMF. 25% in UPRO, a levered SP 500 fund, 25% in PFFV, a preferred shares fund, and remaining 22.5% in gold, GLDM. It's up 0.44% for the month of October so far. It's up 19.64% year to date, and up 20.87% since inception in July 2020. Next one's the Aggressive 50-50. This is the least diversified and most levered of these portfolios, and also the worst performer by far. It's one-third in a levered stock fund UPRO, one-third in TMF a levered bond fund, and the remaining third divided into preferred shares and intermediate treasury bonds. It's down 1.08% for the month of October so far. It's up 10.65% year to date and down 2.53% since inception in July 2020. Next one's the levered golden ratio. This one's a year younger than the first six. It is 35% in a composite levered fund called NTSX. That's the S P 500 in Treasury Bonds, levered up 1.5 to 1%. 15% in AVDV, which is an international small cap value fund, 20% in gold, GLDM, 10% in a managed futures fund, KMLM, 10% in TMF, a levered bond fund, and the remaining 10% divided into a levered fund that follows the Dow and a levered fund that follows the utilities index. It's up 0.55% for the month of October so far. It's up 21.27% year to date and up 15.91% since inception in July 2020. And the last one is the OPTRA portfolio, one portfolio to rule them all. This one's only a little over a year old now. It is 16% in UPRO, a leverage stock fund, following the SP 500, 24% in AVGV, which is a worldwide value fund, 24% in GOVZ, which is a Treasury Strips fund, and the remaining 36% divided into gold and managed futures. It's down 0.75% for the month of October so far. It's up 18.33% year to date, and up 21.78% since inception in July 2024. And that concludes our weekly portfolio reviews, which we haven't done in several weeks. Oh, these portfolios had one of their best months ever in their existence in September. Surely you can't be serious. I am serious, and don't call me surely. And October hasn't been too bad so far. But we'll see what happens next week. It is October, after all.

Voices [35:58]

You're not going to amount to jack squats! You're gonna end up eating a steady diet of government cheese and living in a van down by the river.

Mostly Uncle Frank [36:12]

But now I see our signal is beginning to fade. We had a couple of birthdays to celebrate on our trip to South Africa, mostly Bill's, but mine is actually today. And at one of the lodges we stayed at, the staff did sing Bill Happy Birthday in the local language, which we will put at the end of this in a couple of minutes here. If you have comments or questions for me, please send them to Frank at RiskPartyRader.com. That email is Frank at RiskPartyRader.com. Or you can go to the website www.riskpartyrador.com, put your message into the contact form, and I'll get it all that way. If you haven't had a chance to do it, please go to your favorite podcast provider and like, subscribe, give me some stars, a follow, a review. That would be great. Okay. Thank you once again for tuning in. This is Frank Vasquez with Risk Party Radio. Signing off.