Opening And Foundational Episodes

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 [0:37]

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. And the basic foundational episodes are episodes one, three, five, seven, and nine. Yes, it is still in my memory, thanks. We have also created an additional resource, a collection of additional foundational episodes and other popular episodes.

Voices [1:07]

We have top men working on it right now. Ooh.

Mostly Uncle Frank [1:14]

Top men. And you can find those on the episode guide page at www.riskparty radio.com. Inconceivable! All thanks to our friend Luke, our volunteer in Quebec. Zacosh. We'd be helpless without him.

Voices [1:36]

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

Mostly Uncle Frank [1:41]

Because other than him, it's just me and Marion here. I'll give you the move, alright?

Voices [1:46]

I'll take it.

Mostly Uncle Frank [1:48]

We have no sponsors, we have no guests, and we have no expansion plans.

Voices [1:53]

I don't think I'd like another job.

Mostly Uncle Frank [1:55]

Over the years, our podcast has become very audienced focused, and I must say we do have the finest podcast audience available.

Voices [2:03]

Top drawer. Really top drawer.

Mostly Uncle Frank [2:07]

Along with a host named after a hot dog.

Voices [2:10]

Lighten up Francis.

Mostly Uncle Frank [2:14]

But now onward, episode 535. Today on Risk Party Radio, it's time for our weekly portfolio reviews of the eight sample portfolios you can find at www.riskparty radio.com on the portfolios page. And it's good to be back. We were on a nice little vacation visiting our friends Optimus Bill. I am Optimus Bill and his wife Karen and our new friends, Bill and Kathy. It was kind of like partying with T-Pain. We were on a boat and everything.

Voices [2:47]

Whoa! Free boat ride for three. Now who should I take? Keith? Yes. And T Pain. Cool.

Mostly Uncle Frank [3:02]

Well, we'll talk more about that in another time.

Voices [3:06]

We run in this, let's go! I'm up in the boat! I'm up in the boat! Everybody look at me!

Mostly Uncle Frank [3:17]

In the meantime, before I put you to sleep with portfolio reviews.

Voices [3:22]

I'm intrigued by this. How you say emails?

Donations And The T-Shirt Campaign

Mostly Uncle Frank [3:28]

And First off. First off, we have an email from Pete.

Voices [3:35]

Could I come home and think that I've been fishing all day or something?

Mostly Uncle Frank [3:40]

That's really not what I do, Peter. And Pete writes.

Mostly Queen Mary [3:46]

Hi Frank. I just wanted to let you know that I made a donation of $100 from my Fidelity Donor Advised Fund for the Top of the T-shirt campaign.

Voices [3:55]

Yeah, baby, yeah!

Mostly Queen Mary [3:57]

But there wasn't a memo line to add that info in case you wanted to have them direct it properly. Not that it sounds like you'll need the boost to win.

Voices [4:05]

Winner winner 16 dinner.

Mostly Queen Mary [4:10]

I've been listening for about a year now and really appreciate the education and perspective you've given me on investing and living my best life, both leading up to and during retirement. I'm 52 and a recovering over-planner and over-saver who is practicing daily now to find better balance and be mindful of what really matters with the precious and limited time we all have together. Love the podcast and so grateful to you for deciding you don't mind having at least this job in retirement. Sincerely, Pete.

Mostly Uncle Frank [4:54]

Well, Pete, we're glad you're enjoying the podcast, and thank you so much for being a donor to our top of the t-shirt campaign for the Father McKenna Center.

Voices [5:03]

The best, Jerry. The best.

Mostly Uncle Frank [5:06]

As most of you know, we don't have any sponsors on this program. We do have two charities we support. The Father McKenna Center for me, which supports hungry and homeless people in Washington, DC, and a Fairfax Casa for Mary, which works with children in the foster system in our county. We are nearing the end of the top of the t-shirt campaign, which we will be wrapping up pretty much this weekend. Well, August 31st, if you must know. As you know, we've been collecting donations for our annual walk for McKenna that'll be held at the end of September. And the top sponsors for the walk all get to put their names on the t-shirt that the walkers will be wearing. And the organizations that donate the most get to go to the top of the t-shirt and have their logos displayed the most prominently. I'm pleased to report that thanks to all of your fabulous generosity, we will once again be at the top of this t-shirt for the top of the t-shirt campaign.

Voices [6:06]

Great success.

Mostly Uncle Frank [6:08]

Yes, it was a great success. We started with the $25,000 in matching funds from Matthew 63 and 4J, our anonymous matchers, and over the course of the last couple months, we have raised over $49,000 from the rest of you. And that's a lot of money.

Voices [6:28]

I can't believe it. I couldn't be more excited.

Mostly Uncle Frank [6:31]

So together, we've raised almost $75,000 for the Father McKenna Center. That is about 5% of our annual operating budget. So it's huge. It's really huge.

Voices [6:44]

Wow, is it very nice?

Mostly Uncle Frank [6:47]

And I'm extremely grateful for all you've done, as are our executive director, Dennis, and our young intrepid head of development, Ben.

Voices [6:56]

Oh, I get it. Let me try.

Mostly Uncle Frank [6:59]

And everyone else at the Father McKenna Center who is dependent on your generosity so we can continue to do the good work that we do. So I will give you a final, final total next week. Once we've counted every last dime and dollar, and also put the mock-ups of the new t-shirt for this year up on the website when they are available. But thank you once again for your support, and actually thank all of the emailers today for their support because they are all supporters and all donors, and so they've all gone to the front of the email line today. That's your prize. We are committed to making this podcast as listener focused as possible. So I know you didn't have a question today, but please do write one in when you have one because you will definitely get to go to the front of the email line again. Just remind us when you send in your email that you are a donor, and we will duly move you to the front of the line. So thank you so much for your donation, Pete, and thank everyone else for all of your efforts. Hopefully you will continue to enjoy and appreciate what we do here.

Voices [8:04]

You are talking about the nonsensical ravings of a lunatic mind.

Mostly Uncle Frank [8:10]

Thank you again for your donation, and thank you for your email.

Voices [8:15]

Hey Live, you can see me now! Spread wide on the stuff burnt battle! Second off.

Treasury Buybacks And Collapse Fears

Mostly Uncle Frank [8:31]

Second off, we have an email from Mark.

Voices [8:36]

All hail the commander of his majesty's Roman legions, the brave and noble Marcus Vindictus.

Mostly Uncle Frank [8:44]

And Mark Wright.

Mostly Queen Mary [8:46]

Hola. I am a Patreon supporter and today is August 19th. This morning I heard the Treasury Department announced it would double the size of its liquidity support buyback operations for longer-dated nominal coupon securities from 2 billion to at least 4 billion per operation. Is this another signal that the US government's financial situation is continuing to decline? And it's gone. Are we running out of dry powder to keep our fiat currency system afloat? Uh what? How are the massive spending starting in 2020, inflation, and interest rates interrelated?

Voices [9:28]

It's gone. It's all gone.

Mostly Queen Mary [9:29]

Will the Treasury, the Fed, and Congress ever be able to turn this around? Or will they exhaust their tricks and then the real pain will begin? What's all gone?

Voices [9:39]

The money in your account, it didn't do too well, it's gone.

Mostly Queen Mary [9:42]

I started a conversation with Claude on this topic, and here is the link. Fortunately, the government debacles of 2020 prompted me to gain residency in Mexico in 2021 from where I am now watching the US drama.

Voices [10:04]

El gringo busicat, probablemente. Probablemente grosso. Gonzalez asistianzo comprados. Gracias, senhor Spaby. Gracias.

Mostly Queen Mary [10:17]

Unfortunately, I am still a legal resident of Maryland, which has become a real dread. Gracias, Mark.

Voices [10:40]

Somebody is coming in.

Mostly Uncle Frank [10:46]

Well, Mark, I suppose it's kind of the same story in a different verse. Or same song in a different verse. This sort of stuff has seemed to been going on for pretty much all my life. Although has really upscaled itself since the great financial crisis. But I do think you need to be mindful that the end has been predicted every year for at least the past three decades, if not longer.

Voices [11:20]

This is the end.

Mostly Uncle Frank [11:38]

So I think this can go on just a lot longer than anybody thinks it can, particularly if you look at the example of Japan, which basically did quantitative easing for several decades and is only now feeling some of the effects of it, and is not even the world's leading economy with the world's reserve currency. It was interesting. That announcement itself is not much of a change. Believe it or not, going from two billion to four billion in a buyback operation for elongated treasuries is kind of a drop in the bucket. I think what was more significant is the fact that it seems like the Treasury Secretary is now kind of willing to do things and be maybe willing to do more things in the future in terms of quantitative easing or supporting asset prices in the United States. And people are looking at both Secretary Besson and the new Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, who were big critics of this kind of interference, shall we say, in financial markets by the Fed to try to prop up or change interest rates by prior administrations when they were out of the government. And so the question was, well, are they going to actually behave differently when they're in there or not? And I think the markets took this as a signal that it's going to be maybe the same old, same old kind of moves, if you will, to weaken the dollar and prop up asset prices. And this seemed to be a signal that they are ready, willing, and able to do that. We'll see what happens when Kevin Wars gives the famous Jackson Hole speech, which occurs every year. I have to laugh about how much Sturman Drang goes on about all of this stuff.

Voices [13:31]

Real wrath of God type stuff.

Mostly Uncle Frank [13:34]

But basically, I mean the financial media has to watch something.

Voices [13:38]

Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies, rivers and seas boiling. Forty years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes, dead rising from the grave.

Mostly Uncle Frank [13:46]

The speech hasn't happened yet as I'm recording this, but will happen before I release it. And I'm guessing he probably really won't say much of anything other than talk about his task forces at the Fed that he's putting in place. But that won't stop everybody and their mother from trying to dissect what it really means.

Voices [14:06]

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass terrius.

Mostly Uncle Frank [14:11]

From my perspective, I just think, well, this is why I want to hold a variety of different asset classes, because depending on what they do over there, it will have effects on things like gold and treasury bonds and the stock market. And I'd rather just be prepared for whatever's going to happen and not try to predict what's going to happen and make moves.

Voices [14:35]

Nothing you have ever experienced can prepare you for the unbridled carnage you're about to witness. Super Bowl, the world sturdies, they don't know what pressure is. In this building, it's either kill or be killed. Make no friends in the pits and you take no prisoners. One minute you're up half a million in soybeans, and the next, boom, your kids don't go to college and they've repossessed your bent. Are you with me?

Mostly Uncle Frank [14:53]

So I guess I would say I'm not really surprised. Because there's a lot of political pressure out there to, quote, do something, unquote, particularly in election season, or at least be seen to be doing something. If you're looking for the latest in conspiracy theories, here's one that I heard or read, I guess, which has to do with all of the gold that the US government currently holds, because the US government currently prices its gold, I think, at something like $42 an ounce, so not at a market price. And there is this rumor going around that the US government's going to be revaluing its gold to market prices at some point to help it with its balance of accounts. And that some mysterious trader has placed a bet on options for gold to go up to $20,000 an ounce. But I can't remember whether it's this December or the December following it. I didn't pay that close attention to it. And that this is all just a prelude to that. The Grandmaster Plan. Excellent. Everything is going as planned. Now, mind you, this is not the first time I've heard of such Grandmaster plans.

Voices [16:08]

Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design.

Mostly Uncle Frank [16:14]

But no, that does not mean I'm gonna run out and buy more gold or change our asset allocations. It just means that if something like that were to occur, we'd be in fine shape to deal with it. And we'd probably be selling a lot more gold like we have been for the past several years here.

Voices [16:32]

This is gold, Mr. Barton. I think you've made your point, Goldfinger. Thank you for the demonstration.

Mostly Uncle Frank [16:39]

Anyway, I have to say I'm not any more worried or more incensed than I generally am about these kinds of topics because this really has been a recurring story for decades now.

Voices [16:55]

Do you expect me to talk? No, Mr. Bund, I expect you to die.

Mostly Uncle Frank [17:01]

So I'm glad you're enjoying Mexico. Thank you for being a Patreon supporter, which also has been deposited in our top of the t-shirt campaign. And thank you for your email.

Voices [17:15]

Think big. Think positive. Never show any sign of weakness. Always go for the throne. Buy low, sell high. Fair, that's the other guy's problem. Last off.

Accumulation Portfolios And Tax Placement

Mostly Uncle Frank [17:26]

Last off? We have an email from Jack. Here's Johnny. And Jack Wright.

Mostly Queen Mary [17:35]

Dear Frank and Mary, thank you for the podcast and all the great work you do. I made a donation to the Father McKenna Center in gratitude.

Voices [17:43]

Yes!

Mostly Queen Mary [17:44]

The show has been very educational for me. I'm still firmly in my accumulation phase, so a lot of it is academic for now. But thanks to your teachings, I've moved as much as my portfolio as I can into a 50-50 VUG VIOV split.

Voices [17:59]

That is the straight stuff, oh funk master.

Mostly Queen Mary [18:02]

I have two questions related to this. The first is about optimal placement. What's the order of operations for where the different funds should go? My thinking, fill up taxable with VUG first since VIOV throws off more dividends with less favorable tax treatment. Then fill the Roth with VUG since it has higher growth potential and let VIOV go into the pre-tax space first. You'd still want a mix of the two in the tax-sheltered accounts so you can rebalance without creating a taxable event. Do I have that right? And in a 50-50 accumulation portfolio like this, we do expect VUG to outperform VIOV over time, correct? That's not how it works. The second is a request. I suspect a lot of your listeners are still in the accumulation phase and would benefit from seeing your recommended risk parity accumulation portfolio as a sample on the website.

Voices [18:59]

Shirley, you can't be serious. I am serious. And don't call me Shirley.

Mostly Queen Mary [19:03]

It seems like it would be pretty simple to set up, and it would be interesting to compare its performance against 100% VTI or something like that. I know you don't want another job.

Voices [19:14]

I don't like your attitude. What else is no?

Mostly Queen Mary [19:18]

But this portfolio has been the most actionable thing I've taken from the show so far, and a sample would hopefully demonstrate its success over time. I think people would enjoy the visualization, and its simplicity would hopefully make it easy to support. I completely understand if you'd rather not. Just thought I'd suggest it in case you like the idea. Thank you for everything you do.

Voices [19:40]

I won't deceive you, Mr. Stryker. We're running out of time. Surely there must be something you can do. I'm doing everything I can. And stop calling me Shirley.

Mostly Uncle Frank [19:49]

Well, Jack, first thank you for being a donor to the Father McKenna Center. We greatly appreciate your support. Now getting to your email, yes, it's true that we do not focus on accumulation here, and probably will not be focusing on accumulation here, simply because I think that many other podcasts and resources deal with this just fine. And the real issue in accumulation is not so much which index funds you pick, but an application of the macro allocation principle that you do really want to be 100% equities or close to it. Because unless you're taking leverage, just about any other thing that you could easily invest in is likely to slow you down over the course of decades at least.

Voices [20:36]

That's the fact, Jack! That's the fact, Jack!

Mostly Uncle Frank [20:40]

That's why we are not in favor of using target date funds. For that and many other reasons.

Voices [20:47]

You must unlearn what you have learned.

Mostly Uncle Frank [20:51]

Because if you held a target date fund over the course of several decades, as opposed to holding just some index funds, you'd probably find yourself with about 25% less than you would have just for picking the index funds.

Voices [21:05]

That's not an improvement.

Mostly Uncle Frank [21:07]

You are correct that I'm not going to create any more sample portfolios. I think we have enough of those. And I don't think I'd like another job. It's not that I'm lazy.

Voices [21:18]

It's that I just don't care. I'd say in a given week, I probably only do about 15 minutes of real actual work.

Mostly Uncle Frank [21:28]

And I think with the advent of testfolio in the past couple of years, that you can run any sort of combination of these funds or asset classes that you want to run over there, and you can change the dates, the starting dates and ending dates if you want to check out different time frames. And so, for instance, I will throw up just what the accumulation kind of portfolios would have looked like since we started this podcast. And I'll just put that up in test folio for you. We'll put up one that's just VTI and one that is half large cap growth V U G, and we'll use small cap value VIOV for that. We'll do another one that is half V U G and half AVUV, which is the Avantis Small Cap Value Fund, U.S. small cap value fund. And I'll do another one that is a large cap momentum fund, SPMO and AVUV, which in this period has outperformed the other ones greatly, you'll see. But there's no guarantee that's going to continue to occur because honestly, five years isn't enough to evaluate anything. Ten years is iffy that you really need at least about 25 years of data before you can start saying that you have any meaningful sample size in terms of deciding which combination of funds you want to use. The truth is any combination that you use is going to get you there. I think one of the key reasons to hold something like a large cap growth small cap value split is that you won't need to transition as much than when you transition to a risk parity style portfolio later on. Because if you already set up your stocks in the same manner as you plan to hold them later, then you have less transactions to do. Not that this is usually that difficult because most people have retirement accounts where they can do the transactions without incurring any tax liabilities. But just a couple of notes here for you. Yes, I think your general scheme or idea is the correct one that you would want to put the things that pay income or the most income in IRAs before you would put something that pays less income, and you would put your basic stock index funds in your taxable account. I'm not sure it matters that much between the small cap value fund and the large cap growth fund, but it is correct that if you were needing to split them up, you would put the large cap growth fund in the taxable account first. The second note I'd like to make is that you are probably better off with the Avantis or DFA ETFs than VIOV. The reason we use VIOV is because it is the most popular index fund in terms of a small cap value fund. And prior to about eight or ten years ago, that was the most accessible thing you could invest in. That would be a good choice because you could not get access to DFA funds without going through a financial advisor. It would have cost you a lot of money. That has changed. And now that we have these Avantis funds, which are similar to the classic DFA funds, and then DFA has also put out its own ETFs, that these are readily available to anybody, which wasn't true a decade ago.

Voices [24:51]

Inconceivable.

Mostly Uncle Frank [24:52]

But they do seem to perform better than the regular index funds, and they have over the course of several decades now. So the likelihood that they will continue to outperform their relative index funds, I think, is pretty high. And so I do agree with Paul Merriman and company that you're probably better off picking the Avantas or DFA versions of these value-tilted funds, and particularly on the international side, but also on the US side. So I think most of our listeners now are looking to use AVUV instead of VIOV in these formulations. And if you haven't made the investment already, you might as well go with that. But if you are holding VIOV or VBR, one of the other index funds on the small cap value side and have been holding it for a long time, I would not be selling it and paying a lot of taxes just to convert to AVUV or something else like that. Now you asked whether we would expect VUG to outperform VIOV over time.

Voices [25:53]

That's not how any of this works.

Mostly Uncle Frank [25:56]

The answer is I would not expect that. I would rather take the position that they are likely to perform similarly over long periods of time. If you look over the longest periods of time, the small cap value actually has outperformed large cap growth. But in the past couple decades, large cap growth has outperformed small cap value. I think in this decade they're kind of equal or very similar. The best reason to be holding both of them has to do with this mathematical concept called Shannon's demon, that if you have two assets that are likely to perform the same but at different times, and you put them together and rebalance them, you'll be better off than holding just one or the other on its own. So oftentimes you will see a difference in large cap growth and small cap value that is 10 or even 20% in the course of one year, which gives you a rebalancing opportunity. You certainly saw that in 2022 when large cap growth was down over 30% and small cap value was down between 0 and 10% for the most part. And this year, small cap value is outperforming large cap growth. So you'll definitely have some rebalancing opportunities by holding them both. Honestly, when you're accumulating, a lot of times you don't even really need to rebalance, you just buy the one that's lower, and that serves as rebalancing without having to deal with any transactions. But again, I think people who are accumulating often do get too wound up about their choice of index funds when just about any combination that you use is likely to get you there, and there's no way of knowing which combination in advance is going to perform the best in the next decade or so. The only really thing I caution people on in accumulation is they shouldn't be jumping around from fun to fun all the time, because that is how amateurs underperform. And it's generally they see something that's performed well in the last one, three, five, or ten years and decide that they want to put all their money into that, and then of course it underperforms in the next period. So you're just better off focusing on a reasonable allocation, whether that's one fund, two fund, or four funds, and just sticking with it. You don't really even need to look up until you get to the time when you are getting close to being financially independent and want to change the allocation in your portfolio to a retirement-style portfolio or something similar. What you might find more interesting during your accumulation phase is if you have some intermediate goals that you are accumulating for, say some new car or a house down payment or just some kind of intermediate slush fund you want to hold, and you don't want to hold it in cash. So you can do what our grown children do, which is set up a risk parity style portfolio for the purpose of intermediate accumulation.

Voices [28:44]

Why is it whenever I'm having fun, it's wrong?

Mostly Uncle Frank [28:48]

Another day, another migraine. So they put most of their money into their long-term accumulation portfolios, which are 100% stocks in index funds, mostly in retirement accounts. Then they have their emergency funds, and since they're all single, about $10,000 is enough for a single person in most circumstances, particularly if you have a steady job. And then anything above that that they can save will go into this intermediate accumulation kind of portfolio, which is in a risk parity style portfolio. And that is where you can experiment then with different allocations and different kinds of portfolios. And there's nothing to say that you can't have multiple accounts with multiple experiments going on if you really take a fancy to fooling around with this stuff, as I know some people do, since we live in an era of no fee trading and fractional shares. So you might take a little money and put it in something that looks like that OPTRA portfolio, because that is designed to have the same kind of risk characteristics as a 100% stock portfolio, but hopefully perform a little better and be a little less volatile. Just don't be betting the farm on any of these kind of experiments. Even though I know some of you do. And have done so very successfully, by the way.

Voices [30:08]

Well, you have a gambling problem.

Mostly Uncle Frank [30:12]

So do keep most of your accumulation in those basic index funds like we just talked about. But don't be afraid to explore your curiosity on the side, because if you do plan to continue being a do-it-yourself investor even into retirement, you will want to have a feel for what other things are like, if you will. And there's no better way to get a feel for that than just creating some little sample or side portfolios for yourself. So hopefully that helps, and hopefully I didn't disappoint you too much. Well, we can't be everything here, even though we do like to please our listeners.

Voices [31:18]

So are you gonna get another job? I don't think I'd like another job.

Mostly Uncle Frank [31:23]

Thank you again for your donation to the Father McKenna Center. And thank you for your email.

Mostly Queen Mary [31:30]

Alright, good fellas did pretty good. I know we're on our sentences, no sentence fragments, no spines. Good job.

Mostly Uncle Frank [31:38]

And following Mary's seal of approval.

Market Snapshot And Portfolio Reviews

Mostly Uncle Frank [31:42]

Now we are going to do something extremely fun. And the extremely fun thing we get to do now is our weekly portfolio reviews. Of the eight sample portfolios, you can find at www.riskparty.com on the portfolios page. Okay, well, it's not really that fun. Not much happened.

Voices [32:02]

This is pretty much the worst video ever made.

Mostly Uncle Frank [32:06]

But let's get to it. Looking at the markets for this year so far, the SP 500 represented by VOO is now up 13.47% for the year so far. The NASDAQ 100 represented by QQQ is up 16.9% for the year. Small cap value continues to lead the pack as far as equities are concerned.

Voices [32:28]

I'm telling you, fellas, you're gonna want that cowbell.

Mostly Uncle Frank [32:32]

Representative fund VIOV is now up 21.70% for the year so far.

Voices [32:37]

I gotta have more cowbell. I gotta have more cowbell.

Mostly Uncle Frank [32:41]

Gold took a little step back. Representative fund GLDM is up 3.31% for the year so far. And that was all kind of in reaction to Kevin Warsh's speech on Friday. And I think the market interpreted that as, well, I guess they are still willing to fight inflation over there, and there isn't going to be quantitative easing or anything like that anytime soon, despite what the Treasury Secretary said and did about a month ago. But I'm sure the effects of that'll last for about two weeks and then we'll be on to the next thing. Getting back to these markets, long-term Treasury bonds represented by the fund VGLT are now down 2.1% for the year so far. REITs represented by the fund REET are up 12.28%. Commodities continue to be the big winner this year. Representative fund PDBC is up 38.79%. Preferred shares represented by the fund PFFV are now up 3.54%. And managed futures are still managing to do just fine. Representative fund DBMF is now up 12.94% for the year so far. Alright, moving to these portfolios. First one is the all seasons. This is a reference portfolio. It's only 30% in stocks at a total stock market fund, 55% in intermediate and long-term treasury bonds, and the remaining 15% divided into gold and commodities. It's up 2.52% for the month of August. It's up 6.19% year to date, and up 30.90% since inception in July 2020. First one is Gold and Butterfly. This one is current formulation is now 41% in stocks divided into a total stock market fund and a small cap value fund. 20% in long-term treasury bonds, 19% in short-term treasury bonds, and 20% in gold. It is up 3.13% for the month of August. It's up 7.73% year to date, and up 71.89% since inception in July 2020. Next one's the golden ratio. This one's 42% in stocks, divided into a large cap growth fund and a small cap value fund, 26% long-term treasury bonds, 16% in gold, 10% in managed futures, and 6% in cash and a money market fund. It's up 3.15% for the month of August. It's up 7.91% year to date, and up 66.62% since inception in July 2020. Next one's the Risk Parity Ultimate. Not going to go through all 12 of these funds. It's kind of a kitchen sink of investments, including some Bitcoin, which has done quite well this month. So this one is up 3.52% for the month of August. It's up 8.26% year to date, and up 51.29% since inception in July 2020. Now moving to these experimental portfolios.

Voices [35:38]

Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave with a bunch of scraps.

Mostly Uncle Frank [35:46]

These all involve leveraged funds and are often quite volatile.

Voices [35:52]

You can't handle the gambling problem.

Mostly Uncle Frank [36:01]

This one is 27.5% in a levered bond fund TMF. 25% in UPRO, that's a leverage stock fund. 25% in PFFE, a preferred shares fund, and 22.5% in gold. It's up 5.63% for the month of August. It's up 6.93% year to date and up 31.99% since inception in July 2020. Moving to our most hideous experiment, the aggressive 50-50. This is the most levered and least diversified of these portfolios and worst performer by far. It is one-third in a levered stock fund, UPRO, one-third in a levered bond fund, TMF, the remaining third in ballast and a preferred shares fund and an intermediate treasury bond fund. It's up 4.58% for the month of August. It's up 6.89% year-to-date, and up 5.07% since inception in July 2020. It is 35% in NTSX, that's a composite fund of the S P 500 and Treasury bonds, levered up 1.5 to 1. It's got 15% in AVDV, that's a international small cap value fund. 20% in gold, GLDM, 10% in KMLM, that's a managed futures fund. 10% in TMF, that's a levered bond fund, and the remaining 10% divided into UDOW and UTSL, which are levered funds that follow the Dow and a Utilities Index. It's up 4.36% for the month of August. It's up 9.33% year to date, and up 31.05% since inception in July 2021. And the last but certainly not least is the Opter Portfolio. One portfolio to rule them all, and it is ruling them all these days. This one is a return stack portfolio. It is 16% in UPRO, that's a levered SP 500 fund. 24% in AVGV, that is a worldwide value tilted fund of funds. 24% in GOVZ, that's a Treasury strips fund, and the remaining 36% divided into Golden Managed Futures. It's up 4.97% for the month of August. It's up 13.68% year to date and up 46.68% since inception in July 2024. And so that concludes our weekly portfolio reviews.

Voices [38:32]

I'm putting you to sleep!

Mostly Uncle Frank [38:33]

So you can all wake up now. Not really much happened last week overall. But we will have a monthly distribution to talk about next week. So that'll be exciting.

How To Contact Us And Reviews

Mostly Uncle Frank [38:50]

But in the meantime, now I see our signal is beginning to fade. If you have comments or questions for me, please send them to Frank at RiskPardiRadio.com. Then email us frank at riskparody radar.com. Or can go to the website www.riskperdiRadio.com. Put your message into the contact form and I'll get it that way. If you haven't had a chance to do it, please go to your favorite podcast provider and like subscribe and me some stars to follow, a review. That would be great. Okay. Thank you once again for tuning in. This is Frank Vasquez with Risk Perry Radio. Signing off.