Welcome And Foundational Resources

Voices [0:00]

A foolish consistency is the hubgoblin of little mind, 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 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9. 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.

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 moon, 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 [2:05]

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 545. Today's party radio, time for our weekly portfolio reviews of the eight sample portfolios you can find at www.riskpartyreader.com on the portfolios page. But before we get to that, I am suffering from a cold, but have taken a little orange juice and I'm going to see if I can power through this. Because we also have to attend to your emails.

Voices [2:41]

That's good, OJ. That's what happens, man. Yeah, that's what happens.

Mostly Uncle Frank [2:54]

And so without further ado.

Voices [2:56]

Here I go once again with the email. And first off.

Mostly Uncle Frank [3:01]

First

Dave’s Question On Simulation Gaps

Mostly Uncle Frank [3:02]

off of an email from Dave. And Dave writes.

Mostly Queen Mary [3:12]

Hello again, Frank and Mary. Thank you for the quick and sobering response in episode 497. Tell me how you really feel.

Voices [3:25]

Forget about it.

Mostly Queen Mary [3:27]

While my spidey senses were tingling, I had no idea the discrepancies were that large. You nailed it, Frank. The goal of our withdrawal plan is to take as much as possible up front and have that last check bounce at the funeral. That's what I'm talking about. I'm targeting a 6% withdrawal rate with a guardrail to drop spending by 1% if the portfolio hits an 80% floor. You are also correct about my level two thinking. Back when I started DIY investing, I switched to a more of a high-risk, mostly securities, our income is our safety net mentality. Moving into retirement feels very permanent, less forgiving, and requiring more detailed knowledge.

Voices [4:29]

Man's got to know his limitations.

Mostly Queen Mary [4:33]

I am up for the task, but just getting started by relying heavily on the independent researcher such as yourself. More importantly, thank you for taking the time to provide those links. Pictures are worth a thousand words, and the correlation heat map is especially interesting. Fire, fire, fire, fire. You've given me much food for thought as I begin this journey. I am confused about one thing though.

Voices [5:01]

Well, listen, there's one other thing I wanted to ask you about.

Mostly Queen Mary [5:05]

Reviewing the asset analysis and Monte Carlo simulations comparing my current portfolio to the golden ratio. While the golden ratio is the clear winner, I'm struggling to wrap my brain around why the backtester illustrates such a massive gap compared to the Monte Carlo? The internet suggests we use the back test to see what did work in actual history, while the Monte Carlo shows what could break the plan if we get a sequence of returns even worse than historical records. Does this mean the back test is essentially the real-world floor while the Monte Carlo is the statistical floor? Or am I overweighting the probability of these fake histories actually occurring? Lastly, I wanted to give a shout out to the Best Interest Podcast, episode 134, for a comprehensive description of the Monte Carlo retirement analysis.

Voices [6:00]

The best, Jerry.

Mostly Queen Mary [6:01]

The best.

Mostly Uncle Frank [6:30]

And just to clue everybody in about what was in episode 497, you should all go back and listen to that if you're interested in it. But the portfolio that Dave had been working with previously had essentially 70% in stocks and some large cap tilted funds, 30% in bonds, that was all in corporate bonds and high yield bonds and didn't make a whole lot of sense. And when we ran that portfolio in a historical backtest, it really looked very bad. And certainly would not support a 6% withdrawal rate unless you were just lucky and didn't have a bad decade. But all of that is in links in the show notes to episode 497 if anyone wants to go and check that out again.

Parameterized Vs Historical Monte Carlo

Mostly Uncle Frank [7:13]

But your main question today has to do with backtests and Monte Carlo's and why you're getting different results out of them. And there are several potential reasons here. First, part of it may have to do with whether your Monte Carlo is based on historical or parameterized data. We talked about this in episode 485 for an explanation of each of those. And this is something that financial advisors get very confused about because they don't understand what's in their calculator and what their calculators are doing. Because you can run a Monte Carlo in more than one way. You can run it on what is called parameterized data, where you are assigning a projected return and a standard deviation to each asset you are analyzing. You can do it that way, and it's on a normal distribution. Or you can take historical data, that might be annual data or monthly data, or even more often, and scramble up that data and run that as a Monte Carlo analysis. That is actually a better analysis if you have enough data, because the problem with a parameterized analysis is that it's inaccurate in two ways. First, it doesn't capture what are known as fat tails or the worst of the worst case scenarios and the big market crashes and the 10-year downturns. And second, it doesn't capture the bigger upsides either, or things like skewness. It pretends that your chances of having a winning year versus a losing year are essentially equal, and we know that's not true. So a parameterized Monte Carlo is the easiest one to run because it requires the fewest inputs, but it also tends to be the most inaccurate. And unfortunately, that is what most financial advisors are actually using. And if you use a calculator like Bolden, that's the only thing they allow you to use. You really want to use a calculator that has both that and historical data. The free one at Portfolio Visualizer can do that, and there are other ones that can do that. I think Projection Lab does that. Use your AI to ask it about these issues and how the Monte Carlos are being constructed and where the data is coming from. Because that's the other problem with the parameterized data set, is that oftentimes people are just sticking in random conservative or aggressive numbers for various things, and it's just a garbage in, garbage out process. If you're using historical data, you know that okay, this is reflecting something that actually happened, not something that somebody's essentially making up in their head and maybe accurate or inaccurate, depending on what those parameters are. So you will find a good financial advisor who is using a parameterized Monte Carlo analysis will also be doing a stress test, a back test over the worst periods in time, because that's what's going to be missing out of that Monte Carlo analysis. It won't be telling you that there's a bad decade like the 1970s or the early 2000s. You have to do the historical with the parameterized Monte Carlo. Whereas if you do a Monte Carlo of historical data, you kind of capture both things together. The problem now with historical Monte Carlo's is that your data sets may be limited. And that is often the difference between what you are getting out of different analyses. Particularly if you're analyzing something like international stocks or REITs and you may have a limited data set. A historical analysis usually is only going to analyze the data for which it has all the parameters there for. What this means in practice is you want to do these kind of analyses on more than one calculator and in more than one way. Because what you are really looking for is let's get some consistent results. And what I mean by consistent results is you should always be comparing a portfolio A and a portfolio B. There is no such thing as a perfect portfolio. And if you just monkey around with a calculator trying to get the best portfolio out of it, you'll actually be data fitting or curve fitting. That's a really bad process.

Voices [11:27]

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

Mostly Uncle Frank [11:31]

What you always want to be doing is looking at two portfolios and saying this one is better than this other one in this analysis. And then hopefully, if you compare them over a number of different calculators, data sets, and what have you, one will pop out as being always better than the other one or almost always better than the other one. And that's really what you're looking for. When you're looking at these portfolios we talk about here, these risk parity style portfolios, you should be taking one of those and comparing that to whatever you're holding now or whatever you would plan to hold and doing these analyses and doing a comparison between the two. Because invariably, when I see oddball results coming out of these calculators, it has to do with either some kind of limited data set on a historical one or just very inaccurate inputs on a parameterized one. But the next time somebody tells you that they ran a Monte Carlo analysis on something, ask them whether they did it using historical data or parameterized data. Particularly if they're a financial advisor, if they can't answer that question and they don't know the difference between those two things, they are incompetent.

Voices [12:40]

Are you crazy? Or just plain stupid.

Better Forecasting Without Garbage Inputs

Mostly Uncle Frank [13:07]

There's a lot of garbage in, garbage out stuff going on in do-it-yourself calculator land. Finally, you gave this shout-out to the best interest podcast. That's with Jesse Kramer, episode 134. I will link to that in the show notes. I have appeared on his podcast, and we are in Sapatico in a lot of things. He has a really excellent article about the problem with overly conservative forecasting, which does play into this because one of the ways, the most common way that calculators in Monte Carlo simulators are misused, is to put unreasonably conservative numbers into those things and then compound them. That is a garbage in, garbage out process. What you are supposed to be doing, if you are doing forecasting the right way, and I'm talking an objectively the right way. If you're not doing it this way, you're doing it the wrong way. And most people are doing it the wrong way. The right way to do it is to use the most accurate assumptions that you can come up with for whatever reason. Not conservative assumptions, not aggressive assumptions. Use the most accurate assumptions you can come up with. Put those into your calculator, get the outputs from that, then to the extent you want to adjust that for conservative or aggressive, you do it to the outputs. You always do it to the outputs, never the inputs. Because if you do that to the inputs and compound them, you get garbage.

Voices [14:43]

That's the fact, Jack.

Mostly Uncle Frank [14:45]

So if you do that and it says you need a million dollars to work your plan, to be more conservative, you would add 10 or 20% to that. It's that simple.

Voices [14:55]

No more fun, solo.

Mostly Uncle Frank [14:58]

To be more aggressive, you would subtract 10 or 20% for that. It's that simple.

Voices [15:04]

You need somebody watching your back at all times.

Mostly Uncle Frank [15:08]

You don't need a calculator to be doing that kind of stuff. And you don't really want a calculator compounding errors that you have put in there intentionally. It's just dumb.

Voices [15:18]

Stupid is stupid does miss a blow.

Mostly Uncle Frank [15:22]

So hopefully that helps. Do check out episode 485 if you haven't already. And 497 if you want the background for this particular answer. And thank you for your email.

Voices [15:44]

Second off.

Why The Golden Ratio Survives Bad Decades

Mostly Uncle Frank [15:46]

Second off, we have an email from Bob.

Voices [15:49]

Can we fix it? Yes, we can.

Mostly Uncle Frank [15:53]

And Bob writes.

Mostly Queen Mary [15:55]

Hello, Uncle Frank and Queen Mary. I've only listened to about 200 episodes so far, so maybe I missed it. And congrats on approaching your 500th. What has been missing from these episodes so far has been the immodest declaration that during the great financial crisis, the golden ratio portfolio kills it, wipes the floor with the best I can do in retrospect and even short-term bonds. So good.

Voices [16:21]

Forget about it.

Mostly Queen Mary [16:23]

My dad just sold his house as he approaches 80 years of age and wants to know where to put some of the money. I'm pretty sure you already did all the heavy lifting for me and him, and my kids and their kids. If you ever want a second opinion from an interventional radiologist, you probably never will, call me day or night. More succinctly, thanks, Bob. P.S. My philanthropy is juvenile food insecurity here already, but thank you for opening our eyes about Casa's amazing and critical role throughout the U.S.

Voices [16:55]

The women of this country learned long ago. Those without swords can still die upon them. I fear neither death nor pain. What do you fear, my lady? A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them. And all chance of valor has gone beyond recall or desire. I do not think that will be your fate.

Mostly Uncle Frank [17:40]

But no, I do not hope to be consulting any radiologists about my health anytime soon. But you never know.

Voices [17:48]

Oh. Sorry, I uh you know I don't mean to embarrass you, but I'm a rather brilliant surgeon. Perhaps I could help you with that hump.

Mostly Uncle Frank [18:00]

What hump? It is interesting to me how many doctors listen to this podcast. Not that many lawyers, but a lot of doctors. And I'm from a doctor's family. Having a father that's a doctor, a brother that's a doctor, and a sister that's a veterinarian. My experience with doctors and investing is they're either really pretty good at it because they've studied it, or they're really bad at it. For a variety of reasons. Mostly just lack of interest and wanting somebody else to take care of that while they work on their careers. They're also like chum in the water for the financial services industry, knowing you've got somebody with a high income that is willing to farm out a lot of the work leads to lots of doctors being sold lots of what they call stupid doctor investments, which tend to be shiny objects of various shapes and sizes, but always with high fees attached to them. And I'm glad you have escaped that fate.

Voices [18:59]

Because only one thing counts in this life. Get them to sign on the line which is dotted. They're sitting out there waiting to give you their money. Are you gonna take it?

Mostly Uncle Frank [19:10]

And I'm glad you appreciate what a portfolio like the Golden Ratio can do for you in worst-case scenarios, but that is by design, because when I started looking at this subject matter over 15 years ago, obviously the first decade of this century was on my mind. And so what I learned pretty quickly by studying safe withdrawal rate research and the concept of using particular portfolios for particular purposes is that a accumulation portfolio that was heavily weighted to stocks is just not a very good portfolio for decumulation because of these worst-case scenario decades, these bad decades, and that it's really the bad decades that drive the safe withdrawal rate calculation. Because in most circumstances, if it's an average decade or a good decade, you could be withdrawing six, seven, eight percent, no problem. Dave Ramsey would be correct about that.

Voices [20:10]

Surely you can't be serious. I am serious, and don't call me Shok.

Mostly Uncle Frank [20:15]

The problem is you don't know what kind of decade you're gonna have next. And so focusing on the worst ones, which are the 30s, the 70s, and the early 2000s, gives you a clue as to what those worst-case scenarios are likely to look like. And they generally involve one of two things, either a recessionary environment or an inflationary environment. 70% of the time stocks are going up and you're not worried about things, but in a recessionary environment, they're typically going down or staying flat, and that can also happen too in an inflationary environment, particularly with your growth stocks. So one of the criteria I was looking at, well, we do need a portfolio that is going to survive and do well enough in the early 2000s, in the 1970s, and in the 1930s. And as long as it's got some reasonable growth, we're not really worried about how it's going to do in great decades like the ones we've just had. But you also need to bear in mind that history does not repeat, but it rhymes. So you are never going to see a decade exactly like the early 2000s or the 1970s again or the 1930s again. But you will see different aspects of those reappear at different times and in different places. So the year of 2022 was very much like a year in the late 1970s or 1937. And it's possible that we could have an AI crash that resembles the crash in the late 1990s of the dot-coms or what they called the nifty fifty back in the 1970s. Again, it will not be exactly the same. The causes won't be exactly the same, but the setup in terms of the overall economic environment and how the aspects. Assets within those environments react to those environments will be the same. That leads you to what we call the four quadrant model, which is just an observation that if you knew what inflation and growth were likely to be in any given period, you could pretty much identify which kind of assets would do well in that environment. And that gives you a clue as to how to diversify a portfolio because you know you're going to experience all four of those kind of environments, and you want to have assets that do well in each. And that's one of the foundational concepts that we use to construct these portfolios. If you want more on that, look up for quadrant model at the website, and you can search that and you'll find a lot of things. A great many things. I'll link to a couple of AI-generated things that I've done previously in the show notes, so you can check those out. Anyway, I'm glad you're getting a lot out of the podcast, and I've found this useful, and you can help your dad with it. It's all good, and then you'll have some more money to give to your favorite charity. And that's good too. And thank you for your email.

Voices [23:11]

The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy. It's that I just don't care. Ha ha ha! Last off.

Mostly Uncle Frank [23:22]

Last

Fidelity’s Scary Gold ETF Screen

Mostly Uncle Frank [23:23]

off of an email from Waldo.

Voices [23:26]

Here's how to become scary good at finding Waldo.

Mostly Uncle Frank [23:29]

And Waldo writes.

Mostly Queen Mary [23:31]

Hello, Frank. Thank you, Mary, for reading my note. I have listened to the first 300 episodes, and I swore I would wait till I caught up before asking this question, but I can't take it anymore. I have to ask.

Voices [23:45]

This has got to be the most exciting evening of the whole year, I must say. I can't believe it. I couldn't be more excited. This waiting is like making me mental.

Mostly Queen Mary [23:55]

I'm looking to dip my toe into the risk parity world by buying a little bit of gold, small cap value, and long-term treasuries to diversify my Boglehead stock slash bond portfolio. Buying TLT and AVUV in my brokerage is easy, but when I try to buy GLDM at Fidelity, I'm presented with a scary screen. DI3101. You are placing an order for a security that requires you to execute Fidelity's designated investments agreement and also requires an investment objective of most aggressive for this account. Review and execute the designated investments agreement and review or update your investment objective. If you do not agree to the terms of the agreement and review the important information, you may not purchase this security. You hold your sample portfolios at Fidelity, right? How did you address this? The agreement is lengthy and slightly frightening. I've pasted the agreement below so Mary doesn't have to read it aloud, but I worry that I will somehow endanger my relationship with my Fidelity team.

Voices [25:12]

We can put that check in a money market mutual fund, then we'll reinvest the earnings into foreign currency accounts with compounding interest and it's gone.

Mostly Queen Mary [25:21]

Or expose my 401k, where I'm not ready to experiment, to additional risk. With your investment and legal background, how did you handle this hurdle? Am I right to be concerned, or is this just Fidelity covering its behind? Thank you for your time and for this great podcast, Waldo.

Voices [25:40]

Hidden somewhere in this noisy, chaotic morale of society is our fellow traveler, Waldo. A man unstuck from place and time. He travels the world on foot. His only lifeline to his friends and family, a litany of dreary picture postcards sent from arbitrary locations the world over.

Mostly Uncle Frank [26:03]

So the short answer to your question is Yes! Yes, Fidelity is just covering its behind. That's what's really going on here.

Voices [26:15]

You are correct, sir, yes.

Mostly Uncle Frank [26:18]

And I don't know exactly how their lawyers are advising them, but typically it's with built-in suspenders because if you are a transactional lawyer advising somebody in the financial services industry, you are extra, extra careful to the level of annoyance because something goes wrong. Guess who gets blamed? The lawyers.

Voices [26:38]

I don't like your attitude. What else is no I'm holding you in contempt of court.

Mostly Uncle Frank [26:44]

So this is also similar to when you download new software and there's that gigantic licensing agreement with all the clauses and various things trying to shield the company who produced the software from liability. It's no different than this. I'm not sure why Fidelity structures their forms this way. I don't think Interactive Brokers does or many other ones. I would guarantee that Robinhood certainly doesn't and would put it in the original form that people fill out when they open a brokerage account. But Fidelity seems to do this whenever something is not a stock, bond, or a Fidelity product. Because Fidelity does have all kinds of products that trade managed futures and gold and commodities and all sorts of other stuff. But I always get the feeling that a lot of the stuff on Fidelity's website is actually designed to steer you towards Fidelity's advisors. Oh, we'll help you with that scary thing. Because that's how they operate their business model. Their business model works on let's provide a lot of free stuff up front, make it very easy for people to get in here and get in the door. And then now that they're here, we can market to them in various ways.

Voices [28:03]

Always be closing. Always be closing.

Mostly Uncle Frank [28:08]

So to the extent this is not just covering their behinds, there is a marketing angle to this.

Voices [28:14]

Watch out for that first step. It's inducy.

Mostly Uncle Frank [28:18]

Anyway, I wouldn't worry about it too much because honestly, trading most single stocks is more risky than buying a gold fund. And nobody seems to be having any problem with that.

Voices [28:30]

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

Mostly Uncle Frank [28:35]

Even meme stocks and Fidelity's own risk parity fund and Fidelity's own managed futures fund.

Voices [28:43]

Uh what? It's gone. It's all gone. What's all gone? The money in your account. It didn't do too well, it's gone.

Mostly Uncle Frank [28:50]

Anyway, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. Hopefully that helps though. And thank you for your email.

Voices [28:58]

His postcards do nothing to convey the humanity, the madness of Volgo's adventures. For Zat, we must go find him.

Market Check And Portfolio Results

Mostly Uncle Frank [29:13]

And the something different thing we get to do now is our weekly portfolio reviews of the eight simple portfolios you can find at www.riskparty.com on the portfolios page. This was an odd week. An interesting week, at least in the markets. It's kind of a preview of what a AI bubble crash might look like.

Voices [29:38]

And it's gone. Poof.

Mostly Uncle Frank [29:41]

But just looking at those markets. The SP 500 represented by the fund VOO is now up 12.86% for the year so far. It was down about 2% last week. The NASDAQ 100 represented by the fund QQQ is now up 15.93% for the year so far. Was actually down about 5 or 6% last week. Poof. Small cap value represented by the fund VIOV is up 14.71% for the year so far. And it did not move much last week. Interestingly enough, if you looked at some other value stocks, for instance, the property and casualty insurance companies represented by KBWP, we talk about occasionally here, those were actually up 5% last week to give you an idea of what might happen if there really is an AI type crash. Gold represented by the fund, GLDM is now down 3.41% for the year so far. Long-term treasuries, represented by the fund, VGLT, is now down 4.62% for the year so far. It was actually up a couple percent last week. REITs represented by the fund REET are up 5.88% for the year so far. Commodities represented by fund PDBC are still by far and away the winner this year. They are up 51.77% for the year so far. Preferred shares represented by the fund at PFFV are up 1.89% for the year so far. And managed futures are managing to kick a little butt here. Representative fund DBMF is now up 18.15% for the year so far. It was actually up over 20% earlier this week, but since it is short treasury bonds, it did a little worse when treasury bonds went up last week. Anyway, now moving to these portfolios. First one's the all seasons. This is a reference portfolio. We keep around for reference. It is only 30% in stocks and a total stock market fund, 55% in intermediate and long-term treasury bonds, and the remaining 15% in golden commodities. It's up 1.62% for the month of October. It's up 4.76%. Year to date and up 29.15% since inception in July 2020. First one's golden butterfly. This one is 41% in stocks in this version of it, which is half total stock market fund and half small cap value, 20% in long-term treasury bonds, 19% in short-term treasury bonds, and the remaining 20% in gold. It's up 0.84% for the month of October. It's up 4.19% year to date and up 66.23% since inception in July 2020. Next one's the golden ratio. This one's 42% in stocks, divided into a large cap growth fund, which took it on the chin last week, and a small cap value fund. It's got 26% in long-term treasury bonds, 16% in gold, 10% in managed futures, and 6% in cash, from which we take all the distributions over the course of the year. It's up 0.43% for the month of October. It's up 5.09% year-to-date, and up 62.26% since inception in July 2020. Next one's a risk parity ultimate. I'm not going to go through all 12 of these funds. It's just kind of a kitchen sink where we put a lot of extraneous things that somebody might want to invest in. It is up 1.14% for the month of October. It's up 5.14% year to date and up 46.93% since inception in July 2020. Now moving to these experimental portfolios where we perform hideous experiments, so you don't have to. These all involve leverage funds, so don't try this at home.

Voices [33:26]

Well, you have a gambling problem.

Mostly Uncle Frank [33:29]

But the first one is the accelerated permanent portfolio. This one is 27.5% in TMF, that is a levered bond fund. 25% in UPRO, that's a levered stock fund. 25% in PFFE, a preferred shares fund, and 22.5% in gold. GLDM, it's up 2.04% for the month of October. It's up 1.25% year to date and up 24.97% since inception in July 2020. Next one's the aggressive 5050. This is the most levered and least diversified of these experimental portfolios and the worst performer by far. This is one-third in leverage stock fund, UPRO, one-third in leverage bond fund, TMF, and the remaining third divided into ballast and a preferred shares fund and an intermediate treasury bond fund. It's up 2.69% for the month of October. It's a 1.84% year-to-date, and up 0.11% since inception in July 2020. That's why you don't want to try this at home. Next one's a levered golden ratio. This one is a year younger than the first six. It is 35% in NTSX, that is a composite fund that holds the SP 500 and Treasury bonds, levered up 1.5 to 1. It's got 15% in AVDV, that is an international small cap value fund, 20% in gold, GLDM, 10% in a managed futures fund, KMLM, 10% in TMF, that is a levered bond fund, and the remaining 10% divided into a levered Dow fund and a levered utilities fund. That was actually up about 4% on Friday when the NASDAQ 100 was crashing.

Voices [35:08]

And it's gone!

Mostly Uncle Frank [35:10]

This portfolio almost had a rebalancing last week, but the bond fund recovered well enough not to trigger the rebalancing on the 15th, which is when we look at it. Anyway, it's up 1.63% for the month of October. It's up 5.46% year to date, and up 26.42% since inception in July 2021. And the last one is our Opter Portfolio, a return stack portfolio. One portfolio to rule them all, and it is continuing to rule them all.

Voices [35:42]

One ring to rule them all. One ring to find them. One ring to bring them all. And in the darkness I stand in the land of where the shadows lie.

Mostly Uncle Frank [36:03]

It is 16% in UPRO, that's a levered stock fund, 24% in AVGV, that is a worldwide value tilted fund, 24% in GOVZ, that is a Treasury Strips Fund, and the remaining 36% divided into Gold and Managed Futures. It's up 1.73% for the month of October. It's up 10.72% year to date, and up forty-two point eight five percent since inception in July 2024. So still flying high. A couple of them moved like $10 or $3 even, which is interesting given the performance of the stock market overall. Anyway, now I see our signal is beginning to

Wrap Up And How To Reach Us

Mostly Uncle Frank [37:09]

fade. If you have comments or questions for me, please send them to Frank at RiskPardiRadio.com. That email is frank at riskperdire.com. And hopefully my voice will recover. If you haven't had a chance to do it, please go to your favorite podcast provider and like subscribe and 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.

Voices [37:41]

Valdo leaves trinkets scattered behind him, shedding a vague of objects as he goes. What story do these leavings tell? They are a series of transmissions from the past, sent in a code we cannot decipher. Is that a scroll? Or merely a rolled up towel? After trying so hard to find the scroll, are we sure we can handle the real answer? Occasionally, Voldo is all but impossible to ferret out. Sometimes it seems like he's barely trying. At the ski slopes I find him almost immediately. At the sea I hunt until I am mad, and yet Voldo does not reveal himself to me. Oh there he is. Hello, my little friend. Wait a moment. Who is that man with a beard? I have seen him before. Is he pursuing Voldo from place to place, country to country? Someone must warn our hero. What is everyone so preoccupied vis at the airport that they miss the man of the hour right before them? Perhaps they are experiencing a collective nightmare of impending disaster. Who is Voldo's pursuer meeting Vis at the museum? If only I could warn Voldo of this conspiracy. His naivete will be his undoing, as it will be for each of us in turn. Vi all this travel We search for Valdo, but what is Voldo searching for? Perhaps he is not searching at all, but running from something. Does this man even want to be found? Or in searching for Valdo, did we really find ourselves? No, probably not. This has been Vers Voldo. I'm Werner Herzog. Good night, Sabermouse.

Mostly Queen Mary [39:38]

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