We review balance funds, permanent portfolios and other ‘unconventional’ hedge portfolios as well as tactical funds. 

In the midst of a market rout, one should stay on course in a well defined plan. 

The latest newsletter collection that incorporates newsletters since last update in March. 

The latest newsletter collection that incorporates newsletters since last update in March. 

We showed that major asset trends are not all well. In fact, they are very slippery. Our alternative hedge fund portfolio is also reviewed. 

We make an observation that momentum strategies operating at different level of granularity can have disperse performance. It is interesting to see that momentum strategies at a lower level (such as individual stocks) are performing better in the market recently.

We discussed the painful under performance of our tactical portfolios and pointed out it is not unprecedented in history. 

We discussed the painful under performance of our tactical portfolios and pointed out it is not unprecedented in history. 

We discussed the benefits of integrating total return bond fund portfolios into a strategic asset allocation portfolio. 

We modified several brokerage specific commission free plans to make them less bloated and easier to maintain. 

We look at major asset classes’ long term trends and discuss several possible secular trend shifts under the strategic asset allocation context. 

We rebuke bond bashers and point out many scenarios that still demand bonds as an essential key element in a portfolio. 

High yield bonds are not necessary in asset allocation. They can be substituted with highly liquid and pure stock and Treasury indexes. 

Stocks are historically weaker in summer. This is one of few prominent stock market anomalies investors should be aware to make a proper risk management decision. 

Looking at  historical data, one can see that in the rising rate environment from 1940-1982, stocks tended to do better while in the meantime, bonds suffered. But are we in a similar era as in those years?

We have updated our brokerage specific mutual portfolios and several long term timing based advanced portfolios. 

We discussed the long term bond correction and the weakness in fixed income assets. 

We study 20/80, 35/65 and 50/50 stocks T-bonds balanced portfolios. Through a long 80 plus year history, we show that these balanced portfolios can weather a rising environment. 

We look at long term Treasury bond behavior in the past 80 plus years. It shows that T-bonds are volatile, should be treated as a special asset class. Furthermore, in a consistent rising rate environment, T-bonds can incur loss, though not as bad as one might think. 

We show the modified 529 asset allocation strategies’ results and believe the loosen rebalance policy is a good improvement but still not good enough.