2020

Read more about the article 2020 Year in Review – Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste

2020 Year in Review – Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste

  • List of 3 best lessons from 2020 and the Covid-19 stock market crisis
  • Summary of the most popular articles in 2020 from the All Seasons Portfolio blog
  • Some predictions for 2021
  • My portfolio development and stats

This past year has been nothing like we imagined a year ago. Luckily for me, in my summary post of 2019, I was not bold enough to make any public predictions. But while I may have saved face, this past year has in many ways been a complete train wreck.

There are many negative memories that we will take with us from 2020, whereof most can be traced back Covid-19 and its impact on families, the elderly, employees, and businesses. Let us remember that the year has not only brought distress to financial markets and investors, but too many have experienced hardships in the form of personal losses like loss of a family member, loss of income, or have been severely ill in the virus.

Maintaining an investor perspective, as this is a blog about personal finance and risk parity investing, a famous quote by Winston Churchill comes to mind that I think should shape our mindsets and outlooks for 2021. After World War II, in connection to the forming of what would become United Nations, Churchill proclaimed, “Never let a good crisis go to waste”.

While our reality has been dire looking the past 12 months, and at times many things have seemed hopeless, there are still many lessons to be learned from the Covid-19 pandemic. Here, I will focus on such lessons from a personal finance and investing perspective.

Hence, before I review my portfolio, let me summarize three key lessons that I have identified from 2020 that are important to take away to the future. This way, we will be much more prepared for the next crises.

I remain a strong believer in that modern financial markets and macro settings are too complex for anyone to have a complete edge and make accurate predictions. Therefore, it is always much more important to admit to oneself that we cannot predict what will happen, but we can prepare.

Continue Reading2020 Year in Review – Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste
Read more about the article Portfolio Update – December 2020 – What is Dynamic Risk Allocation?

Portfolio Update – December 2020 – What is Dynamic Risk Allocation?

Contents of this month's post include:

  • How your risk parity portfolio can benefit from Dynamic Risk Allocation
  • Portfolio changes: Scaled down Bitcoin, switched part of Long-Term Government Bonds currency exposure from USD to EUR
  • Monthly Update for December 2020
  • Book tip: Risk Parity Fundamentals by Edward Qian (link at the bottom of the article)
  • In case you missed it: My latest Insight article about How VIX ETFs can improve portfolio performance and stability in volatile environments

It is official, we have survived 2020. Hopefully, 2021 will be a much better year, but only because the calendar now shows "2021" instead of "2020", it does not automatically mean that the situation has changed. We still face many of the same challenge as we did only a week ago.

On that positive note, I am glad to have you back for a new year with this blog about the All Seasons Portfolio and how retail investors can get access to the benefits from risk parity strategies. I have now been writing this blog for 2 years, and it has been an incredible experience. I have learnt a lot along the way, and I hope you have too! But mostly, I enjoy all the discussions with you readers, both in the comment section and bilaterally through different channels. I think discussions are an even better tool for learning and improving, as triangulation of strategies and analyses are important.

I look forward for a new year with this blog, and if you have any ideas of how to make it even better, I am always open for your input! My plan is to continue with the monthly updates, and mix in Insights post about various relevant topics. I will also try to find the time to create a better library over the key components of risk parity investing as different pages to the blog, to provide a better learning experience. I'll try to find the time to do that as soon as possible.

Continue ReadingPortfolio Update – December 2020 – What is Dynamic Risk Allocation?
Read more about the article Portfolio Update – November 2020 – Prepare for Year End Rebalancing

Portfolio Update – November 2020 – Prepare for Year End Rebalancing

  • Prepare for annual rebalancing: J.P. Morgan estimates USD 300bn equity sell-off for balanced funds
  • Portfolio changes: Introduction of VIX and Bitcoin
  • Temporarily decreased inflation-linked bonds in deflation fright
  • Monthly Update for November
  • Book tip: Beyond Blockchain: The Death of the Dollar and the Rise of Digital Currency by Erik Townsend (link at the bottom of the article)
  • In case you missed it: My latest Insight article about How VIX ETFs can improve portfolio performance and stability in volatile environments

Hi, and great to have you back for a new portfolio update filled to the brink with content.

Hope you are in good health and are preparing for a safe holiday seasons coming up. It is going to be a rather different Christmas this year as many countries are imposing extended restrictions by end of December. Celebrations with family will perhaps not be possible for many unfortunately, and that is a tough thing. One can only hope that our sacrifice to stay at home with only immediate family will help us avoid a third wave and as many unnecessary deaths as possible before vaccines can be rolled out on a larger scale next year.

I had hopes on joining my girlfriend on her trip to her family in Italy, but with the new restrictions, it seems more likely I will be stuck in Sweden for Christmas and New Years. It is unfortunate, but what can you do? This year has been challenging in many ways.

Winter is coming here in Sweden, and the darkness with it. I read that someone likened how it is to live here in the winter months to living in a refrigerator with a broken lamp. It is actually a quite accurate description, as the sun sets already around 3pm.

We have a lot of ground to cover in this month's update, so let's just dive into it. I have made some structural changes to my portfolio and will therefore spend some time to lay down my reasoning for the changes. This includes an addition of VIX and Bitcoin, but also a temporary decrease in inflation-linked bonds. Before going into my reasoning on these changes, we will have a look at the coming rebalancing period in late December.

Continue ReadingPortfolio Update – November 2020 – Prepare for Year End Rebalancing
Read more about the article Insight – How to Improve Portfolio Performance and Risk-Adjusted Return with VIX ETFs

Insight – How to Improve Portfolio Performance and Risk-Adjusted Return with VIX ETFs

This post was originally published on the Patreon page on November 5th, 2020. https://www.patreon.com/posts/43569940  If you like the content I publish on this blog, I appreciate your support to cover hosting costs etc. Even small contributions are greatly appreciated.

Contents:

  • How all common asset classes had weak performance at the same time in March 2020 due to the Coronavirus crisis.
  • That the only asset class actually performing well in that time was VIX ETFs
  • What the VIX is and how you can use it as an insurance policy in your portfolio to protect against volatility, uncertainty and black swans,
  • How including only 3% of a VIX ETF in a risk balanced portfolio increased return, lowered volatility and increased the Sharpe ratio of an example All Seasons Portfolio. This is shown with an extensive case study through first half of 2020 and the 30 month period leading up to 30 June 2020.
  • All raw data on which the analysis, graphs and tables in this article is based on, are exclusively found in the Patreon version of this post. Support the blog to get access.

All assets under-performed in late March.

Do you still remember how different asset classes performed amidst the most urgent phases of the coronavirus crisis? Or have you intentionally suppressed those bad memories and only chosen to remember the recovery in assets such as stocks?

As a reminder, there was period from about March 10th to March 20th when every major asset class declined in valuer, regardless if they were biased to perform well in increasing or decreasing economic growth environments. Stocks and commodities had already fallen by then, but by March 10th, also gold, treasury bonds and inflation-linked bonds fell as well. Nothing managed to offset the declines in growth assets, and any balanced portfolio suffered.

While a risk parity strategy, such as the All Seasons Portfolio strategy, performed much better than the stock market or a 60/40 portfolio, the Covid-19 crisis caused a dent also in the All Seasons Portfolio. The All Seasons Portfolio even turned into negative territory on a YTD basis, even though it recovered rather quickly from that temporary dip.

[3,500 more words]

Continue ReadingInsight – How to Improve Portfolio Performance and Risk-Adjusted Return with VIX ETFs
Read more about the article Portfolio Update – October 2020 – U.S. Elections and Risk Off

Portfolio Update – October 2020 – U.S. Elections and Risk Off

  • Monthly portfolio update: Election jitters and a risk off sentiment in markets toward late October brought down most asset classes. Most losses have been recovered since.
  • Diversified risk parity strategies such as the All Seasons Portfolio will bring stability to uncertain times ahead
  • Book tip: The Permanent Portfolio: Harry Browne's Long-Term Investment Strategy (link at the bottom of the post)
  • In case you missed it: My latest article about How VIX ETFs can improve portfolio performance and stability in volatile environments (Now available exclusively on Patreon; to be posted on this blog in late November 2020)

Hello, and great to have you back for a new portfolio update.

I hope that in these challenging times, you are staying positive and testing negative.

I can barely believe we are already in November - the darkest and gloomiest month of the year (here in Sweden it will now be cloudy, windy and murky for the next 2-3 weeks at least). And on top of it, the Covid-19 virus soon celebrates its 1 year birthday, and we are on the ninth month of working from home here, with renewed lockdowns all across Europe. It seems hard to find things to cherish about, but we'll need to try our hardest to not let that affect us too much. I have just received a delivery from Amazon for two books on risk parity, which I will be burying myself in while autumn storms blow outside.

This past week I have spend a lot of my time in analysing how investing in VIX (CBOE's Volatility Index) through a VIX ETF would have impacted a risk parity portfolio in the spring of 2020 and the Covid-19 crisis. As you may recall, all asset classes (including government bonds and gold) declined for 10 days in March, so I looked into if there were any asset class available that could have offset the losses in a distressed market.

Continue ReadingPortfolio Update – October 2020 – U.S. Elections and Risk Off
Read more about the article Portfolio Update – September 2020 – Which is the Best Commodity Index?

Portfolio Update – September 2020 – Which is the Best Commodity Index?

  • Monthly portfolio update: Fairly stable month (again): bonds recover, while other assets decrease slightly
  • Book tip: Hot Commodities by Jim Rogers (link at the bottom of the post)
  • In case you missed it: Where does Real Estate fit in the All Seasons Portfolio? (post from 12 September 2020)

Hello, and great to have you back for a new portfolio update.

I know that I am slightly delayed with publishing this post, as I usually spend a few hours over the first weekend of each month to write my thoughts and review the portfolio performance. This weekend, however, I just moved to a new flat, and found it hard to find the necessary time to write the update.

Anyway, in September I made some changes in the portfolio. Not big ones, but mainly moving assets from one exchange to another, from LSE to Xetra, mainly for cost optimisation and to get rid of ETFs denominated in USD.

This move only included my gold and commodities ETFs. The gold exposure remains the same (physically-backed, but only a different issuer: Xetra-Gold), but for my commodities, I have changed the underlying tracked index from Bloomberg Commodity Index (BCOM) to Rogers International Commodity Index (RICI).

As the special topic for this post, let me elaborate a but more on commodities indicies before reviewing my portfolio. It turned out to a slightly longer text than first anticipated, but well worth the read, so buckle up.

Continue ReadingPortfolio Update – September 2020 – Which is the Best Commodity Index?