All Weather Portfolio

Read more about the article Insights – Interest Rate Risk and Asset Correlations with Future Cash Rate Expectations

Insights – Interest Rate Risk and Asset Correlations with Future Cash Rate Expectations

"Is the All Seasons Portfolio strategy not working anymore?"

With an annual drawdown for such portfolios almost as bad as for the stock market YTD (S&P 500 currently being down 16% since 1 January, having briefly been below -20%), I am not surprised that I have been hearing this question more and more recently. Is this a bug or a feature?

The first seven months of 2022 can be illustrated by two major themes in terms of financial markets: a) significant underperformance of major asset classes such as stocks and bonds, and b) rising rates.

The latter constitutes one of two undiversifiable risks for investors, as when the cah rate rises, that impacts asset prices as returns of risky assets always compete with the return of cash.

In this article, we explore interest rate risk and how most major asset classes have correlated with the future cash rate expectations over the first seven months of 2022. We try to answer the question on if the All Seasons Portfolio strategy is broken, or if the playing field has been reset and that we can expect better performance ahead.

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Read more about the article eToro Post – Where does the All Seasons Portfolio fit in your wealth structure?

eToro Post – Where does the All Seasons Portfolio fit in your wealth structure?

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A common question that I get around the All Seasons Portfolio strategy from investors, especially asked by the not-yet-old ones, is why one should invest in a low risk portfolio with decreased volatility. The less skeptical investors also add a question about where the ASP fits in one’s overall wealth allocations.

Naturally, regardless your age and investment horizon, lower risk portfolios are beneficial as they reduce the stress experienced during panicked markets. Even though the expected absolute return any year is also lower, the decreased volatility will mean a smoother ride with similar long-term annual returns

Mainly, it is a matter of narrowing the cluster of outcomes of each year around a mean, and avoid the big swings from one year to the next. But it doesn't necessarily mean you should devote all your savings to a low-risk strategy and completely abandon the more "exciting" investments.

When this is understood, a common follow-up question is where a portfolio such as the All Seasons Portfolio fits in the management of your overall wealth.

The All Seasons Portfolio should be the stable portfolio at the core of your assets, on top of which you can build with riskier investments. Therefore, to better understand this, in this post, first published on my eToro feed, we explore more closely how it fits in your personal finances.

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Read more about the article How Roll Yield Influences Bond ETF Performance In Rising Yield Environments

How Roll Yield Influences Bond ETF Performance In Rising Yield Environments

Recently, a lot of discussions have been revolving around government bonds and whether they are still a sensible investment even in a balanced portfolio such as the All Seasons Portfolio, now that yields are rising and the West could be facing geopolitical uncertainty.

When attempting to find answers on what to do with treasury bond investments, I began thinking about how roll yield could potentially be an important factor to consider when assessing bond returns. I will be explaining more in detail what that is further below, but I think you might find it interesting too how roll yield is likely to impact Long-Term Treasury ETFs like IS04/TLT (iShares $ 20+yr treasury Bond ETF) in a scenario when rates rise.

As I searched for more certainty what will happen with these investments, I sought to quantify the impact of roll yield. To achieve this, I modelled the returns by simulating 100 bond portfolios similar to IS04 in the event that rates would rise, and compare that return with a portfolio that does not benefit from roll yield to see the difference. The results were quite clear actually.

With this post, I am not attempting to convince you that investing in government bond is a good idea - I give no judgement in that. Rather, I share my observations and findings from my research about roll yield as a phenomenon, and you can use that information as you wish in your analysis. I hope it adds to your process.

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Read more about the article The Two Most Important Risks For Retail Investors And How To Avoid Them

The Two Most Important Risks For Retail Investors And How To Avoid Them

With the recent strong positive trend in stocks and risk assets since April 2020, I have been thinking quite a bit about a couple risks that face retail investors and which have become more and more relevant now that I get a bit of vertigo from the S&P 500.

These risks are 1) the risk of us not reaching our financial goals by not managing our investment risk properly and 2) abandoning a safer strategy when we see others making more money with high-risk strategies.

I will discuss these risks more in details below and why they matter, and in particular why it is more urgent for retail investors to have understood these risks.

Namely, apart from institutions with more or less infinite investment horizons, we as retail investors are only active on the financial markets for a quite brief moment when you zoom out and consider all the history of investing.

And as we only get one shot at it (no do-overs), it is important that we get it right from the start. It is crucial to avoid making a mess of our investing careers that we cannot repair later.

I hope you find this text useful, and please share your thoughts in the comments or directly by email to nicholas@allseasonsportfolio.eu.

And as usual, the regular update of my All Seasons Portfolio(s) follows right after the month's special topic. July was a quite good month for me, and I have made a slight alteration of my portfolio, switching the TIPS ETF from a global one to one with longer-term US inflation-linked bonds.

But more of that to come. Now, let's have a look at a different way of defining "risk".

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Read more about the article Portfolio Update – May 2021 – Indicators of an Overvalued Stock Market and What You Can Do About It

Portfolio Update – May 2021 – Indicators of an Overvalued Stock Market and What You Can Do About It

  • Has the stock market reached a permanently high plateau, or can we expect lower return the coming decade?
  • Monthly Update for May 2021 with a fresh set of charts

I hope you are sitting comfortably and have fetched a nice cup of coffee or something more refreshing, because before we get into the monthly development for May 2021 of my portfolio, we have an elaborate analysis of the value of the stock market in front of us.

There has been a couple of things that have been bugging med lately. That is the current high valuation of the stock market regardless of metric used, and the fact that many non-professional investors' inability to understand that an average annual return of 7-8% on the stock market is just an average rather than something you can expect every year to come.

I think that many have been trapped in a recency bias that will catch up with them eventually, unless retail investors choose to diversify from an all-stock portfolio to something more similar to an All Seasons Portfolio.

I will explain why I think so in detail in this article, so let's just dive into it.

I recently bought the book Adaptive Asset Allocation by the team at ReSolve Asset Management. While the main focus of the book was risk parity and a different view thereto than what the more static All Seasons Portfolio strategy offers, there was one part in the background section that really resonated with me, and which I perceive that many investors, and especially non-professional savers, miss.

Continue ReadingPortfolio Update – May 2021 – Indicators of an Overvalued Stock Market and What You Can Do About It
Read more about the article Portfolio Update – April 2021 – What a Game of Chess Can Teach You About Your Instincts as an Investor

Portfolio Update – April 2021 – What a Game of Chess Can Teach You About Your Instincts as an Investor

Are you sure if your instincts align with your intended way of investing?

I am asking this because if there is a mismatch between what kind of person you are when it comes to your decision making and acting on new information on the one hand and your investment goals on the other hand, you will not reach your financial goals if you do not know yourself.

How your mind works and how you behave matters more than you think when it comes to investing, as it will impact firstly the investment strategy you chose, and secondly, how you implement and deviate from the strategy in new situations and changed market conditions.

But regardless how good an investor you are or what instincts come naturally to you, if you know who you are as a person and how your mind works, you could prepare your strategy already in advance to be better equipped to face the challenges that financial markets can throw at you. Even an investor with less experience and bad instincts can succeed in tough times by setting up clear and good rules for how to behave and then rigorously stick to those rules, cutting out all emotion.

Rule-based investing with a well-diversified portfolio is an extremely easy way to continuously hit good results without great losses. And if you diversify also between asset classes, choppy markets can even be your friend when you rebalance the portfolio from well-performing assets to assets that are at their relative lows.

But how do you know what mind you posses and what instincts you have?

Continue ReadingPortfolio Update – April 2021 – What a Game of Chess Can Teach You About Your Instincts as an Investor