High Economic Growth – All Seasons Portfolio

Why Volatility Trend Tracking Matters And How To Optimize Your Portfolio Based On Inverse Volatility

Post author:Nicholas
Post published:August 25, 2021
Post category:Insights
Post comments:0 Comments
Reading time:16 mins read

As an investor who has adopted a risk parity mindset, and perhaps have implemented a portfolio following risk parity principles, such as the All Seasons Portfolio, I am sure you at least have a fundamental understanding of the importance of volatility.

In several articles, I have discussed why it is vital for retail investors in particular to decrease portfolio volatility, and using another term, to decrease portfolio risk. Otherwise, we risk not achieving our financial goals, if we would encounter bigger drawdowns than we can afford, or that we allocate too much capital to a single asset class such as stocks when such assets face a period of lagging returns.

So, if the question is "How can I reduce portfolio volatility", the answer is Risk Parity. Using these types of strategies and investing in several asset classes and allocating capital based on the asset classes' relative risk, you can significantly decrease the overall volatility of your portfolio, while still earning the risk premiums of each asset.

To facilitate management of risk of the different assets in a portfolio, and to implement a bottom-up risk parity approach for my stock exposure through an Inverse Volatility strategy, I have developed a Volatility Analyzer tool that also includes an Inverse Volatility Portfolio Optimizer. I first and foremost developed this for my own needs, which I will describe further below, but have found that it may be a useful resource also for you.

In this article, we expand on why tracking volatility is important and how it is easier to forecast than returns, as well as explain how my developed tool works.

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

Post author:Nicholas
Post published:January 16, 2021
Post category:Insights Monthly Update
Post comments:4 Comments
Reading time:24 mins read

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.

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

Post author:Nicholas
Post published:January 6, 2021
Post category:Monthly Update
Post comments:0 Comments
Reading time:17 mins read

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.

Which is the Best Commodity Index?

Post author:Nicholas
Post published:October 10, 2020
Post category:Monthly Update
Post comments:11 Comments
Reading time:11 mins read

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.

Insight – Where does Real Estate investing fit in the All Seasons Portfolio?

Post author:Nicholas
Post published:September 12, 2020
Post category:Insights
Post comments:4 Comments
Reading time:20 mins read

In this rather lengthy post, the following topics will be discussed:

In what economical environments are real estate biased to perform well (economic growth and inflation)?
Five ways of investing in real estate, regardless how much money you have
How to adjust your balanced portfolio when including real estate - a template for adjusting portfolios regardless of new asset class
A list of resources with some of the best books on real estate investing

There are numerous opportunities and strategies for making money by investing. The ultimate goal is always to achieve a combination of positive cash flow and value appreciation of your owned asset. It is just a matter of preferred strategy for the investor which dictates how you can grow your wealth.

With the All Seasons Portfolio strategy, you can achieve profits but with less volatility than on the stock market. This is achieved by having a balanced portfolio that is diversified between asset classes. Typically, those asset classes are stocks, long-term government bonds, inflation-linked bonds, gold and commodities, with the following allocation between them.

There are of course many more asset classes available than the five listed above. One extremely important such asset class is real estate, which is a popular investment object among investors. It is so attractive, because it offers profits in two ways: value appreciation of the property, as well as monthly cash flow from rental income.

In this deep dive article, we will be looking more closely at real estate investing - how you can get exposure to it and with how much capital - and how it fits into an All Seasons Portfolio. Let us first begin with the latter of these two topics by answering the question of what economic biases real estate have.

Portfolio Deep Dive – Why invest in Commodities and about Invesco Bloomberg Commodity ETF

Post author:Nicholas
Post published:November 16, 2019
Post category:Insights
Post comments:2 Comments
Reading time:7 mins read

Let's take a slight break from the normal routine, shall we? Up until now, I have only posted on this blog once per month with my monthly updates. In those updates, I have included some additional flavor on different investment related subjects, such as tips to invest your pay raise in March or about why you as an European should consider investing in America back in April.

Today, I want to have a slightly different approach. Rather than combining this post with a monthly update, I will do a deep dive in certain aspects of my portfolio, in its own article. This way, it will be easier to truly focus on one subject, while hopefully maintaining your attention.

My portfolio currently consists of 10 different ETFs (October 2019). When I am done building my portfolio, it will be composed by 23 different ETFs according to my plan. However, let us today dive in a bit deeper into one of these ETFs that I intend shall have an approximate share of 7.5% of the portfolio value in the All Seasons Portfolio, namely Invesco Bloomberg Commodities UCITS ETF.