Risk Parity Radio

Episode 403: Navigating The New Regime, What Does A Weak Dollar Mean, Inflation In Withdrawals And Portfolio Reviews As Of February 28, 2025

• Frank Vasquez • Season 5 • Episode 403

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In this episode we answer emails from Andy, Mark and Graham.  We discuss what may do well under the current US administration and related concerns, what a weak dollar means for risk assets and allocating to volatility, and how inflation should realistically be accounted for in withdrawals. 

And THEN we our go through our weekly and monthly portfolio reviews of the eight sample portfolios you can find at Portfolios | Risk Parity Radio.

Additional links:

Father McKenna Center Donation Page:  Donate - Father McKenna Center

New Catching Up to FI Podcast with Yours Truly:  “The Risk Parity Paradox” an Exercise in Simple Complexity? | Frank Vasquez | 124

US vs International Stocks In Strong And Weak Dollar Markets (link from Episode 393:  us-dollar-strength-has-correlated-with-performance-03312023.pdf

Spending Trajectories After Age 65 Research Paper and  Summary (link from Episode 336):  Spending Trajectories After Age 65: Variation by Initial Wealth | RAND

Amusing Unedited AI Bot Summary:

Unlock the secrets of resilient investing with our latest episode of Risk Parity Radio! Join us as we explore the dynamic relationship between risk and reward in today's unpredictable market landscape. With insights from Frank Vasquez, we discuss how various asset classes, including gold and bonds, are performing amid rising economic uncertainty.

We feature an in-depth analysis of eight sample portfolios, shedding light on their performances and the lessons they offer for individual investors. Our host encourages listeners to reflect on their investment strategies and promotes the importance of diversification as a safeguard against market fluctuations.

Listeners are invited to engage with us through insightful emails, tackling current economic concerns such as inflation and its implications for retirees. Wrap up the episode with practical advice, encouraging self-education and proactive engagement in personal financial management.

Don’t miss this opportunity to refine your financial strategies! Subscribe, share your thoughts, or leave a review to join our growing community of informed investors.


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Mary and Voices:

A foolish consistency, is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

If a man does not keep pace with his companions.

Mary and Voices:

perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer, a different drummer 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:

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.

Mary and Voices:

Yeah, baby, yeah.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And the basic foundational episodes are episodes 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9. Some of our listeners, including Karen and Chris, have identified additional episodes that you may consider foundational, and those are episodes 12, 14, 16, 19, 21, 56, 82, and 184. Whoa, and you probably should check those out too, because we have the finest podcast audience available.

Mary and Voices:

Top drawer, really top drawer.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Along with a host named after a hot dog. Lighten up, Francis. But now onward to episode 403. Today on Risk Parity Radio.

Mary and Voices:

It's time for the grand unveiling of money.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Which means we'll be doing our weekly portfolio reviews of the eight sample portfolios you can find at wwwriskparityradiocom on the portfolios page, and also talking about distributions for March, since it's the end of the month. But before we get to that, let me just say it's good to be back. Mary and I had a nice vacation in Belize, which is where my father is from Frank swam with some fishes, mary swam with some fishes and some turtles, and we had a nice visit with my soon-to-be 94-year-old aunt, sarita, that's Sister Sarita to you.

Mary and Voices:

What are we doing here?

Mostly Uncle Frank:

You promised you'd visit the penguin the day you got out.

Mary and Voices:

Yeah, so I lied to him. You can't lie to a nun. We gotta go in and visit the penguin.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And she still lives in the house where they grew up and volunteers two days a week at the Guadalupe Retreat Center, which she co-founded some decades ago. So I'm tan, rested and ready for some more podcasting.

Mary and Voices:

And Leon's getting larger.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And speaking of more podcasting, I'm actually appearing as the guest on the Catching Up to Five podcast this weekend, which is coming out on March 2nd, and I'll link to that in the show notes if this one comes out. After that one, and also for those of you who are attending the Economy Conference in Cincinnati in a few weeks, we're going to try to have a small gathering of Risk Parity Radio listeners, as suggested by one of my listeners, and so if you're interested in that, please send me an email to frank at riskparityradiocom so I can gather the participants and send out a joint email. We'll probably do that on Friday afternoon at the Solari Hotel.

Mary and Voices:

Top drawer, really top drawer.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

But now we will turn to our favorite part of the program, which is answering your emails, of course, and so, without further ado, here I go once again with the email. And First off. First off, we have an email from Andy and Andy writes.

Mary and Voices:

Hello Frank, as a US investor, how should I think about what seems to be a burn-it-to-the the ground approach by the current US administration?

Mary and Voices:

I have listened to every episode of the show and have a golden ratio portfolio that I am very happy with. I am soothed by the risk parity approach and recognize the benefits of having diversified assets. I am persuaded the few times you have talked about investing globally and how it might be a currency bet rather than a true diversification play. The stability and dynamism of the US has made it a very attractive place to invest for a long time, and while I am nervous to interject politics into your show, I am even more nervous not to at this point. I know you are cool on gurus, but I heard today that Buffett's cash reserves are now over $300 billion and are larger than his stake in US equities. His never-bet-against-America from a few years ago has morphed into statements about fiscal folly and alerting people to the scoundrels and promoters who take advantage of those who mistakenly trust them. I suspect you won't think this is a hair-on-fire moment, so would you be a gentleman and help soothe me Best, andy, you fell victim to one of the classic blunders.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Well, before I get to the substance of this, let me first thank you, Andy, for being one of our donors to the Father McKenna Center. In fact, all three of the emailers today are donors to the Father McKenna Center, which is the charity we support.

Mary and Voices:

We do not have any sponsors here we just support a charity, and so all three of them have gone to the front of the email line the best, jerry the best.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

The Father McKenna Center supports hungry and homeless people in Washington DC. Full disclosure. I am on the board of the charity and am the current treasurer, and if you'd like to donate, so you can go to the front of the email and am the current treasurer, and if you'd like to donate, so you can go to the front of the email line. Or otherwise, you can do that through our support page at wwwriskprioritycom, and those are our Patreon donors. Or you can go directly to the Father McKenna website and go to the donation page and I will link to that in the show notes. Either way, please mention it in your email when you send an email so I can move you to the front of the line. Yes, but now turning to this email, sounds like you want me to get out a crystal ball. Maybe we should consult Sonia here.

Mary and Voices:

My name's Sonia. I'm going to be showing you the crystal ball and how to use it, or how I use it.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

But you know what happens whenever I consult a crystal ball and ask it what's going to happen we don't know?

Mary and Voices:

What do we know? You don't know, I don't know Nobody knows.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

The only thing I do know is that we are actually pretty well prepared for whatever happens, because we have a very well diversified portfolio If you look at the last couple years of the first Trump administration or regime, if you prefer China, china, china, china, china, china, china, china, china, china, china, china, china, china, china.

Mary and Voices:

China, china, china, china, china, china, China, china, china.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

China, china, china, china, china, china, China, china, china, china, china, china, china, China, china, china, china, china, china, china, China, china, china, china, china, china, china, China, china, china, china, china, china, china, China, china performing extremely well right now, and you can imagine that a lot of that is simply due to worldwide uncertainty and the fact that people are wondering whether they should invest more money in the United States or not.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Most of the demand for gold is coming from outside the US, although I understand there is more demand now and people are actually moving physical gold into the US because they are worried about some kind of tariff issue with respect to that.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

I'm not sure what, and if you look at what was going on in 2019 before the pandemic started, there was a slowdown in growth, and I would expect that one of the fallouts or results from some kind of a trade war would be slower growth worldwide, Because, when you think about it, free markets are supposed to have the best capital allocation and the most growth, so something that is anti-free markets is likely to stunt growth after some kind of price shocks or in connection with some kind of price shocks, and that probably means that treasury bonds will do pretty well, as they seem to be doing right now, because the best performers this year do happen to be gold and long-term treasury bonds, which would be consistent with what went on in the second half of the first Trump administration.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

I think it's also notable that the new Treasury Secretary, scott Besant, has said publicly that he is trying to keep the interest rate on the 10-year Treasury note down as one of his goals, and again, that implies some kind of slow growth environment or forced recession or something like that. Now, all that being said, I'm not sure that you can hide out, if you will, in international equities.

Mary and Voices:

Crystal ball can help you, it can guide you.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Although, if whatever they're doing does weaken the dollar as it had earlier this year, you will see international equities outperform US equities. And if China goes back to being more pro-growth itself which it seems to be making noises about you'll see better performances in those markets, and we actually already are seeing that. One of the best performers this year so far is the international emerging markets tech ETF, emqq, which I think is up something like 16% on the year already. The problem is that trade wars are going to hurt everyone around the world, so I think it's going to be some kind of global slowdown. Hopefully it's not another Great Depression like we saw in the 1930s. But tariff wars were part of the lead up to that. But again, that was just a great environment for both gold in the form of gold miners then and treasury bonds, so I think we're well positioned for that. But again, that was just a great environment for both gold in the form of gold miners then and treasury bonds, so I think we're well positioned for that In the end.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

I'm very cynical about this administration because I think that their ultimate goal is simply to deregulate as much as possible, lower taxes as much as possible, because everything here is designed to make lives for billionaires much better, and that's really who they're catering to. There's only one use for money, and that's to make more money. But, mr Howell, I want to spend it to make people happy. Well, that's a very noble sentiment, very warm and generous, but stupid. Now let me finish that dream on a pleasant note A wholesale arrest of the Supreme Court, which means in the end, they probably care more about having stable markets and low interest rates and probably don't care much about things like unemployment. It's very much a late 19th century robber baron kind of environment. There's a famous quote attributed to Jay Gould at that time, who said you can always get half of the poor to kill the other half of the poor. I do think I have a clip for that.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

With any question that involves the abuse of executive power. In any case, mr Greeley, we can all be thankful that it wasn't any worse. It may be worse yet, sir. I saw them. I don't know what to think Now. What is it that you are so fond of saying, mr Tweed and Mr Greedy, you weren't like this, but what is it? I don't remember.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

You can always hire one half of the poor to kill the other half, but this also means that at least most of the people listening to this podcast, who have accumulated a lot of invested assets, were probably in good shape. So, as far as our assets are concerned, I would just stay diversified and stay the course. Now, that doesn't mean there isn't going to be social unrest. That's probably what's going to happen. That's what also happened in the first Trump administration.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

But here's the ugly truth. The ugly truth is you actually don't need a free society to have free, functioning capital markets. If you just look at recent Chinese history, you can see that when they loosen things up, they add a lot of growth, and then, when they tighten things up, they're not having much growth and having problems, and maybe they're trying to reverse that. I don't know. Anyway, sorry, I can't really answer your question. I don't think anybody really can Forget about it, but I am much more worried about other people I care about than I am about our personal financial situation. Sorry, I can't be much help here, but thank you for your email.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

In this case, I think we have to go all out. I think this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part.

Mary and Voices:

We're just the guys to do it.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Second off. Second off, we have an email from Mark All hail, the commander of his majesty's Roman legions, the brave and noble Marcus Vindictus. Mark actually sent me three emails in one, to be doled out at intervals, and so this is the first of those three, and we'll revisit these every few weeks because they're interesting questions. We'll just do one today. So for his first question, mark writes Happy New Year, frank and Mary.

Mary and Voices:

You have made the point multiple times recently that investing in international stocks is really a currency speculation, and you were especially compelling in episode 393 when you explained this chart correlating the performance of international stocks to the US dollar.

Mary and Voices:

It leads to this question, though, for US investors, given how clear that the chart is about the negative impact to US stocks during a weak dollar trend, what is the most efficient way to hedge against negative impact to our portfolio during a weak dollar trend? Our allocation to trend-following managed futures funds might provide some of this already. When the dollar is trending down, do you think there is enough impact from that to make a difference? If my managed futures allocation is 15 to 20 percent, a purpose-built high volatility product would be another option. I wouldn't want to give a lot of space in my portfolio to an insurance product like this, so I spent some time looking for something with a lot of volatility, like a VIX fund that would bet against the US dollar with enough leverage that an allocation of only 2 to 3 percent would make a meaningful difference, but haven't been able to find anything along these lines.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Not going to do it Wouldn't be prudent at this juncture. Okay, so Mark is referring back to episode 393 and other episodes where I've talked about this and the discussion is that the main difference between just broadly investing in large cap international versus large cap US besides the sector differences is simply a currency speculation that when the dollar is weaker, international stocks tend to outperform US stocks and when the dollar is stronger, us stocks tend to outperform international stocks, and it's literally just that simple and it's been going on for 50 years, ever since they floated the currencies back in the 1970s. You've seen that kind of dramatically recently that we had a much weaker dollar at the beginning of this year and international stocks have outperformed US stocks, and there was a pullback this week when the dollar strengthened that. All being said, though, I think you may have misinterpreted part of what was said before. I'm not saying that a weaker dollar hurts US equities. A weaker dollar actually helps all assets that are denominated in dollars or priced in dollars. This is why a strong dollar is often referred to as a dollar wrecking ball, because it tends to make all risk assets underperform, as it did in 2022. So a weaker dollar is actually favorable for domestic stocks, for international stocks, for gold, for commodities, for just about anything, which means you don't really need to do any particular planning for it. And although international stocks will relatively outperform US stocks in a weaker dollar environment, us stocks are still going to have positive performance, at least with respect to the weaker dollar. They may have negative performance for other reasons, but the weaker dollar will support higher performance of US stocks as well as other things. Now you are also correct that managed futures will outperform if the dollar is actually trending one way or another for a sufficient period of time. Right now it's not really trending or has not been trending that much. It has gone down, it has gone up and that is actually bad for a managed futures fund. But if a trend does take hold, with a weaker dollar being weaker consistently over a period of months, then you will see managed futures outperform as they pick up that trend and you will see gold greatly outperform in a weak dollar environment just in general. If you really want to see something spectacular, look at the price of gold denominated in any other currency besides the dollar over the past decade or so and you'll see a kind of ridiculous performance, because gold can outperform even in a strong dollar environment, but a weaker dollar environment tends to accelerate it.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Now, as for a volatility fund, I spent about 10 years trying to figure out how to incorporate volatility into a portfolio and I never was successful at it and at this point I've kind of given up on it in favor of using things like managed futures. I think one of the problems with it is it can't be managed in the same way as the rest of your portfolio. It's not conducive to simply rebalancing in or out of it on a long-time periodic basis, but there needs to be some other trading strategy, because it tends to spike, which is when you want to sell it, and then decay back down. So I've never really been able to find a good way of managing that as part of a portfolio. If you go back and look through our back catalog, you'll find that one of our favorite listeners, alexi the dude the dude abides, has also experimented with volatility substitutes, involving essentially taking a strong position on the US dollar through funds like EUO or YCS, which are long dollar against the euro and the yen, and has used something called CCOR, c-c-o-r as also part of a volatility kind of allocation.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Surely you can't be serious. I am serious and don't call me Shirley. So if you can figure out a way to incorporate that into your portfolio, more power to you. We had the tools, we had the talent. Right now I'm putting it in the too hard pile. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not a smart man. Anyway, now I'm rambling.

Mary and Voices:

Stupid is what stupid does, sir.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Thank you for being a loyal listener and thank you for your email.

Mary and Voices:

Don't be saucy with me, Bernays.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Last off. Last off, we have an email from Graham.

Mary and Voices:

Polly want a cracker and Graham writes Hi Frank, I've been enjoying the podcast immensely. I have a question about the sample portfolios and inflation. I noticed that eg, the golden ratio, distributes at 5% annually, which is great, but what about accounting for inflation somewhere? For example, if you withdraw 5% perpetually but the balance remains at $10,000, then the spending power of your 5% withdrawal is dwindling thanks to inflation. Have you considered presenting an inflation-adjusted view?

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Yours, Graham, that's really not what I do, Peter.

Mary and Voices:

However the good news is I think I can help you.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Well, good question, graham. Yeah, I toyed with using some kind of inflation adjustment when I put these things together, but it never really made much sense. And the reason it doesn't really make much sense, other than in theory and for calculation purposes, is that personal inflation is personal and in fact retirees typically do not experience inflation at the rate of CPI and you'll want to go back to episode 336 for a discussion on this with some references in the show notes. But this is very well documented over the past decade or so through repeated analyses showing that retirees typically experience inflation at 1% to 2% less than the CPI, which, by the way, adds essentially essentially 0.5 to 1% to your projected safe withdrawal rate. And longer studies seem to show that spending actually peaks for most people in their 50s. My experience is it peaks when your children if you have children are in high school or in college, and then steadily declines after that, unless you're simply changing your lifestyle in some dramatic way. So our own experience has actually been that our spending has gone down since we retired, and a lot of that has to do with our two younger children were not fully launched at that point in time and now they are fully launched. What have children ever done for me? So a lot of that last spending we use to get to 5% is really very discretionary and we certainly have not been inflating our lifestyle, although we've gone on some very nice trips.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

So, getting back to the sample portfolios, since there wasn't any real basis for using CPI inflation to inflate the portfolios or inflate the distributions, it seemed to be just a much simpler operation to not have to keep track of that and just take a flat distribution from them, which ends up essentially creating a variable withdrawal rate, and as the portfolios increase in value, we'll be taking more out of them. So in fact, we've taken out more than 5% out of the golden butterfly and golden ratio portfolios, in particular because they've spent most of their time with more money in them than they started with. But if you want to run portfolios with CPI inflation incorporated into them, it's very easy to do, simply because Portfolio Visualizer is set up to do that. Portfolio Charts actually does do that automatically because they're always looking at real rates there, and you can also do that in Testfolio, the new kid on the block for analysis. So if you do think that's going to be relevant to your personal situation, I would model them that way.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Just bear in mind it probably won't be, because nobody looks at the CPI and decides that's how much they're going to spend, because, in fact, if you break it down, the only part of the CPI for a retiree that tends to inflate more than the CPI is health care. Everything else is less, especially housing, which comprises a great portion of the CPI, and most retirees are either paying off fixed-rate mortgages or not having to deal with a mortgage at all and are also likely to downsize their housing at some point. Anyway, go back and listen to episode 336 if you want to hear a whole episode about that, because this is actually one of the major failures in planning.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

I think that I see many advisors doing because they don't really understand how their compounding calculator works that, in fact, what you should be doing with a compounding calculator is putting in the most realistic estimates for you personally either returns or inflation or whatever you're dealing with. And if you are not using the most realistic estimate and you are putting in something that is more aggressive or more conservative and then compounding it over a period of a couple of decades, what you get out of it is just complete garbage. It's a garbage in garbage out operation. Forget about it. What you should be doing with a compounding calculator, mathematically, is using the most realistic estimates that you can and then making any fudge factors for aggressive or conservative on the outputs, not on the inputs. And if you're not doing it that way, you are just doing it wrong, wrong. You are probably wasting a lot of time and effort creating your never-retirement scenarios. Anyway, hopefully that explanation helps and thank you for your email.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Now we're going to do something extremely fun, and the extremely fun thing we get to do now is our weekly and monthly portfolio reviews. Of the eight sample portfolios you can find at wwwriskparrywaycom on the portfolios page. Just looking at what the markets have been doing this year S&P 500, represented by VOO, is up 1.4% for the year. The NASDAQ, represented by QQQ, is down 0.6% for the year. Small cap value is the big loser this year so far. Representative fund VIOV is down 3.8% for the year. Gold is a big winner this year.

Mary and Voices:

I love gold.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

GLDM is up 8.75% for the year and in second place our long-term treasury bonds 5% for the year. And in second place our long-term treasury bonds representative fund VGLT is up 5.76% for the year. Reits are also up this year. Representative fund REET is up 4.26% for the year. Commodities, represented by the fund PDBC are up 2.85% for the year. Preferred shares, represented by the fund PFFV are up 2.72% for the year. Preferred shares represented by the fund PFFV are up 2.72% for the year and managed futures have managed to be down for the year. Representative fund DBMF is down 1.15% for the year.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Moving to these portfolios, first ones of y'all seasons, this is a reference portfolio. It's only 30% in stocks. It's got 55% in intermediate and long-term treasury bonds and the remaining 15% divided into gold and commodities. It is up 1.77% for February. It's up 3.79% year-to-date and up 12.68% since inception in July 2020. For March, we will be withdrawing $32. That's at a 4% annualized rate and it will come out of accumulated cash. So that'll be $94 year-to-date and $1,787 since inception in July 2020.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Moving to these more bread-and-butter kind of portfolios, first one's, golden Butterfly. This one is 40% in stocks, divided into a total stock market fund and a small cap value fund, 40% in treasury bonds divided into long and short and 20% in gold GLDM. It was down 0.03% for the month of February. It's up 2.56% year-to-date and up 37.35% since inception in July 2020. For the month of March, we'll be withdrawing $46 out of it. That's at a 5% annualized rate. It will come out of accumulated cash and that'll be $137 year-to-date and $2,438 since inception in July 2020. All these portfolios started with about $10,000 in them for reference.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Next one is the golden ratio. This one is 42% in stocks divided into a large cap growth fund and a small cap value fund, 26% in long-term treasury bonds, 16% in gold, 10% in a managed futures fund and 6% in a money market fund. In cash, it is down 0.51% for the month of February. It's up 1.75% year-to-date and up 32.22% since inception in July 2020. For the month of March, we'll be taking $44 out of it. We always take out of the cash portion for this portfolio. It's got easy management. That's at a 5% annualized rate. We'll have taken $131 year to date and $2,392 since inception in July 2020.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Next one's the risk parity ultimate. This is kind of our kitchen sink portfolio where we put a little bit of everything, including a little bit of cryptocurrency that has been in steep decline recently. Fortunately, it's a very little part of this portfolio. So for the month of February, it was up 0.71%. It's up 2.54% year-to-date and up 23.35% since inception in July 2020. For March, we'll be withdrawing $40. It'll come out of the accumulated cash That'll be $119 year-to-date and $2,369 since inception in July 2020. We are currently withdrawing from this at a 5% annualized rate. Now moving to these experimental portfolios we run hideous experiments here, so you don't have to Look away.

Mary and Voices:

I'm hideous. Actually, they're not looking very hideous experiments here, so you don't have to Look away.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

I'm hideous. Actually, they're not looking very hideous this year. These all involve leveraged funds in portfolios, and so they are considerably more volatile than the regular ones. First one's the accelerated permanent portfolio. This one is 27.5% in a levered bond fund TMF, 25% in UPRO, a levered S&P 500 fund, 25% in PFFV, a preferred shares fund, and 22.5% in gold GLDM. It's up 4.01% month to date. That's for February. It's up 7.97% year to date so far and up 9.08% since inception in July 2020. We are withdrawing from this one currently at a 6% annualized rate, so that'll be $40, and it will come out of the bond fund TMF for March. So that'll be $118 year-to-date and $2,748 since inception in July 2020.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Next one's the aggressive 50-50. This is the most levered and least diversified of these portfolios. It's just stocks and bonds. So it's one-third in a levered stock fund UPRO, one-third in a levered bond fund TMF, and the remaining third divided into preferred shares and an intermediate treasury bond fund. It is up 3.76% for February. It's up 6.46 percent for the year so far, but still down 6.24 percent since inception in July 2020. For the month of March, we'll be withdrawing $34 out of it from the cash portion that is accumulated. It's at a 6 percent annualized rate, that'll be $100 year-to-date and $2,769 since inception in July 2020.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Next one is the levered golden ratio, which is a year younger than these other ones. This one is 35% in a composite levered fund called NTSX, that is, the S&P 500 and treasury bonds, 25% in gold GLDM, 15% in EREIT O, 10% each in a levered small cap fund, tna, and a levered bond fund, tmf, and the remaining 5% in a managed futures fund, kmlm. It's up 0.2% month to date and up 4.19% year to date, but down 0.41% since inception, July 2021. For the month of March, we'll be taking $34 from the gold allocation, which is doing the best these days. That's at a 5% annualized rate. That'll be $101 year-to-date and $1,657 since inception, july 2020. And moving to our last one, our newest one, the Optra portfolio. One portfolio to rule them all. One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And in the darkness bind them. This one is 16% in a levered stock fund, upro CS&P 500. 24% in a composite worldwide value fund called AVGV. It's got both domestic and international value stocks. 24% in a treasury strips fund which is GOVZ, and the remaining 36% divided into gold and managed futures. It's up 0.44% month-to-date, up 3.81% year-to-date and up 6.84% since inception in July 2024. For the month of March, we'll be withdrawing $51. That's coming out of a cash accumulation. It's at a 6% annualized rate, so it'll be $153 year-to-date and $413 since inception in July 2024. And that concludes our weekly and monthly portfolio reviews. Boring. It's shaping up to be an interesting or odd year, depending on how you look at it. So far, with the bonds and alternatives outperforming the stocks. But that does happen sometimes.

Mary and Voices:

I think I've improved on your methods a bit too.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

We'll have to just hold on to our hats and see what comes next, but now I see our signal is beginning to fade. If you have comments or questions for me, please send them to frank at riskparityradarcom. That email is frank at riskparityradarcom. Or you can go to the website, wwwriskparityradarcom. Put your message into the contact form and I'll get it that way. If you haven't had a chance to do it, please go to your favorite podcast provider and like subscribe.

Mary and Voices:

Give me some stars your favorite podcast provider and like subscribe, give me some stars.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

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. Thank, you.

Mary and Voices:

The Risk Parody Radio Show is hosted by Frank Vasquez. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment tax or legal advice. Please consult with your own advisors before taking any actions based on any information you have heard here, making sure to take into account your own personal circumstances.

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