Risk Parity Radio

Episode 472: A Field Day In New Jersey, Obviating Late Accumulation Risks, And Portfolio Reviews As Of December 12, 2025

• Frank Vasquez • Season 6 • Episode 472

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In this episode we answer emails from Anonymous from New Jersey, James, and Brad.  We answer a donor’s six-part retirement plan, from mortgages and liquidity to 403(b) constraints, ETF trading, asset location, asset swaps, and tax‑savvy withdrawals. Then we discuss the risks of staying in an accumulation portfolio for too long and the options for obviating a crash before transitioning.

And THEN we our go through our weekly 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

How To Do An Asset Swap Video from Risk Parity Chronicles:  How to Do an Asset Swap

Tax Planning Book:  Amazon.com: Tax Planning To and Through Early Retirement: 9798999841599: Garrett, Cody, Mullaney, Sean: Books

Breathless AI-Bot Summary:

Ever wonder whether paying down a mortgage before retirement is actually the safest move? We make the counterintuitive case for liquidity first: keep cash flexible during the messy early retirement years, when housing changes, college timelines, and new expenses collide. With a real listener case study, we show how a mortgage can be a tool, not a trap—and why you can always accelerate later once the dust settles.

From there we dig into a pain point for many educators and nonprofit pros: weak 403(b) lineups. We break down why insurance-driven menus lag, how to advocate for better providers and funds, and when it makes sense to roll to an IRA for full control. You’ll also learn how to keep tracking simple, why monthly check‑ins beat daily dashboards, and how consolidating at a service‑oriented custodian streamlines everything. On execution, we explain why ETFs beat mutual funds for rebalancing speed and precision, plus how to convert Vanguard mutual funds to ETFs without tax surprises.

Taxes and withdrawals get the spotlight too. We clarify asset location—shelter ordinary income, let capital appreciation work in brokerage and Roth—and outline “asset swaps” that let you sell what’s up while managing tax impact. For those still accumulating, we talk strategy for a smoother glide into a risk parity portfolio to reduce sequence risk, and the trade-offs between earlier protection and maximum growth. We wrap with a market scoreboard across stocks, bonds, gold, REITs, commodities, preferreds, and managed futures, and report on sample portfolios including Golden Butterfly, Golden Ratio, Ultimate, and leveraged variants.

If you value actionable, no-nonsense guidance for DIY investors, you’ll find ideas you can use right away—whether you’re five years from retirement or still building your base. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this with a friend who’s wrestling with 403(b) choices or planning a tax-smart withdrawal strategy.

Support the show

Voices:

A foolish consistency is the hub goblin of little mind. Adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. A different drummer.

Mostly Queen Mary:

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. And the basic foundational episodes are episodes 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9. Yes, it is still in my memory banks. We have also created an additional resource, a collection of additional foundational episodes and other popular episodes.

Voices:

We have top men working on it right now. Ooh.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Top men. And you can find those on the episode guide page at www.riskparty radio.com. Inconceivable! All thanks to our friend Luke, our volunteer in Quebec. We'd be helpless without him.

Voices:

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Because other than him, it's just me and Marion here. I'll give you the moon, alright?

Voices:

I'll take it.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

We have no sponsors, we have no guests, and we have no expansion plans.

Voices:

I don't think I'd like another job.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Over the years, our podcast has become very audienced focused, and I must say we do have the finest podcast audience available.

Voices:

Really top drawer.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Along with a host named after a hot dog.

Voices:

Lighten up Francis.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

But now onward, episode 472. Today in Risk Party Radio, it's time for our weekly portfolio reviews of the eight sample portfolios you can find at www.riskparty.com on the portfolios page. Boring! Yeah, December is shaping up to be a boring month. Which isn't so bad.

Voices:

As far back as he could remember, Rudolph wanted to be one of Santa's made reindeer. Like his friends, Jimmy the Antler and Frankie two times. There was only one problem. Hey Frankie, look! It's a raid! The cops are here! You'll never be in Santa's gang. Never be in Santa's gang.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

But before we get to that.

Voices:

I'm intrigued by this. How you say email?

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And first off. First off, I have an email from Anonymous. Anonymous from New Jersey.

Voices:

And I'll tell you everything. Well, not everything.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And Anonymous rights.

Mostly Queen Mary:

Hi, Frank and Mary. Greetings from New Jersey.

Voices:

I'm Hermie the Drill. Santa kicked me out because I wouldn't give him his tribute. Someday I'm gonna take over Santa's whole operation.

Mostly Queen Mary:

I've been listening to your show for a few months now, and it has helped me plan for the future immeasurably. I made a contribution to the Father McKenna Center in August in anticipation of this note, and did so gladly while ensconced in Fenway Park watching an inconsequential game, all the while investing in my relationships with old friends.

Voices:

Hey, I'm with you, Pison, and I know just the guy to call.

Mostly Queen Mary:

I have a couple of questions I was hoping you could help me out with. To set the stage, my wife and I have accounts at TIAA and Vanguard. The TIAA is with my present employer and has about $1.3 million in equities, mostly S P 500 index in a 403B, 225,000 of which is in Roth. At Vanguard, my wife and I have about 245,000 in a brokerage account, 220,000 VTSAX, and 25,000 money market, 590,000 in a traditional IRA, 470,000 GLDM and 120,000 DBMF, 2,060-ish K in my Roth IRA, 220,000 VGLT and the rest VUG, 200,000 in my wife's Roth IRA, 92,000 VGLT and the rest VIOV. Our two kids, 16 and 13, both have 529s with about 40k in each of them, as we have an HSA with about 20,000. Sorry for belaboring all that detail, but perhaps the specifics will matter. I am trying to steer our assets into a golden ratio portfolio.

Voices:

Define it everywhere, everywhere.

Mostly Queen Mary:

It's just taking a while to do so, with the TIAA funds proving the biggest obstacle since there are so few choices there. I'm planning on retiring in five years when my son graduates from the high school I teach at. I'm 59, and my wife plans on retiring between five and fifteen years from now. She's 50. Question number one. I work at a school which provides housing for my family and me, so I'll have to buy a house or rent in five years when I retire. I think I should finance the house and accept the mortgage as my lot. I guess for the rest of my life. Any reason not to finance if we buy? Question number two. Should I complain if the 403B offerings at my work are lackluster? I really can't find mutual funds in areas of large cap growth, small cap value, or long-term treasuries within my TIAA options. Have you ever heard of a workplace being amenable to putting in more fund options that are useful to the risk parity crowd at the request of an employee? Question 3. Is there a standard spreadsheet or other instrument that can be used to track investments? I'm split between TIAA and Vanguard, and as you recall, there are different accounts in each, especially the Vanguard. I am reluctant to give all the information to a third-party app. I've constructed my own spreadsheet to track everything, but it's complicated, seems to violate the simplicity rule, and I thought maybe there's an easier way. Question four, does it take you two days to do a trade, day one to sell, then day two to buy the next asset? That's what I've been doing. Question five, is there an irony that index funds with equities are best held in regular brokerage accounts for being tax efficient, as well as in Roth since that's the best place for something with capital appreciation? Question six, should I feel as comfortable withdrawing from my tax-sheltered accounts as from my brokerage account? Is there a school of thought that says it's easier to take a brokerage account through the required minimum distribution years, meaning that withdrawals from my traditional IRA might be the way to go at this time? Or should I just withdraw from whatever asset is most inflated, no matter the vehicle it resides in? By the way, we don't withdraw much more than $20,000 a year to make ends meet and have family adventures together since we're both still working. We're also still contributing to retirement as much as we can, but almost exclusively to the Roth accounts, and we make about $140,000 a year combined. I have more questions, but perhaps I should leave it at that for now. Please let us know if you get up to the Philly or New York City area. We'd love to treat you to a beer or libation of your choice. Warm regards, Anonymous.

Voices:

I'm Yukon Cornelion, the greatest hitman of all, and I've got a special present for you. Compliments of one disgruntled elf and red-nosed reindeer. Were you talking to me? You talking to me?

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Well, first off, thank you for being a donor to the Father McKenna Center. As most of you know, we don't have any sponsors on this program. We do have a charity we support. It's called the Father McKenna Center. It supports hungry and homeless people in Washington, D.C. Full disclosure, I'm on the board of the charity and I'm the current treasurer. But if you give to the charity, you get to go to the front of the email line. Two ways to do that. I think you go directly to the Father McKenna donation page and donate there. I'll put that link in the show notes. Or you can go to www.riskpartywriter.com and go to the support page and become one of our patrons on Patreon. Either way, you get to go to the front of the email line, but just make sure you note it in your email so I can duly move you to the front of the line.

Voices:

Yes!

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Now getting to your email. Looks like you're trying to get your money's worth here. You got six questions. Alright, I'm game.

Voices:

Ho ho ho! Donner at Blitzen just hijacked a shipment of pure snow. We'll make two million easy.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Your first question is about whether you should finance the house and take a mortgage or not. And you said, I guess for the rest of your life. Well, first that is a false assumption.

Voices:

That's not how it works. That's not how any of this works.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Just because you take on a mortgage today does not mean you have to have it for the rest of your life. Because, as we know, we can pay off mortgages early.

Voices:

That's the fact, Jack! That's the fact, Jack!

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And that's important. Because I think in your situation in particular, I would take on the mortgage to begin with, not so much for the financial reasons, but for liquidity reasons. And I think this is something that amateur investors don't appreciate very much, is sometimes liquidity, having more money around, is way more important than paying down mortgages or getting rid of debt. And that I think is going to be your circumstances. When you are first retiring, you've got people in college or high school, you got things moving around. So you are going to want to have more money available, I think, up front, because you can always pay down that mortgage early after a few years of retirement when you've got everything figured out as to how everything is working. But if you put that money into the house in the equity, you can't really get it out of there without going through some rigmarole of trying to get a HELOC or other things like that. So the better choice up front is to take the mortgage. I would put down the down payment so you get the best rates on it. See how things go for a few years, and then if it makes sense later on, you can pay off the mortgage later on. But you don't need to do it right away, and it probably doesn't make sense to do it right away. It is a false dilemma since it's not a binary choice.

Voices:

Choose. What do you mean, choose? We don't understand.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Second question: should you complain about your 403B offerings if they're lackluster? And well, there's no downside to complaining about them. I don't'm sure who you can complain to or who sets that up, but yeah, if you could get that change, that would probably be something better than TIAA, which is kind of the best of the insurance companies who run these things, but insurance companies are just bad to begin with. The history of 403Bs is that they predate 401ks, and they were traditionally run by insurance companies more as setting up annuity products or other things like that to mimic traditional pensions. And so it wasn't until after 401ks came around that you started having investment choices and things like that in 403Bs at all. They have lagged behind greatly. There are a lot of really bad 403Bs out there, particularly for smaller education systems and other systems that have to use 403Bs due to their classification. So this is a endemic and ongoing problem. 403Bs with bad choices in them. But no, they would not be just changing this for one person or adding things for one person or just adding things in general because the way these are set up, you have to have a sponsor, a provider that is providing a set of funds. What you'd really want them to do is shift to somebody like Fidelity, which has a whole lot more choices and does do 403Bs. I doubt they're going to do it, but find out who is in charge of that, whether there's a committee or something like that, and talk to them about it and see what you can do. I wouldn't hold my breath. Question three, is there a standard spreadsheet or other instrument that can be used to track investments? And you're at T I A A and Vanguard. And the answer is no, not really. I mean, spreadsheets are spreadsheets, and that's what I use. What I need to. Honestly, I do not keep track of our individual investments on a day-to-day basis. You only really need to look at these things once a month when you are drawing down on, and even less than that when you're accumulating. There are now a lot of places like Empower, I believe, or other ones that will link up your accounts and aggregate them and put all your stuff in one place and so on and so forth. And I know those are popular now. For me, it's sort of like they're popular because we can do this now with our technology. That doesn't necessarily mean they're that ultimately that useful. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him.

Voices:

We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic man.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

So I just use spreadsheets when we need to. And we still have accounts at Interactive Brokers, Fidelity, and Empower, believe it or not, along with a few other straggling ones around. Not that I'd recommend that. Eventually, the easiest thing to do once you leave your employer is to move that 403B. You want to get it out of there anyway. You want to move it to an IRA. And you can do that at Vanguard. I would probably do it at Fidelity though, since Fidelity has much better customer service on these sorts of things. But then you'd want to move your Vanguard account over there too. But having everything in one place does make things easier to monitor. It should not actually be that complicated to do this on a spreadsheet unless you have an awful lot of different funds or something going on in there. But if you're only talking about a few funds in each place, a spreadsheet is great for that. Just don't think you need to update it that often because you really don't, unless you find that entertaining.

Voices:

Better than he was before. Better, stronger.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Question four, does it take you two days to do a trade, day one to sell, and then day two to buy the next asset? And the answer is no. But the reason it doesn't take me two days to do a trade is because I'm using ETFs. The reason you are probably having to do it that way is you're using mutual funds. And if you use mutual funds, they only trade once a day. So unless you can do an exchange, which you can do at a place like Vanguard, or maybe you can do it at TIA A2, if you can do an exchange, they can do the transaction all at once. But if not, you will have to sell something one day and buy it the next day. I would just move everything over to ETFs as much as possible over time to make sure it's not going to cause you a tax problem to do that. I know if you have mutual funds at Vanguard, a lot of them are convertible to ETFs and it's not a taxable event. So you may take advantage of that. You're not going to be able to do anything about that in the 403B until you leave there, but once you move it to an IRA, you can just buy ETFs. ETFs are more efficient, and they are essentially iPhones to the mutual fund BlackBerry. And since we now have no fee trading and fractional shares, there's no reason not to use ETFs over mutual funds. Welcome to the 2020s. Capital appreciation, particularly long-term capital appreciation, is a favored way of getting returns. That's why investing for income is usually a dumb idea. You would rather get your returns in the form of capital appreciation because then you can time when you pay the taxes, and you're probably going to be paying less in taxes. Always remember that the first word after income is taxes.

Voices:

Yeah. Didn't you get that memo?

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And so you need to work around anything that pays income. Anything that pays ordinary income, therefore, first wants to go in a traditional retirement account because it's going to get shielded in there and you're not going to pay that tax on the ordinary income until you actually remove it from the account. So that is a feature of these funds and tax laws, not a bug. Question six Should I feel as comfortable with withdrawing from my tax-sheltered accounts as from my brokerage account? And the answer is yes, in terms of just comfort in withdrawing, but when and how you do that is one of the major tax planning issues with retirement accounts in general. Sometimes you want to take out of one or the other, depending on what your tax brackets are, and a whole host of other variables, including how much you have in each one of the things. In your case, you're going to have you retiring and your wife is continuing to work, generating ordinary income there. What I would recommend is that you go and get the book by Sean Mullaney and Cody Garrett that just came out in the past few months. It's called Tax Planning to and Through Early Retirement, and it defines early retirement as before age 65. So it applies generally to lots of people, including you. But tax planning is one of the most time-consuming and difficult issues to deal with in your retirement scenarios, because it also incorporates things like when do you take Social Security, in addition to working around your particular tax brackets and your particular mix of accounts and your particular goals in terms of long-term planning. There is no rule of thumb as to which you should necessarily withdraw from first or at a particular time. But I sense you're also asking a slightly different question here about which assets to sell. And this is a separate issue from which account should it come out of. Because you can do what's called an asset swap to effectively move it from one place to another. So I will link to a video in the show notes to explain to you how this works specifically with a retirement account and a taxable account. But suppose you had these two accounts and you have an asset this year, suppose it's gold, that's gone up a lot, and you want to sell that asset for your distribution, but you don't want Take money out of the retirement account. Here's what you would do. First, you would sell the gold in the retirement account. Then you would take another asset outside the retirement account. Let's just say it's a stock index fund for the purpose of this example. You would sell the amount of the distribution of that asset in the taxable account that's outside. Then you would go back into the retirement account and buy that much of that asset in the retirement account. So what you have done is you've sold gold in the retirement account, you've bought the index fund in the retirement account, you've sold an equal amount of the index fund outside the retirement account, and effectively you are reducing the amount of gold you are holding. You are getting money out from the taxable account, but you are not taking any money out of the retirement account. So in this way, if you follow these kinds of asset swap rules, it does not really matter where the asset is for the most part, because you can always do an asset swap if you have a couple of accounts like you have, and that's how you're going to manage this when it comes to distribution time. Now that doesn't tell you anything about which account it should come out of for tax purposes, but that's how you do the asset swap. But check out the video because that will explain it in more detail. And that video comes from our friend Justin at Risk Parity Chronicles. It's one of his finest creations.

Voices:

The best, Jerry. The best.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And if you're looking for a blog about these topics, I would also check that out too.

Voices:

Excellent!

Mostly Uncle Frank:

So hopefully that answers your six questions.

Voices:

That and a nickel, get your hot cup, a jack squat!

Mostly Uncle Frank:

I realize you may have more questions, but this is a good time for you to sit down and start really planning out a few of these things. And not to etch them in stone, but just to see what your options are. Because the truth of the matter is because you have a 13 and a 14-year-old, and you're not going to be sure what they're doing after high school for a few more years, and that will have an impact on the rest of your plans, you really won't be able to finalize anything until that happens. At least that was our experience. But it's good to know now what the options are and how these things work. So I definitely would go get that tax and retirement book and sit down and start studying these things. And if you do get overwhelmed by that stuff, this is actually a good thing to hire somebody to get help with, either who is focused on tax planning itself or is an hourly advisor that deals with these issues. Be advised that a lot of advisors will not touch tax issues, particularly if they work for one of the big brokerages or something like that. But it's been my experience that that is actually one of the most important things that you can get professional advice about. And you need that a lot more than you need professional advice about what to invest in. So hopefully that helps. Thank you for being a donor to the Father McKenna Center. And thank you for your email.

Voices:

Does my nose amuse you? Is it funny? Like a clown? Does it make you laugh? No, no, no. Great nose. Okay, I'm the capo now. Hermes my lieutenant, and abominable here's my enforcer. Capish? Now let's eat. So remember, kids, the moral of this story is keep your mouth shut.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Second off. Second off, we have an email from James.

Voices:

Hey Jim Baby! I see you brought up reinforcements! Well, I'm waiting for you, Jimmy Boy.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And James writes.

Mostly Queen Mary:

Hi, Frank. I noticed the back test link for the Opter Portfolio page is withdrawing $50 yearly. That's not an improvement. I believe it should be monthly in order to back test a 6% withdrawal rate.

Voices:

You are correct, sir. Yes!

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Well, thank you for alerting us to that, James. I'm not sure if it's my fault in the original, or it happened when we transferred over all of the links and materials from the old website to the new one.

Voices:

Chris Des Tabarnak Twimots, Chris. In any event, we have top men working on it right now.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And we'll get it taken care of. I do appreciate these kind of comments and corrections. Because as you can imagine, we do not have a big staff working on any of this stuff. And there are frequently typos and other little mistakes like that in various places, particularly on the website.

Voices:

Gosh!

Mostly Uncle Frank:

So thank you very much for your corrective email.

Voices:

And we have the tools! We had the talent! Last off.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Last off of an email from Brad.

Voices:

You worked at All American Burger seven months ago. I did.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And Brad writes.

Mostly Queen Mary:

Hi Frank and Mary. I've been with you since nearly the beginning. I suggested some Arnold Schwarzenegger sound bites. I love the show and never miss an episode.

Voices:

What's the matter? I have a headache. It might be a tumor. It's not a tumor. It's not a tumor at all.

Mostly Queen Mary:

I'm 41 and am still firmly in the accumulation phase, but I'm soaking up as much knowledge as I can in preparation for my hopeful retirement around age 50.

Voices:

I suck them down like Coca-Cola.

Mostly Queen Mary:

I know that you recommend transitioning to a risk parity style portfolio about five years out from retirement. I realize there's no accurate crystal ball that predicts market drops, but what if the market drops right before the transition to a risk parity style portfolio and stays down for say 10 years, give or take? And it's gone! I guess what I'm really asking is there any damage control techniques using risk parity methods to minimize this potential timing issue while still in accumulation? For example, could something like 80% stocks be combined with a mix of bonds and gold or any of the other assets usually used to provide slight protection against the slim chance that the market might be down starting prior to the transition phase? I love the show and always appreciate your comments on the Choose a Fi group. Thanks for all you do, Brad. P.S. How about some stallone sound bites?

Voices:

Yo, Adrian. No, I don't hate that boy, but I pity the fool, and I will destroy any man who tries to take what I got. What's your prediction for the fight then? Prediction? Yes, prediction.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Well, first off, thank you for being a longtime listener, Brad.

Voices:

Learn it.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Know it. Live it. As time goes on and our audience expands, I really do appreciate the people that have been around here the longest.

Voices:

We're mutants. There's something wrong with us. Something very, very wrong with us. Something seriously wrong with us.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Because we still do want to retain our dive bar e quality to this program.

Voices:

Hey, what's happening, Norm? It's a dog eat dog world's ammian and I'm wearing milk phone underwear.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And you can only do that if you have a few regulars.

Voices:

You see, if you go back in history and uh take every president, you'll find that the numerical value of each letter in the last name was equally divisible into the uh year in which they were elected. By my calculations, uh, a next president has to be named Yelnik Mikwawa.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Now, getting to your question, well, the short answer is if you get a big drop right before you convert the portfolio, you may just have to work a little longer and save a little more.

Voices:

Don't be saucy with me, Bernese.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

That's the reality of the situation. But your solution or proposed solution is the correct one. If you are concerned about this, the answer would be to move more of it earlier on, either all the way to the risk parity style portfolio or partway to the risk parity style portfolio, because the biggest risk factor involved here is the percentage you have invested in stocks for the most part. And if you reduce that risk, that will reduce most of the risk that you're worried about with respect to a big drawdown. Now, the earlier you convert it, the less potential growth you may have. So it just may also take you a little longer. But the truth is a lot of the people that have these portfolios treat them as their accumulation portfolio as well. I know Tyler from Portfolio Charts has done that with his golden butterfly portfolio. I know the value stock geek does that with his weird portfolio. They essentially use that as their accumulation portfolio, which works fine. It's just going to probably take a little longer to get to your FI number if you are using the more conservative portfolio to accumulate in. So that's the real trade-off there. Certainly, when you are decades away or haven't invested very much at all, it does not make sense to go into a conservative portfolio because, in particular, if your future contributions are going to be a large part of your overall portfolio, then you really want to have what you have invested in stocks because you're essentially sitting on a pile of future cash. And so your portfolio is naturally conservative in that manner. So if you were 25 years old and then planning on investing from then until you were 45, those first few years are relatively trivial amounts compared to the 15 more years of future cash that is going to be invested. And therefore, you want that all to be the end of the most aggressive investments possible, and that's those index funds. That calculus changes, obviously, the further along you go, and the less money you intend to put in prospectively. So you could do as you suggest. These days, however, the bigger issue most people have is not converting soon enough. Because we've had such a good run for such a long time. I think a lot of amateur investors in particular can't comprehend the idea that next year could be starting like the year 2000, and the next decade could be horrible.

Voices:

You can't handle the truth.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

I think a lot of people just can't comprehend that, and that's why they maintain their all-stock portfolio, or they've just committed to continuing to work regardless.

Voices:

You can't handle the gambling problem.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Or just not spending much money, which is always a viable solution.

Voices:

I can't help it. I'm a greedy slob. It's my hobby. Save me!

Mostly Uncle Frank:

So I think you are correct that it's better to be safe than sorry, particularly if you have a very kind of specific date that you really want to say, I am retired, and not have to potentially work longer due to market conditions.

Voices:

You can't handle the crystal ball.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

So hopefully that helps. I'm glad you're enjoying the podcast, including the sound clips.

Voices:

You can't handle the dogs and cats living together.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And thank you for your email. And the extremely fun thing we get to do now is our weekly portfolio reviews of the eight sample portfolios you can find at www.riskperry.com on the portfolios page. And just looking at how the markets are finishing out the year. The SP 500, represented by VOO, is up 17.44% for the year so far. The NASDAQ 100, represented by QQQ, is up 20.48% for the year. Small cap value represented by the fund VIOV is now up 9.25% for the year. It's gaining.

Voices:

I love gold.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Representative fund GLDM is up 63.69% for the year.

Voices:

And that's the way uh-huh uh-huh. I like it. Casey and the Shunshine Band.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Long-term treasury bonds represented by VGLT are up 4.87% for the year. REITs represented by the fund REET are up 7.03%. Commodities represented by the fund PDBC are up 4.93%. And preferred shares represented by PFFV are up 2.12% for the year so far. And finally, managed futures represented by the fund DBMF are managing to be up double digits. They are up 12.85% for the year so far. Moving to these portfolios, these sample portfolios. First one's a reference portfolio. It's called the All Seasons. It is only 30% in stocks, it has 55% in intermediate and long-term treasury bonds, and the remaining 15% in golden commodities. It is down 0.99% for the month of December so far. It's up 13.17% year to date and up 22.85% since inception in July 2020. Next one's a golden butterfly, the first of our bread and butter kind of portfolios. 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 the remaining 20% in gold, GLDM. It's up 0.63% for the month of December so far. It's up 19.46 year to date and up 59.98% since inception in July 2020. Next one's a golden ratio. What's the answer, Mr.

Voices:

Sacred Geometry, Sacred Geometry, Sacred Geometry? The Golden Ratio. The Golden Ratio.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

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 managed futures, and the remaining 6% in cash and a money market fund. It's up 0.25% for the month of December. It's up 18.95% year to date and up 54.58% since inception in July 2020. Next one's the Risk Parity Ultimate. It's kind of our kitchen sink portfolio. We're not going to go through all 12 of these funds. It is down to 0.35% for the month of December. It's up 17.11% year to date, and up 39.76% since inception in July 2020. Now moving to these experimental portfolios, these all involve leveraged funds.

Voices:

You have a gambling problem.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

There's a lot of volatility here.

Voices:

Well, you have a gambling problem.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

First one's called the accelerated permanent portfolio. This one is 27.5% in a levered bond fund, TMF, 25% in UPRO, a levered stock fund, 25% in PFFV, a preferred shares fund, and 22.5% in gold, GLDM. It's down 1.82% for the month of December. It's up 21.92% year to date and up 23.17% since inception in July 2020. Next one's the Aggressive 5050. This is the most levered and least diversified of these portfolios, and by far the worst performer. It is one-third in a levered stock fund UPRO, one-third and a levered bond fund TMF, and the remaining third divided into a preferred shares fund and an intermediate treasury bond fund. It's down to 3.03% for the month of December. It's up 11.56% year to date and down 1.75% since inception in July 2020. We may be doing a rebalancing on this. We have to check how it plays out on Monday to see whether it meets the criteria because Monday is the 15th. Next one's a levered golden ratio. This one is 35% in NTSX, which is a composite levered fund that invests in the S P 500 and Treasury bonds. It's got 15% in AVDV, which is an international small cap value fund, 20% in GLDM, that's gold, 10% in KMLM, that's a managed futures fund, 10% in TMF, that's a levered bond fund. The remaining 10% divided into a levered Dow fund and a levered utilities fund. It is down 0.97% for the month of December so far. It's up 24.89% here to date, and up 19.37% since inception in July 2021. And the last one is our newest one, the Opter Portfolio. One portfolio to rule them all. And it is ruling this year, actually. This place rolls. It has 16% in UPRO, a levered SP 500 fund, 24% in AVGV, which is a worldwide value tilted fund, 24% in GOVZ, which is a Treasury Strips fund, and the remaining 36% divided into gold and a managed futures fund. It's down 0.01% for the month of December. It's up 25.04% year to date and up 28.69% since inception in July 2024. And that concludes our weekly portfolio reviews as we slide into the end of the year. December is turning out to be fairly uneventful here.

Voices:

Merry Christmas. Ho, ho, ho.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

But now I see our signal is beginning to fade. If you have comments or questions for me, please send them to Frank at RiskPartyRadio.com. That email is frank at riskparty.com. Or you can go to the website www.riskparty.com. Put your message into the contact form and I'll get it all that way. If you haven't had a chance to do it, please go to your favorite podcast provider and like, subscribe, give me some stars, 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.

Voices:

You wanna go where people know people know how to see. You wanna go where everybody knows your name.

Mostly Queen Mary:

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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Frank Vasquez

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