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Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

Stocks and Shares ISA , Choosing funds for ISA's, risk factors for funds etc
Investment strategy discussions not dealt with elsewhere.
Urbandreamer
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Re: Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

#148431

Postby Urbandreamer » June 27th, 2018, 5:52 pm

Pastcaring wrote:Quick bit of Google work,all numbers rounded

Average wages 1955 £500

Gold £35 an ounce,so 14 ounces .

Today @ £ 880 per ounce I think you said those 14 ounces are worth £12K rounded.

If average wages are £30K then over the 63 years your return is 150% ,you don't think that is a rubbish return?

Should history repeat then in 63 years time gild will still be a rubbish investment.What would you say.

Quick Google came up with US average wages@ $58K.

Working on Ford's wages, gold has produced slightly better than average wage growth


Oh dear, where to start. First I am not a gold bug and have NEVER argued that it provides a good return. I just disagree with your opinion that a zero real return is rubbish.

Next where did you get your figures from?
Gold was $35 per oz in 1955 was the exchange rate really $1=£1 in 1955 as you seem to claim?
Was average wages really £500pa in 1955?
According to Hansard
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hans ... y-earnings
it was 217s 5d pw so that's £565 5s 8d (I assumed paid holidays so multiplied by 52) more than 10% higher than your figure.
I'm not altogether convinced that talking about the average wage on an entire contenent can make any sense, but I found this link.
https://wallethacks.com/average-median- ... n-america/
It doesn't put the median US average wage at $58k, but at $30k

I repeat, just where did you get your figures. I provided links.

(EDIT) I also didn't claim that £880 was TODAY'S price. My link was for data from 55-2010 so I used 2010's price.

As for links:
Re bullion dealers wanting to trade gold, I assumed that was taken as read.
Can you provide any information that contridicts their historic data. I personally would assume that providing fraudulent investment data for pecunary gain would be illegal in most countries.
Last edited by Urbandreamer on June 27th, 2018, 6:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

#148434

Postby TUK020 » June 27th, 2018, 6:00 pm

SalvorHardin wrote:All of these come with a big warning, especially Tower Hill. I own shares in all of these, though I do not closely follow the sector. Periodically a company comes to my attention, often in serendipitous ways, and I then decide whether or not to invest. Integra Gold is a classic example of this; it was briefly mentioned in a non-financial article in the Globe and Mail, I investigated and bought some and made 400% over three years.

International Tower Hill Mines . A real punt, treat as a long dated warrant / lottery ticket. It's sitting on a big deposit in central Alaska. The problem is that it needs a gold price of $2,000 an ounce to be a profitable mine, so they are sitting on their hands for now. Shares hit US$10 back in 2011, currently 54 cents.

Victoria Gold Corp. They have just started to build a mine in the Yukon. Low-grade deposit. Lots of support from the locals as it provides a lot of jobs.

Balmoral Resources. Currently bombed out, it has discovered some high-grade deposits in Quebec close to a huge producing mine (Detour Gold). Management has been side tracked IMHO by a nickel discovery. Will either be bought or continue to decline IMHO. My worst performing share of recent years, I'm down about 75%.

Atlantic Gold Corp. Low cost producer in Nova Scotia.

Eldorado Gold. I got into these after they bought Integra Gold, which was my biggest gold holding by a long way (and my best performer for the last couple of years). Well diversified producer, they should be producing from Integra's Lamaque mine next year.

Barrick Gold. Huge international producer which has had a few big problems, hence the fall from over US$50 to US$12.75 in the last five years. Bought these last month.

Integra Resources. The Integra Gold team recently took control of two deposits in Idaho. I see this as purely a bet on the management team, given what they achieved with Integra Resources.

Hope this helps. Seeking Alpha and Stockhouse are the places to look for Canadian gold companies.


SalvorHardin
this is really helpful in helping get some big picture perspective.
I currently have around 4% of my portfolio in Physical Gold ETF. This is not really enough to provide ' comprehensive cover' as an insurance position, but I am loathe to devote more of my portfolio to non-yielding assets. Therefore the idea of gold producers as a leveraged insurance position appeals.
I don't have any understanding about how many different stocks one would need to reduce individual company risk to the level it could be regarded as an insurance position. Do you have an opinion on this? Are there I.T.s or ETFs that focus on this field?
tuk020

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Re: Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

#148476

Postby Spet0789 » June 27th, 2018, 10:15 pm

Yes, there’s an ETF. SPGP. I own.

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Re: Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

#148593

Postby SalvorHardin » June 28th, 2018, 12:05 pm

TUK020 wrote:this is really helpful in helping get some big picture perspective.
I currently have around 4% of my portfolio in Physical Gold ETF. This is not really enough to provide ' comprehensive cover' as an insurance position, but I am loathe to devote more of my portfolio to non-yielding assets. Therefore the idea of gold producers as a leveraged insurance position appeals.
I don't have any understanding about how many different stocks one would need to reduce individual company risk to the level it could be regarded as an insurance position. Do you have an opinion on this? Are there I.T.s or ETFs that focus on this field?
tuk020

I don't know of any investment trusts which specialise in gold and I don't follow ETFs. I believe that iShares has a UK domiciled Gold Miners ETF and I know that there are Canadian and American ETFs such as VanEck Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF. I only know of this fund because I often see its code "GDXJ" on Stockhouse and Seeking Alpha (link below).

https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/GDXJ?s=gdxj

It's not something I would ever buy; I avoid American funds like the plague because of their tax treatment (holders can be liable for capital gains tax on some funds for gains realised internally). My tax return is bad enough without having to deal with America's IRS.

As to my insurance position, My plan is to keep roughly 5% in the sector, hold at least five different companies, having a mixture of early-stage explorers, later-stage explorers and producers. If you're looking for dividends you have to start with the majors such as Barrick Gold and Agnico Eagle, though you may be more interested in the royalty companies (e.g. Franco-Nevada) as these tend to have more stable finances and thus more stable dividends. TMF USA has quite a few decent articles on gold miners:

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/06/ ... -vs-f.aspx

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/06/ ... a-buy.aspx

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Re: Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

#148794

Postby Pastcaring » June 29th, 2018, 11:20 am

Urbandreamer wrote:
Pastcaring wrote:Quick bit of Google work,all numbers rounded

Average wages 1955 £500

Gold £35 an ounce,so 14 ounces .

Today @ £ 880 per ounce I think you said those 14 ounces are worth £12K rounded.

If average wages are £30K then over the 63 years your return is 150% ,you don't think that is a rubbish return?

Should history repeat then in 63 years time gild will still be a rubbish investment.What would you say.

Quick Google came up with US average wages@ $58K.

Working on Ford's wages, gold has produced slightly better than average wage growth


Oh dear, where to start. First I am not a gold bug and have NEVER argued that it provides a good return. I just disagree with your opinion that a zero real return is rubbish.

Next where did you get your figures from?
Gold was $35 per oz in 1955 was the exchange rate really $1=£1 in 1955 as you seem to claim?
Was average wages really £500pa in 1955?
According to Hansard
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hans ... y-earnings
it was 217s 5d pw so that's £565 5s 8d (I assumed paid holidays so multiplied by 52) more than 10% higher than your figure.
I'm not altogether convinced that talking about the average wage on an entire contenent can make any sense, but I found this link.
https://wallethacks.com/average-median- ... n-america/
It doesn't put the median US average wage at $58k, but at $30k

I repeat, just where did you get your figures. I provided links.

(EDIT) I also didn't claim that £880 was TODAY'S price. My link was for data from 55-2010 so I used 2010's price.

As for links:
Re bullion dealers wanting to trade gold, I assumed that was taken as read.
Can you provide any information that contridicts their historic data. I personally would assume that providing fraudulent investment data for pecunary gain would be illegal in most countries.



You said today's gold price £ 879,you don't think that is anywhere near £880?

The rest of my post down to midnight here and me watching Korea v Germany.Not paying attention.

As I said quick Google ,average US wages came up with $58K.I didn't see household income,I asked for average wages.Same for the UK,gold price came up with 35, so £35.
Wages came up at £500 rounded,close enough for me,but you are welcome to split hairs.

I went to bed after the game,settled down,then it hit me,35 would be US $ ,the gold standard.I wasn' t going to get out of bed to correct it .The rest is very easy

Old Henry paid his men $5 for a 9 hour day,56 cents an hour,bring it to modern times and 40 hours for 52 weeks x .56 $1165 annual income,rounded.That is 33.3 ounces of gold.

Today that 33.3 ounces at 1265 is $42,125 ,rounded. The Ford website tells you assembly workers today get $ 45 K per annum,I take it that is 40 hours at 52 weeks.Are you happy with a return of zero.

Median wages would needed to be worked out on median wages back in 1914 .

100 year return is zero.Each year and decade will give different results.

1980 gold hit a top of around $850, today $1265 ish,I haven' t looked, a far worse return than zero.Are you happy with 50% over 38 years ( rounded).

The gold myth arises because of one 9 year period ,from 1971 to 1980

1971 $35 an ounce, 1980 $850 an ounce,a huge return that makes a mess of calculations

56 years of rubbish,fixed price, no income.1980 on ,return of less than zero ,inflation adjusted.One period of WOW.

There are many points in history to guide us.One obvious one is the Dow in 1929. A top of 380 ( 11 ounces of gold ).Today 11 ounces are worth 11 x $ 1265 $14 K ( rounded ).The Dow creams it, 24,000 plus all that dividend income.I like to think long term.

Every start date gives a different result.Tomorrow with that 38 year history of less than zero returns would you buy gold?

Would you expect huge changes in the future.Start that at 1970 and gold gives a very good return,are you expecting gold to go through a once in a hundred year boom again in your lifetime ,I'm not

I think in the future it will plod on giving zero returns. Trading gold if you get it right would produce some reasonable returns

I think it will do exactly as it says on the tin,good hedge against inflation,zero returns.

Put average annual income now into gold and over the long term I would think you will get back annual average income.

If that theory was written around 1980 then that theory will be greatly influenced by that 9 year period.The following 38 years show how bad gold is.

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Re: Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

#148804

Postby tjh290633 » June 29th, 2018, 11:47 am

The exchange rate in 1955 was about $4 to £1. It fell to $2.80 with Harold Wilson's pound in your pocket devaluation.

TJH

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Re: Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

#148817

Postby Pastcaring » June 29th, 2018, 1:33 pm

tjh290633 wrote:The exchange rate in 1955 was about $4 to £1. It fell to $2.80 with Harold Wilson's pound in your pocket devaluation.

TJH

For some reason while I was out on the bike today the figure of $3 to the £ came into my head, no idea why.I was young then,sometimes strange things stick in my head.Perhaps I read it later on as we had no TV then,perhaps radio 4 news with Brian Redhead,no idea why.3 seems fair enough but my mistake watching the football rather than looking at t' net.

When I was an apprentice on the Tyne some of the 30 ish tradesman said they thought they were rich when they got to £ 10 quid a week in 1960 ish.

Wages in the north east were always below average and probably still are.

Lots of slums were knocked down ,the Cathy come home period.

New houses were built over the road from our council house on the cornfield I played in.Around 1961 I think,link villas ( 4 or 8 terreced houses joined together ) £ 2250 said the display board,around 4 years wages.
My cousin lived in one in the 1980 s before they bought a better semi detached.They are worth around £120--130,000 now,not much of a real return over a long period

The pound in your pocket devaluation,I remember it well,the end of the world was high

Wish I could remember what I had to eat yesterday.

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Re: Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

#148822

Postby Pastcaring » June 29th, 2018, 1:58 pm

tjh290633 wrote:The exchange rate in 1955 was about $4 to £1. It fell to $2.80 with Harold Wilson's pound in your pocket devaluation.

TJH

That should read 4 seems fair enough to me.

Set me thinking and compounding though.Working in round numbers and taking wages then at @£ 550 annual the the gild bought with that is worth around £ 61,000 now.Taking gold at £8 10s.

Roughly double your money in real terms over 63 years,taking UK annual income at £ 30K now.

Awful return,but far better than the zero that I said.I' ll put my hand up and say I was wrong on the return.

Gold is a useless investment in the long term,but it still returned better than zero.

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Re: Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

#148823

Postby tjh290633 » June 29th, 2018, 1:59 pm

When I started working in Sheffield in 1957, the labouring rate was 4/= an hour, and the basic week was 44 hours, five 8-hour days plus Saturday morning. Our Welder was top of the pile on 6/= an hour. Most weeks they worked about 80 hours.

TJH

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Re: Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

#148832

Postby Pastcaring » June 29th, 2018, 2:30 pm

My days as a welder seemed to be 40 hour weeks,mainly because I had no interest in overtime.They were good days though,far better and more interesting than QA/Qc

My compounding was wrong,end result is still roughly the same.I compounded the $ and then converted it to £s at 1.33.

Compounding the £ works out to £ 57000, still the same though,two years wages roughly

I might have to give up on this mental arithmetic lark,it's fading fast.

Wonder how I would go with the trigonometry and geometry that I used so often,I could rattle through that

Probably be lost now after A squared plus B squared = C squared .Still got all my log tables,might get them out for a brain exercise.

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Re: Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

#327809

Postby 1nvest » July 21st, 2020, 11:49 pm

Just for reference - cross linking ... Permanent Portfolio Review - Year 2 thread.

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Re: Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

#327813

Postby 1nvest » July 22nd, 2020, 12:13 am

Harry Browne suggested holding more volatile stocks and bonds in the PP. As that link indicates doing so bolstered rewards without adding too much additional risk. Boosted CAGR from Jan 2008 to 9.71% compared to 6.82% for the standard PP, versus 8.36% for all-stock (SPY = S&P500).

Image

A UK version could perhaps be 2MCL (stock), and the longest dated Gilt for the long dated treasury bond - such as UK Gilt Treasury 3.5% 2068

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Re: Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

#328407

Postby Hariseldon58 » July 24th, 2020, 11:00 am

Permanent portfolio is interesting, I recollect hearing recordings of Harry Browne discussing the portfolio some years ago ( we’d call it a podcast now !)

Meb Faber has a book Global Asset Allocation which looks at a number of investment strategies, including the Permanent Portfolio, for the period 1973 to 2013, and splitting into the decades. The Permanent Portfolio has the lowest returns amongst the strategies but not on a risk adjusted basis where it does much better. The book was a freebie from Meb Fabers website, interesting, well worth reading.

A more interesting takeaway was the question of costs of implementation, if costs are not kept to a minimum the worst strategy beats the best strategy.... If you pay for aN expensive advisor it gets worse...

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Re: Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

#328427

Postby 1nvest » July 24th, 2020, 12:09 pm

Throw other circumstances at it, Japan for instance (as Japan only more recently started issuing 20 year bonds I opted for 50% allocation to a 10 year bond bullet rather than 25% in each of 1 year and 20 year bond barbell). Rewards are all in Yen and based from a Japanese investors perspective (Japanese inflation rate etc.).

Image

Japan's economy did very well during the 1970's/1980's, expanded massively. Took a large slice out of US global market cap share that dropped from something like 75% down to 25% whilst Japan rose from very low to 40% type levels. US stocks were terrible during the 1965 to 1985 years. Modest nominal gains but severe negative in real (after inflation) terms. Then that flipped around and the US regained a chunk of what it had lost (rose from 25% to 50% type levels) whilst Japan faded right down - when its investors saw poor rewards.

The PP sort of smooths that all out, its more inclined to give fair rewards for any random choice of random start/end dates. In effect its a 50/50 stock/bond and 50/50 gold/bond ... 50/50 blend of the two. Individually that look like this for US data
Image

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Re: Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

#328437

Postby 1nvest » July 24th, 2020, 12:46 pm

Investors will at times see a decade or more of flat/down rewards in after inflation terms, before costs and with all income/dividends reinvested. Where does that leave those that are looking to draw a income? Well they're eating capital one way or another.

The average investor has perhaps a 20 year drawdown years horizon, age 65 to 85 perhaps. In addition to lowering costs/taxes, the other factor that greatly reduces risk is to lower the amount being drawn. Lowering SWR even a little for instance can make a massive difference. If you can get down to say 2.4% SWR, the equivalent of 0.2%/month inflation adjusted income production, then you're pretty safe, much safer than another who is looking at 4% or more income production. But a 4% only requires capital of 25 times yearly spending to cover desired income, whilst 2.4% requires capital of over 40 times yearly spending.

If you're fortunate enough to be in the 40x camp where a 2.4% SWR is likely OK, then even just dropping that equally into a three way equal split of stock, cash and gold and drawing from that will be OK. Not rebalancing, just leaving it to run and looking at how that performed in the past for a range of different start dates for 20 year periods and we can see how the assets drifted - in effect found their own cap weightings. When you're drawing from that you're in effect taking income in proportion to each assets weighting at the time, so for instance the 1970 and 2000 cases mostly had gold providing the larger chunk of income, whilst for the 1980 start date it was mostly stock providing the income. I've also highlighted the inflation CAGR figures so you can see how much additional real gains that approach yielded in addition to the 2.4% SWR being drawn (that might additionally have been 'top-sliced' to supplement income/spending).

Image
(edit just noticed the dates got cut off in the third/last chart in that image ... which should show 2000 - 2019)

As a scary comparison, all stock started in January 2000 with a 2.4% SWR, in early 2009 was seeing the portfolio value at uncomfortably low levels (around a third of the start of retirement portfolio value in inflation adjusted terms)

Image

The greater risk there is that such losses are crystallised - when actually living through that many capitulate to 'save what little is left'.

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Re: Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

#331041

Postby 1nvest » August 5th, 2020, 10:34 am

Instead of a short and long dated gilt barbell, allocating 50% to a 10 year Gilt ladder, and not marking to market (yearly gain is the average of the current and past nine years 10 year gilt yields), provides around 5% of the total portfolio value in cash each year from the maturing Gilt.

A 10 year bullet instead of a barbell seems to have worked as equally as well. Simplifies things as well ... a Gilt matures that along with dividends has a chunk of cash in hand, rebalance the portfolio and reinvest the remainder cash into another 10 year Gilt - and job done until the next Gilt matures.

Messing around with charting, I created that first chart using a stacked column and line chart (using Libre Office Calc). I then set the line (Permanent Portfolio value) to hidden along with setting a symbol/market of a dash for that line. That chart provides a nice feel for how much each of the assets contributed to the overall gain/loss each year, whilst the white dash shows each years overall Permanent Portfolio gain (loss).

Image

Another nice feature with a 10 year Ladder that's not marked to market is that you know what 50% of the portfolio will provide for the full year ahead. 1.91% for 2020 for instance. Whilst it also leaves the optionality to pick a rung to reduce if more cash is called to be deployed into stock and/or gold at a rebalance review than what actual cash you have in hand. If for instance the longest dated gilt had made good gains then you might opt to reduce/sell that to raise cash, or alternatively you might opt to reduce/sell the gilt that was just a year out from maturity ... whichever you deemed to be the most appropriate at the time.

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Re: Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

#331055

Postby 1nvest » August 5th, 2020, 11:15 am

Pastcaring wrote:Gold, no thanks. Probably is a hedge against inflation which means, useless.

... Gold was $35 per oz in 1955 ...

Using H Ford and his wage rise,workers wages went up to approx $ 40 per week. Gold standard had gold at $ 35 an ounce.Happy to say roughly the same?

Are average US wages now around the same as the price of 1 ounce of gold?

Why would anybody be happy with a 100 year return of ZERO .

Why would anybody have 25% of their money producing zero income,beats me.

Permanent Portfolio started Jan 1955 with $140, a quarter of which invested in gold at $35/ounce, so 1 ounce of gold being held. End of 2017 the portfolio value had risen at a 4.4% annualised real rate, standing at $51,000, of which under the PP would be holding a quarter of that in gold = $12,750, and as at the end of 2017 gold was priced $1300/ounce meant the portfolio was holding 9.8 ounces of gold. Nearly 10 times as much gold than at the 1955 start date.

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Re: Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

#331128

Postby tjh290633 » August 5th, 2020, 2:39 pm

I have tried a 5 year gilt ladder, on paper, and it has given a negative rate of return for successive years, using the method of reinvesting interest received plus the maturity value of the expiring gilt, into the next candidate gilt.

It has been said that a better method would be to use 10 year gilts, selling with 5 years left to go.

I might add that I choose the 5 year gilt with the highest yield each year.

TJH

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Re: Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

#331269

Postby 1nvest » August 6th, 2020, 12:43 am

tjh290633 wrote:I have tried a 5 year gilt ladder, on paper, and it has given a negative rate of return for successive years, using the method of reinvesting interest received plus the maturity value of the expiring gilt, into the next candidate gilt.

It has been said that a better method would be to use 10 year gilts, selling with 5 years left to go.

I might add that I choose the 5 year gilt with the highest yield each year.

TJH

The PP tends to have at least one asset doing well each year. The fundamental concept is along the lines of cash for rising interest rates, long dated gilts for declining interest rates, stocks for prosperity, gold for uncertainty.

If existing 5 year -0.1% gilt yields spiked to perhaps 4% that would see around a -20% price decline, pretty much invalidating it as serving the intended purpose of 'cash' doing ok across a period of rising interest rates. As long dated gilts account for many years of income, the yield curve might invert and perhaps see a corresponding rise from 0.5% to 2% yields on 20 year gilts, resulting in a around a -25% price decline. The PP more ideally needs its 'cash' element to be shorter dated than 5 years, perhaps 1 year or less, so as it matures so there is no capital loss and it rolls into the higher yield (or is part deployed to top up one or more of the other assets). Supplementing 'cash' with income from stock dividends and long dated gilt income could have the PP's 'cash' rise reasonably, be positive, and be the years best asset in the absence of perhaps inflation spiking higher than interest rate increases where otherwise gold might be the years best asset (in reflection of increased negative real yields). When cash is the years best performing asset you want it to be a positive return, not a -10% to -20% type event.

Depending upon how deep the other assets may dip, you may only need relatively little of cash being deployed into the other assets. A 10 year ladder has 10% of its value maturing each year, and another 10% that is just a year away from maturity - that will also be close/within positive territory if liquidated.

As equally as one or more PP asset tends to do well each year, so one or more of the other asset(s) will tend to be doing poorly. That's the natural nature of the beast.

This chart shows dividends separately, i.e. you might visualise that as expanding the 'cash' (10 year Gilt green bars).
Image
Taking 2015 as a example and both stock and gold were down, whilst 10 year gilt supplemented with stock dividends were the 'counter-balance' (positive). 1990 is another example of that. 1990 was actually the worst case across that date range, where the PP collectively was down -1.1% that year.

Harry Browne intended the PP to be more of a wealth preservation asset allocation over that of a growth portfolio. Yes you can bolster the potential rewards in some cases, but likely do so at the expense of increased risk.
http://www.harrybrowne.org/articles/InvestmentRules.htm
Rule #11: Create a bulletproof portfolio for protection.

For the money you need to take care of you for the rest of your life, set up a simple, balanced, diversified portfolio. I call this a "Permanent Portfolio" because once you set it up, you never need to rearrange the investment mix— even if your outlook for the future changes.

The portfolio should assure that your wealth will survive any event — including an event that would be devastating to any individual element within the portfolio. In other words, this portfolio should protect you no matter what the future brings.

Stocks and bonds have had a great time since 1980, something like +19% annualised gain for stocks over 1980 to 1999, and even cash/bonds yielded reasonable real rewards. All largely a consequence of seeing broadly progressive declines from high double digit yields down to exceptionally low recent yields. Pretty much a monkey throwing darts would have tended to have generated 4%+ real rewards. Over other eras it was much more a strain to achieve real gains and from current low yields a repeat of that may be in store in forward time. The PP is perhaps more inclined to preserve wealth, such that drawing down will last longer than others who may both be drawing a income and seeing negative real total returns. If total returns don't even pace inflation over a 10 year period, then any spending beit dividends or whatever are depleting the portfolios value. A Japanese investor into a PP since the 1970's would be seeing 4% annualised real gains, and a real gain progression line that is relatively consistent with others of a relatively smooth/consistent progression. Japan was however a exception in that mid to late 1980's did see a upward divergence and a early 1990's dip back down again, so had you started a PP in the mid/late 1980's you would have seen a flat decade as it caught back up with itself again. But to degrees that were far far less extreme than most other asset allocations. I guess the answer there is that start date valuations as ever do matter, and if exceptional/fast gains are apparent in the period leading up to when you might invest a lump sum, then it may be better to cost average in over a number of years instead in order to avoid having lumped all-in at the worst possible time. Such circumstances are however seemingly relatively infrequent in the PP's case.

1nvest
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Re: Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio

#332464

Postby 1nvest » August 11th, 2020, 5:26 pm

Cross link/reference ... where holding US 20 year treasury bonds were considered, but deemed to be inappropriate ...

viewtopic.php?p=332463#p332463


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