Voices [0:01]

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

Voices [0:10]

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer, a different drummer.

Mostly Mary [0:19]

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 [0:37]

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.

Voices [0:50]

Yeah, baby, yeah.

Mostly Uncle Frank [0:52]

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.

Mostly Mary [1:26]

Top drawer, really top drawer.

Mostly Uncle Frank [1:31]

Along with a host named after a hot dog.

Voices [1:34]

Lighten up Francis.

Mostly Uncle Frank [1:37]

But now onward, episode 428. Today on Risk Party Radio.

Voices [1:42]

It's time for the grand unveiling of money.

Mostly Uncle Frank [1:46]

Which means it's time for our weekly portfolio reviews. Of the eight sample portfolios you can find at wwwriskpartyradiocom On the portfolios page, we also have some monthly distributions to talk about.

Voices [1:59]

I'm putting you to sleep.

Mostly Uncle Frank [2:01]

And some emails. But before we get to that, First I want to thank everyone who's already participated in our charitable matching campaign, which we rolled out a couple of episodes ago. As you know, we do not have any sponsors on this podcast, but we do have a charity we support. It's called the Father McKenna Center. It supports hungry and homeless people in Washington DC, and homeless people in Washington DC and I have a listener who we are calling Matthew63 put up $15,000 in a matching campaign.

Voices [2:30]

The best, jerry the best.

Mostly Uncle Frank [2:32]

Which we launched last week. I described this more in episode 426. We're calling it the Top of the T-Shirt Campaign.

Voices [2:41]

Yeah, baby, yeah.

Mostly Uncle Frank [2:44]

Because this money will be donated in connection with our Walk for McKenna that we hold in September every year, and we're trying to get the Risk Parity logo to the top of the t-shirt as one of the biggest donors for that campaign.

Voices [2:56]

Show me the money, jerry, you better yell, show me the money.

Mostly Uncle Frank [3:01]

And I have to tell you I've been overwhelmed by the support we've received even in this first week.

Mostly Uncle Frank [3:06]

You'll see from the emails that I read today that all of the emails today are from donors, and since donating to the Father McKenna Center gets you to the front of the email line, I would think that if you are not a donor to the Father McKenna Center in the near future, you probably won't hear your email read for a good couple of months at least. So to donate to the Top of the T-Shirt campaign, the best way to do that is go to the donation page for the Father McKenna Center and I will put that in the show notes again and you can donate by check or by credit card or several other ways. But when you fill out your little donation form online there, just put in Risk Parity Radio Match or something like that, so they can flag it for counting it for the matching purposes. Think of it as Red Hot Chili Pepper Fi, where Fi stands for financial independence. So I hope you will participate. But now it's time to get to those emails and so, without further ado, here I go once again with the email.

Mostly Uncle Frank [4:13]

And First off. First off, we have an email from Anonymous.

Voices [4:20]

I have no name.

Mostly Uncle Frank [4:24]

And Anonymous writes.

Mostly Mary [4:26]

Hey, frank and Mary. I just made a four-figure donation motivated by the current matching challenge. While I wish to stay anonymous, I wanted to reach out to thank both of you for what you do for us DIY investors and for the homeless, and I also wanted to thank Anonymous, donor number one, for their great idea and generosity. It makes me immensely happy to be able to contribute something to your efforts.

Voices [4:50]

So shines a good deed in a weary world.

Mostly Uncle Frank [4:57]

Well, that's what I'm talking about.

Voices [4:59]

That's what I'm talking about.

Mostly Uncle Frank [5:01]

When I say we have the finest podcast audience available, it is not just a tagline. You guys are great.

Voices [5:08]

That's gold, jerry gold.

Mostly Uncle Frank [5:11]

You ask great questions, you're very thoughtful and you're very generous.

Mostly Mary [5:15]

Top drawer, really top drawer.

Mostly Uncle Frank [5:19]

Sister Francine would be proud.

Voices [5:22]

You can't lie to a nun. We've got to go in and visit the penguin.

Mostly Uncle Frank [5:27]

So I know you didn't have a question this time, but the next time you do make sure you remind me in your email of your donation so I can move you to the front of the line several times over. Yes, thank you for your support and thank you for your email.

Voices [5:45]

Five grand, no problem. We'll have it for you for your support and thank you for your email. Five grand, no problem. We'll have it for you in the morning. Let's go, elwin, we're on a mission from God.

Mostly Uncle Frank [5:53]

Second off.

Mostly Mary [5:55]

Second off we have an email from Tim Timber, and Tim writes Frank and Mary, you briefly mentioned a few months ago your son's use of a risk parity portfolio for intermediate term savings.

Voices [6:09]

Young America. Yes, sir.

Mostly Mary [6:11]

Can you expand a bit on the use cases for this and when it may be a good or bad idea? My use case is for building my taxable investments now that we have a sufficient emergency fund in our high yield savings account. My uses for this money will be for a potential car in a three to six year time frame and eventually for seed money to start an early retirement Roth conversion ladder approximately five years of expenses in about 10 years. Are these different enough that I need two strategies? Second question stack them up or save one for later? Mary's choice. How should I think about tax implications of strategies for rebalancing a more complex portfolio while we are in our peak earning years? I assume you sit on it for a year to get everything in long-term capital gains before you touch anything. I am always hesitant to touch anything outside my tax-advantaged accounts, which I also don't honestly touch either. I feel like I'd like to get to know Shannon's demon. Maybe some heavy metal recommendations, just looking for confidence-building guidance. Thanks, tim, and Gwen's here too saying hi, frank Timmer.

Mostly Uncle Frank [7:27]

Yes, of course, what I think? Maybe Timmy is suffering from something called Attention Deficit Disorder or ADD. It's very common in kids his age.

Mostly Mary [7:37]

Oh Timmer. Well, that certainly would explain it.

Mostly Uncle Frank [7:41]

All right, it's good to hear from you, Tim and Gwen. Just to clue everybody in, Tim and Gwen are friends of ours. Gwen is also known as the Fiery Millennial.

Voices [7:51]

Fire, fire, fire fire.

Mostly Uncle Frank [7:54]

And she was a stray millennial that I brought home one day, as Sister Francine would have done. And there's a story there, but we won't be telling it right now Wouldn't be prudent at this juncture. We won't be telling it right now Wouldn't be prudent at this juncture. Gwen and Tim have a relatively new podcast called Fire Takes. I'll read you the description here. Gwen and her husband, tim, give their hot fire-coded takes on interesting Reddit and Internet stories. Tim and Gwen blend humor, personal anecdotes and practical advice, making complex financial topics accessible and engaging. Find more at wwwfiretakespodcom.

Voices [8:39]

That is the straight stuff, oh funk master.

Mostly Uncle Frank [8:42]

And I have listened to it and it is quite entertaining. What do you mean? Funny? Funny how. It's relatively new, but if you're familiar with Ramit Sethi's Couples Financial Problems podcast, this one is also in that vein and talks about relationship problems in the context of financial independence and related topics.

Voices [9:01]

The beatings will continue until morale improves. Daddy is home.

Mostly Uncle Frank [9:07]

But now that I'm done shilling for your podcast, let's get to your questions. But now that I'm done shilling for your podcast, let's get to your questions. All right, your first question is about the use of risk parity portfolios for intermediate term savings, and let me explain to the rest of the audience what we're talking about here. And this is what our eldest son does, and we recommend it to all of our children.

Voices [9:28]

Why? What have children?

Mostly Uncle Frank [9:29]

ever done for me. So when you're accumulating money as you're beginning your working life, you're going to have your long-term accumulation accounts. Those are usually your 401ks and things, and we recommend that's 100% equities because you want it to grow in the long term. Then it's common also to have a certain amount of cash, whether you call that an emergency fund or whatever you want to call it. But then we get to the question of what do we do about what's in between that you're saving for something, but it's years away. You're not even sure when you're going to buy it. It could be a down payment on a house, it could be a new car. Later it could be anything. Last thing our eldest son bought was solar panels with this mechanism.

Mostly Uncle Frank [10:06]

So that is your intermediate term savings, and the solutions for that typically are not been that great. Most people say, well, just save more cash in a different place for that. Okay, you can do that, it'll work. But what you can also do is use a risk parity style portfolio for that intermediate term savings bucket, and the reason this works for this purpose is because of these characteristics of a portfolio like the golden butterfly or golden ratio, that these kind of portfolios have short drawdowns. So the max drawdown for one of these kind of portfolios is three or four years. If you know that, then you can have confidence that you're not going to be in some 10-year hole as if you were in all stocks or something like that, but you're going to get some growth out of the thing. And so our son uses a variation of the golden ratio portfolio that's slightly more aggressive than the sample one for this purpose.

Mostly Uncle Frank [11:02]

So your uses, or your expected uses, are a potential car in a three to six year time frame and seed money for early retirement Roth conversion ladder, and I think both of those are ideal examples of things that you could use this kind of portfolio for, because there is no specific timeframe for them. It's just something you want to do at some point in the future. There's no hard deadline where you actually need to spend the money. You can figure that out later, but you don't want to be in a position where you suffer a big drawdown that goes on for years and years and years. So this is a good example of what you can use this kind of risk parity portfolio for intermediate-term savings, and I don't think you need different strategies for these. You can just do this all in one bucket. This is your intermediate-term savings bucket and it can go for the car, it can go for the Roth conversion ladder later and you might have other uses for it Maybe some solar panels.

Mostly Uncle Frank [11:58]

But then they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler. But I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler. And so no, they're not different enough that you would need two different strategies. They're very similar in fact. What's also nice about doing this when you're young is you get into kind of practice of what it's going to be like when you actually manage your retirement portfolio. But you're doing it on a smaller scale.

Mostly Uncle Frank [12:24]

So, as I mentioned, I would look at something like the golden butterfly or golden ratio portfolios. The kind of variation that our eldest son uses is taking the golden ratio portfolio kind of off the shelf. As to the stock portion at the top the 42%, the treasury bond portion, the 26% and the 16% in gold Although I think he might have some gold miners stuffed in there as well With the 10% allocation and the 6% allocation. He's more aggressive with that. I think he's got some individual REITs in there as well With the 10% allocation and the 6% allocation. He's more aggressive with that.

Mostly Uncle Frank [12:53]

I think he's got some individual REITs in there for that and has spread out maybe that 6% just amongst all the other assets, because you really don't need an extra cash allocation when you're using this portfolio for this purpose, because you already have cash somewhere else. So cash doesn't serve really any purpose in your intermediate accumulation portfolio. But if you want to come up with an idea and just send it back in as a question, I'm sure a lot of our listeners would be interested in this, either for themselves or their kids, and we can talk about what you've come up with and I can tell you what I think of it. And it would be a nice little exercise for our program Kimmer, because that's how we roll here.

Voices [13:33]

One, two, three, four Timber.

Mostly Uncle Frank [13:40]

Timber. Now getting to your second question. First, the most important part of your question is certainly heavy metal recommendations. The most important part of your question is certainly heavy metal recommendations. Since we've been talking about our eldest son, I will give you his favorite thing to listen to when he was about 12. It is the classic Iron Maiden. Put them in the Iron Maiden, iron Maiden, excellent Execute them, bodious, and his Uncle, mike, I believe, gave him this album Fear of the Dark.

Mostly Mary [14:47]

And of course, the lead singer for Iron Maiden is none other than Bruce Dickinson.

Voices [14:52]

Yes, the Bruce Dickinson, other than Bruce Dickinson. Yes, the Bruce Dickinson, and I gotta tell you, fellas, you have got what appears to be a dynamite sound coming from you, bruce. That means a lot.

Mostly Uncle Frank [15:01]

Yeah, I mean, you're Bruce Dickinson if you take what I believe is the first track in that album, be quick or be dead. That is a classically constructed heavy metal song for you, but make sure you get the whole album. I guess you don't call it an album anymore and play it over and over again in the car when you and Gwen are driving around, because that's how our son used to like to listen to it. But now getting to the rest of your question about the tax implications and strategies for rebalancing a more complex portfolio while you're in your peak earning years and we'll go back to that intermediate term risk parity style portfolio, because we're talking about something that's in a taxable account. Obviously, I don't have any problems rebalancing anything that's not in a taxable account, but what you want to do in a taxable account, especially if you're adding money to it, is don't rebalance it at all. You can avoid it but instead just use your new contributions to buy whatever is low. So it's the exact opposite of the way we take money out. When we take money out of these portfolios, we sell from the best performer, the most recent best performer. When you're putting more money into it, you buy more of the thing that's doing the worst and you also reinvest any dividends that way, because the fewer transactions you have with respect to that on the sales side in particular, the less taxes you're going to be paying. It's actually not that bad, though, if it's capital gains taxes, because you're going to be in the zero or 15% tax bracket for that anyway.

Mostly Uncle Frank [16:51]

One thing about having one of these kind of portfolios, though as an intermediate term accumulation portfolio, is that you actually have more tax opportunities in it because you may be able to do some tax loss harvesting. Chances are you're going to have something in the portfolio that's performing badly at a particular time and has accumulated some losses. You can sell that, buy something similar to it to get the loss out of it. Either just take the loss if it's small enough or use that to offset a capital gain in something else. So this is way more tax efficient than holding something like a savings account.

Mostly Uncle Frank [17:27]

That's something that I don't think people really appreciate that if you have lots and lots of money in a high-yield savings account or something similar to that, that is a terrible tax thing in a taxable account, because it's just shooting out ordinary income and all of the gains from it are taxed immediately at the highest rate you're going to be paying. That's why people with a lot of that kind of income are better off using something like that box ETF we talked about in the last episode, and so there is kind of a little paradox there that having a more complicated portfolio with a few more things in it is often better for you on the tax side than holding one thing, particularly if that one thing is paying ordinary income. Now, as for Shannon's demon, well, we'll have to talk about that another time.

Voices [18:11]

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

Mostly Uncle Frank [18:15]

It was very nice of you to write in. It was even nicer of you to donate to the Father McKenna Center.

Voices [18:21]

Yeah, baby, yeah.

Mostly Uncle Frank [18:23]

I wish you and Gwen well and thank you for your email, dude it's Timmy.

Voices [18:28]

No way they're ridiculing that singer. Come on, let's get out of here. And the lords of the underworld Darkness fills my heart with pain. That was awesome. Yeah, Timmy rules. Dude, this is a no-brainer.

Mostly Uncle Frank [18:58]

This year's Battle of the Bands winner and the band that gets to open for Phil Collins is Timmy.

Voices [19:06]

We did it dude. Listen to that.

Mostly Uncle Frank [19:08]

Next off, we have an email from Mark.

Voices [19:19]

Next off an email from Mark.

Mostly Uncle Frank [19:21]

And Mark writes.

Mostly Mary [19:22]

Hi Frank and Mary. I absolutely love the work that you guys are doing. Your podcast and the Rational Reminder podcast are the only two podcasts I try to listen to the same day. They come out Sweet, unless. Rational Reminder is having another episode with Scott Cederberg. Am I right? Or am I right? Or am I right? Right, right, right.

Voices [19:42]

Right, right right.

Mostly Mary [19:45]

I've been meaning to donate to the Father McKenna Center for the past few months, but I just haven't gotten around to it. Cue the. It's not that I'm lazy, it's just that I don't care.

Voices [19:54]

Soundbite it's not that I'm lazy it's that I just don't care.

Mostly Mary [19:59]

Fortunately, your constant yammering about the top of the t-shirt contest in the last two episodes finally motivated me to send in a $50 donation today.

Voices [20:08]

Groovy baby.

Mostly Mary [20:10]

I know that it's for a good cause and that the donation will be put to good use, with you guys involved. And who doesn't love a matching campaign?

Mostly Uncle Frank [20:18]

It's all one big crapshoot, anywho.

Mostly Mary [20:20]

Anywho, my wife and I are quickly approaching retirement and for the past few months, I've taken a deep dive into learning all I can about managing our finances during retirement. That's what led me to your podcast, as well as the Rational Reminder podcast, Tyler's awesome portfolio charts website and several other great sources like testfoliocom. Unfortunately, there is seemingly much more information available about the accumulation phase of investing for retirement than there is about the decumulation phase, despite the fact that the decumulation is so much more complex. That leads me to my question what other resources would you recommend to me and your other listeners to help us increase our knowledge and understanding about managing our finances during retirement? It can be other podcasts, books, websites or any other useful resource that you have found over the years. Once you have compiled this list, maybe you can have your crack team of top men, add an additional resources page to the website and include a list of those resources.

Voices [21:21]

Forget about it.

Mostly Mary [21:23]

Cue the. I don't think I'd like another job. Soundbite.

Mostly Uncle Frank [21:26]

You think anybody wants a roundhouse kick to the face while I'm wearing these bad boys?

Mostly Mary [21:30]

Thanks again for all that you do. Guys, keep up the fantastic work. Regards Mark.

Voices [21:35]

We have top men working on it right now. Who Top men?

Mostly Uncle Frank [21:46]

Well, I feel like I should have a matching campaign more often then. This has really resulted in a lot of great emails this week. But getting to your question, yeah, this sounds like an easy thing to do, but it's actually very difficult to do and very time-consuming, because if you're going to construct a list of resources, it needs to be kept up to date, because a lot of things keep changing with respect to retirement, mostly with respect to legal considerations and tax considerations in particular, and the vast quantity of material goes to things like that. It's also the case that most of what is in retirement planning does not apply to you, that a person running a financial advice practice has to know or be able to look up a whole bunch of different things. That don't apply to most people and they only apply to one segment of clients. This is often why people in advisory practices, whether they're financial advice or tax advice or something else, will focus on one particular kind of client, and actually that's probably, in most cases, the best kind of advisor to go to. You want to know that they serve a whole lot of people who are in your same circumstances, because they are more likely to know all the ins and outs of that, even if they don't know something. That's more esoteric and doesn't come up that often.

Mostly Uncle Frank [23:11]

So the kinds of places I would ordinarily look for sort of basic financial advice pertaining to retirees would be the websites of fee-only financial advisors. One of them that's good is Andy Pankow's website. He's got a lot of free resources there. I'll link to that in the show notes. Cody Garrett also has a good website. I think he's got a little course you can take if you want to build out a plan for yourself for a couple hundred bucks.

Mostly Uncle Frank [23:40]

Sean Mullaney is the FI tax guy who's kind of an expert in 401ks and SEP IRAs and things like that of an expert in 401ks and SEP IRAs and things like that. Cody and Sean are actually writing a book together on tax strategies for early retirees in particular, but I think it's going to apply to later retirees too. I believe that book is coming out in August. It might be something you want to check out. And then, if you're looking for something more of like a reference book, wade Pfau's book, which I can link to in the show notes, is kind of a textbook manual for financial advisors. That covers all kinds of topics. It's not something you would sit down and read, but something you would use to look things up in these days because we have things like ChatGPT. You can have a lot of conversations about it there, but you need to be careful because a lot of the information on there is inaccurate or obsolete.

Voices [24:39]

Okay, turn it on.

Voices [24:45]

It's a piece of crap. It doesn't work. I could have told you that.

Mostly Uncle Frank [24:50]

But those are the kinds of places I would look. I would definitely be looking at people who are in the financial advisory business or related businesses, because they have a lot of incentives to keep their information up to date and to make sure there's nothing inaccurate about it, whereas somebody like me or other do-it-yourselfer does not have that kind of incentive and from what I've seen of people like myself who try to put together such lists, it's too much work to keep them updated, forget about it, and so they become obsolete after a time. I must be feeling charitable today with all this giving going on, since I'm saying nice things about financial advisors.

Voices [25:28]

Surely you can't be serious.

Mostly Uncle Frank [25:29]

I am serious and don't call me Shirley Bet. You thought you'd never hear something like that from me, but there actually are a lot of good people out there in the world.

Voices [25:38]

A lot of them just have bad incentives as we're adding a little something to this month's sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want this month's sales contest? As you all know, first prize is a cadillac eldorado. Anybody want to see second?

Voices [25:54]

prize. Second prize a set of steak knives.

Mostly Uncle Frank [25:56]

Third prize is you're fired now if you're looking for material more about portfolio construction, then I would not look to those financial advisor type sites. That's better on the planning side. If you want something that's at the level of this podcast or higher, you really need to look at books that are written by professionals in the business and are not directed at popular personal finance audiences. So you'd look at books and white papers by people like Antti Ilmanen and they're called things like Expected Returns and he's at AQR with Cliff Asness. They also write a lot of white papers there. So if you're looking for a library of stuff, you would go there and do some research. I'm also remiss in failing to mention Michael Kitsis, which I should have mentioned in the first place, because he covers both of these things. He's one of the few people that's in financial advice that I would actually trust to give higher level academic kind of work, and if you go to his site, he's been writing articles for almost a couple of decades now, and so there's a whole lot of information there, and when you guys send me a question, I will frequently go there and see what he's written, because that is an extremely high signal to noise ratio.

Mostly Uncle Frank [27:10]

There's a book. It's about 10 years old now it's called the Aspirational Investor. That I would also look at. I really thought it was spot on when I was developing our own strategies. That one is written by Ashfin Chhabra, who was a former chief investment officer at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management. That was one of the books that convinced me that I was on the right track with respect to this portfolio construction stuff when I read it about 10 years ago.

Mostly Uncle Frank [27:38]

Now, someone who also already has some great resources is Tyler at Portfolio Charts, and if you go over and even just read through the sample portfolios, there's all kinds of information embedded in there with all kinds of links to articles and other things. And if you just read through all of the portfolios in there, you would have a better understanding than most financial advisors of what these things are, how they work and what the history of them has been. And then, finally, I'd be remiss of not mentioning that if you just go to the RSS feed page for this podcast, I tried to put links to all of the resources in the show notes, so you'll find all 428 episodes on one page with all the show notes and you can word search that for any topic. I can't guarantee that all the links still work, but the material is there and usually that podcast will say something about whatever that material was. That is the closest thing I have to an additional resources page and that's all you're going to get out of me for that.

Voices [28:40]

That and a nickel. Get your hot cup a jack squat.

Mostly Uncle Frank [28:46]

Hopefully all that that helps and thank you for your email last off last off, I have an email from luke excellent, everything is going as planned and luke writes hi frank and the newly crowned queen mary.

Mostly Mary [29:24]

I just want to say thank you for answering my questions during episode 421. As usual, you didn't disappoint. I also found the Caboclois soundbites very amusing, even though I'm probably the only listener who understood any of it.

Voices [29:38]

Parce que vive le Québec. Puis je me souviens.

Mostly Mary [29:41]

As a token of appreciation and to further support a good cause, I have doubled my contribution to the Father McKenna Center.

Voices [29:48]

Double your pleasure double your fun.

Mostly Mary [29:52]

I added a note, so it counts toward the contribution match campaign you recently launched. On a somewhat related note, I wanted to say that your story about Sister Francine was very inspiring. I know your podcast is meant to be about personal finance, but I'd be grateful for more of that type of content. Maybe you should write your memoirs, but I know you're not looking for another job.

Mostly Uncle Frank [30:12]

Looks like you've been missing a lot of work lately. I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob.

Mostly Mary [30:17]

No questions today, but I do have one more offer to express my gratitude. You mentioned in a recent episode that the person who offered to help you with your website got busy and couldn't help. I'm not a professional web developer but, as mentioned previously, I'm in software engineering and I think I know enough to improve on your methods. Oh sure, I think I've improved on your methods a bit too. I employed some Chiara Scuro shading. Would you be interested in me helping out? No pressure, of course. It's your podcast and your website. Keep up the good work. I'll be listening. All the best, Luke.

Voices [30:54]

Use the force, Luke, Let go Luke.

Mostly Uncle Frank [31:02]

Nice emails today. Huh yeah, the best, mary, the best. Well, thank you so much for your wonderful email, luke, and thank you for your offer. You are correct that I do want to keep this podcast focused on personal finance and portfolio construction in particular, but I don't mind talking about the whys of things every once in a while, about life, the universe and everything.

Voices [31:30]

Now, when men get to fighting, it happens here and it finishes here Two men enter, one man leaves. Two men enter, one man leaves.

Mostly Uncle Frank [32:05]

But I'd rather that just come out in the due course of whatever else we're talking about here. I don't want to end up sounding like Stuart Smalley.

Voices [32:14]

Stuart Smalley is a caring nurturer, a member of several 12-step programs, but not a licensed therapist. I'm going to do a terrific show today and I'm going to help people because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and doggone it. People like me.

Mostly Uncle Frank [32:37]

Or maybe Jack Handy.

Voices [32:39]

And now, Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy. Sometimes, when I feel like killing someone, I do a little trick to calm myself down. I'll go over to the person's house and ring the doorbell. When the person comes to the door, I'm gone. But you know what I've left on the porch? A jack-o'-lantern with a knife stuck in the side of its head with a note that says you.

Mostly Uncle Frank [33:07]

And I would be interested in having you help me out or at least take a look at it. So I will send you an email and maybe we can do a Zoom and chat about that, Because one of the other purposes of this podcast that has evolved over time, at least for me is to simply make new acquaintances and make new friends, and in my experience that is actually the best way that friendships are formed as adults. When two people are in the same environment, one of them sees another one who struggles with something as I struggle with websites and things like that and simply says, hey, I know something about that, Maybe I could help. That old saying is quite true A friend in need is a friend in deed, and I will happily put up with your Canadian-ness.

Voices [33:52]

Oh, good day. Oh, good day. Good day, good day, coo-loo-coo-coo-coo-coo-coo, coo-loo-coo-coo-coo-coo-coo-coo, good day, how's it going? I'm Bob McKenzie. This is my brother, doug. How's it going, eh?

Mostly Uncle Frank [34:04]

And your Frenchness Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time. So thank you again for your contributions.

Voices [34:19]

And thank you for your email.

Mostly Uncle Frank [34:21]

And now for something completely different. And the something completely different is our weekly portfolio reviews of the eight sample portfolios you can find at wwwriskprioritycom on the portfolios page Boring. We also have our monthly distributions to go through. But just looking at the markets, the S&P 500, represented by the fund VOO, is up 0.9% for the year now. The NASDAQ 100, represented by QQQ, is up 1.69% for the year now. Small cap value continues to lag. Representative fund VIOV is down 11.5% for the year now. But gold continues to shine.

Voices [35:01]

I love gold.

Mostly Uncle Frank [35:05]

Representative fund GLDM is up 25.49% for the year. Long-term treasury bonds, represented by the fund VGLT, are up 0.73% for the year. Reits, represented by the fund REET, are up 4.21% for the year. Commodities, represented by the fund PDBC, are now down for the year. They're down 3.46% for the year, probably due to lower oil prices, I would suspect. Preferred shares, represented by the fund PFFV, are down 0.05% for the year and managed futures are still managing to drag along. Representative fund DBMF is down 2.92% for the year.

Mostly Uncle Frank [35:45]

Moving to these portfolios, first one is our reference portfolio, the all seasons. It's only 30% in stocks and its whole stock market fund, 55% in intermediate and long-term treasury bonds and the remaining 15% in gold and commodities. It is up 0.66% for the month of May. It's up 2.78% year to date and up 11.5% since inception, july 2020. We are distributing out of it at a 4% annualized rate. So for the month of June that'll be $31. We'll take it out of the gold fund, gldm, which has been the best performer recently. That'll be $187 year to date and $1,877 since inception in July 2020. And all these portfolios did start with about $10,000 in them for reference.

Mostly Uncle Frank [36:35]

Moving to these kind of bread and butter portfolios, first one's Golden Butterfly. It's 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. It's up 1.57% for the month of May. It's up 3.85% Year-to-date. It's up 39.09% since inception, july 2020. We are distributing out of this at a 5% annualized rate. That will be $45 for the month of June and it will come out of gold as well. Gldm that'll be $272 distributed year-to-date and $2,573 since inception in July 2020.

Mostly Uncle Frank [37:16]

Next one's golden ratio it 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 6% in cash in a money market. It's up 2.21% month to date. It's up 2.33% year to date and up 32.98% since inception in July 2020. Now this one we always distribute from the cash portion of it and just refill that up once a year. So it'll be $43 for the month of June. It'll come from the cash. That'll be $259 year-to-date and $2,521 since inception in July 2020.

Mostly Uncle Frank [37:58]

Next, one's the risk parity ultimate. I'm not going to go through all 14 of these funds in this portfolio, but it is up 1.78% for the month of May, up 1.92% year-to-date and up 21.85% since inception in July 2020. We are distributing out of this one at a 5% annualized rate currently, which will involve distributing $39 for the month of June, and that will come out of the Bitcoin. This portfolio has a 1% allocation to Bitcoin, although it looks more like 2% at the moment. That will be $236 year-to-date and $2,686 since inception in July 2020. Now moving to these experimental portfolios that all involve leveraged funds. Do not try this at home.

Voices [38:45]

You have a gambling problem.

Mostly Uncle Frank [38:47]

First one's the accelerated permanent portfolio. This one's 27.5% in a levered bond fund TMF, 25% in a levered stock fund UPRO, 25% in PFFV, a preferred shares fund, and 22.5% in gold GLDM. Well, it looks more like 27% in gold right now. It is up 0.3% for the month of May. It's up 1.93% year-to-date and up 2.98% since inception in July 2020. We're distributing $37 out of it from cash that has accumulated. We're doing that at a 6% annualized rate for this portfolio. It'll be $230 year-to-date and $2,860 since inception in July 2020. Next one's the aggressive 50-50. This is the most levered and least diversified of these portfolios and also the worst performer. If you wonder why we keep it around, it is as a good learning experience to see what happens when you have a lot of leverage and not that much diversification.

Voices [39:48]

I'm gonna end up eating a steady diet of government cheese and living in a van down by the river.

Mostly Uncle Frank [39:57]

So this one is one-third in a leveraged stock fund, upro, one-third in a leveraged bond fund, tmf, the remaining third in preferred shares and an intermediate treasury bond fund. It's up 1.1% for the month of May. It's down 4.87% year-to-date and down 16.21% since inception in July 2020. We are distributing out of this one at a 6% annualized rate. That'll be $30. It's going to come out of the Intermediate Treasury Bond Fund, vgit. So it'll be $192 year-to-date and $2,861 since inception in July 2020. Moving to our next experimental portfolio, the levered golden ratio. This one is 35% in a composite levered fund called NTSX, that is, the S&P 500 and treasury bonds levered, up 1.5 to 1. 20% in gold, gldm, 15% in an international small cap value fund, avdv. 10% in KMLM, which is a managed futures fund, 10% in a levered bond fund, tmf, and the remaining 10% divided into two levered funds, udao and UTSL. Let follow the DAO and a utilities index respectively. This one is our big winner for the year so far, which is good for it because it has struggled in the past. It's up 2.57% month to date. It's up 5.1% year to date and up 0.45% since inception in July 2021. It's a good example of what happens when you start at a really bad time to start withdrawing. We will be distributing $34 out of it from GLDM that's the gold fund. That's at a 5% annualized rate. It'll be $201 year-to-date and $1,757 since inception. And moving to our last portfolio, the Optra portfolio, it's an example of a return-stacked configuration and it's less than a year old. So this one is 16% in a levered stock fund, upro, 24% in an all-world value fund, avgv, 24% in a treasury strips fund, govz, and the remaining 36% divided into gold and managed futures. It's up 3.04% month to date. It's up 2.83% year-to-date and up 5.83% since inception in July 2024. We'll be distributing $50 out of cash that is accumulated. It's at a 6% annualized rate. That's for the month of June. That'll be $256 distributed year-to-date and $562 since inception in July 2024. And that concludes our weekly and monthly portfolio reviews. But now I see our signal is beginning to fade.

Mostly Uncle Frank [42:41]

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. 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 Parity Radio signing off.

Voices [43:14]

You've got to watch them. Big red coffee dead. Snake eyes in heaven, the beef's in your head. You've got to watch them. Big red coffee dead. Snake eyes in heaven, the beef's in your head. Big red red beef dead. Big red.

Mostly Mary [43:38]

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.