Musings about Life and Investments

To bullet proof your portfolio and achieve positive returns in a crash, you need to hold almost zero equities, a lot of cash, gold / silver, hedge funds and private equity. Just sharing my thoughts. The traditional barbell approach is to hold 50% cash / AAA rated bonds, maybe silver and gold. Things that should make money when stock markets crash (defined as > 20% drop). The other 50% is equities. If stocks were to crash by 50%, at least the “safe” portfolio will rise by 5%. Cash will not give you anything. AAA bonds maybe 5%. Silver and gold maybe 10 – 20%. Mind you the portfolio will still fall by 22.5%. 50% correction of a 50% allocation = 25%. 50% of a 5% increase for the safe portion is only 2.5% increase. The other option is to go for 30% cash, gold / silver, 50% hedge funds / PE, 20% equities. In a crash, 50% of 20% for equities = 10% drop. Gold and silver up 15%, cash flat. So 7.5% (half of 30% into gold and silver) of 30% = 2.25% up. The hedge fund / PE portion

I've been doing around 15% per year regularly, since 2016. Prior to that, I was doing 10% per year. I've learned the art of long-short equities, going net short in 2018 and net long in 2016, 17 and 19. However, my momentum and value tactics have always been long term and it works the best when markets trend. I achieved 50% in 2016, 40% in 2017, -10% in 2018 and 5% in 2019 so far. 2018 and 2019 were disappointing years for me. I expected to do better. Hence I decided to pursue a course that I knew of its existence in 2010. I was sceptical initially as it was very costly, the trainer didn't have any financial / academic credentials. I have the CFA and CAIA. Surely I didn't need to learn from those who don't do I? It appears that those who have finance training may not actually be great investors. I took courses from trainers who had CFA. But their results were mixed. One was already financially free. No doubt brilliant, taught mostly fundamentals which I was alrea

https://youtu.be/WWc14uBHGiQ Latest posting for my market comments.