6 years in: How has Karl’s Permanent Portfolio performed compared to the DOW or S&P500?

It was August 21, 2015, when I published a buy and hold portfolio which is designed to weather both good times and bad while being static (no trading). The purpose of publishing the portfolio is for educational purposes only, and readers should review the disclosures at the top of the portfolio’s page. I do not make any money on publishing this and even this blog brings me zero income. This is simply information for the public to do with as they wish or to throw in the digital trash. The portfolio has been called “eclectic” because of its diversification and inclusion. With standard-bearers such as Berkshire Hathaway and gold, it also includes Bitcoin and various foreign currencies. I designed it to be static — true buy and hold. The only change was regarding the ending of CurrencyShares Singapore Dollar Trust earlier this year, and I converted that to actual Singapore Dollars. I designed the portfolio to have little tax and fee consequences during its growth.

One can start with $1,000 and add to the portfolio periodically as they wish or not. This is not an ETF, though in retrospect, perhaps I should have created a fund; but this is something anyone can do or follow. The portfolio began with NVR, BRK.b, and PayPal as its top three holdings and a few of its smallest holdings started with Bitcoin and the Singapore Dollar. Since there is no periodic rebalancing of the portfolio, there have been many changes to the top three and bottom three holdings.

It has now been six years, let’s see how it’s done! Over the last six years, the DOW has gone up 113% and the S&P 500 has risen 125% while my permanent portfolio has risen 790% (an average of 131% per year). This return does not consider dividends, etc. Had you invested $10,000 in what the portfolio put forth, it would have increased in value to $79,000 (exclusive of dividends, etc.) Bitcoin has been the highest performing in the portfolio, along with PayPal, NVR, and the iShares Gold Trust, respectively. The worst performing was the Swiss Franc going down almost 3% over the last six years. I do not expect future returns to be anywhere near as rosy as 131% per year (that is unsustainable), although it has always outperformed the DOW and S&P 500. Prior years have shown the following CUMULATIVE returns: YR1 12%, YR2 79.4%, YR3 125%, YR4 159%, YR5 252.3%, YR6 790%.

You can thank the financial mismanagement by our federal government for these above-average returns as “quantitative easing,” raging federal deficits, federal debts, etc have helped to propel this portfolio to new highs. So long as our government acts irresponsibly, my version of a Permanent Portfolio will continue to excel.

My top 5 stock picks for 2021

If you wanted to add another, go with Alphabet (GOOGL) Class A

I will post the 2021 Portfolio’s prices on January 1, 2021, and then update six months later, then again on 12/31/2021. Let’s see how it performs, positive or negative.

For information on my Permanent Portfolio which has well outperformed the market averages over the last five years go here: https://karldickey.wordpress.com/karl-dickey-investment-portfolio/

Disclaimer: The material provided on this website should be used for informational purposes only and in no way should be relied upon for financial advice. Also, note that such material is not updated regularly and some information may not, therefore, be current. Please be sure to consult your own financial advisor when making decisions regarding your financial management.

Put your BUY orders in for Berkshire Hathaway

The material provided on this website should be used for informational purposes only and in no way should be relied upon for financial advice. Please be sure to consult your own financial advisor when making decisions regarding your financial management. I am not in any way a licensed anything and some people think I am a bit of a dolt.

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While there are numerous news headlines telling you that Warren Buffett has lost his touch and you should abandon Berkshire Hathaway (BRK), I feel investors should do the opposite.

This is the time to be buying BRK while it has been beaten down to the tune of around 17% over the last year and over 25% these past few months. It is a conglomerate worth owning that does not pay a dividend and has a proven positive track record lasting decades. Whether one has $1,000, $100,000 or $10,000,000 to invest, it should be directed to BRK over the next five months so long as one does not need a dividend and is seeking capital appreciation over the long term (ten or more years).

BRK comes in two versions; the “A” shares and the baby “B” shares and they mostly trade in concert with one another. Most Americans will buy the $170 +/- BRK.b shares which trade an average of eight million shares daily. But if you are able, purchase the BRK.a shares which are at around $250,000/share, and trade a little over 400 shares daily. This is a long-term stock, one to own for your retirement and potentially hand down to your beneficiaries when you pass.

It is my opinion, one should dollar-cost-average this stock over the next five months. So, as an example, if you plan to put $10,000 into BRK.b, buy either $2,000 worth each month or even better: buy around $500 each and every week for the next five months. Your future self will thank you.

BTW, here is a link to my most recent permanent portfolio update.

My COVID beard has gone a bit too far; time to get out the razor!

Permanent Portfolio Update

I was not planning to do another update to my Permanent Portfolio until August 21, 2020, which would be the five year anniversary I made this portfolio public, but with all that is going on, I thought we’d do a quick check-in.

So, we have had one change regarding the CurrencyShares Singapore Dollar Trust. This is no longer on the exchange so hereon, I will use the actual currency exchange rate between the Singapore Dollar and the U.S. Dollar. It had almost no effect as the Trust never moved very much and you will see at 71SD to 1USD, it is precisely the same value it was in 2015.

Moving on to the portfolio as a whole, much to my surprise, it actually ticked up since the beginning of the year. It went up 1.3% YTD while the S&P and DOW have been down YTD. Perhaps the most disappointing so far this year has been Berkshire Hathaway, NVR, Vanguard’s Small Cap Index Fund, and Vanguard’s U.S. Real Estate Fund. These have taken a dive. It is for these reasons I strongly recommend dollar-cost-averaging so you are buying shares each month or each quarter – sometimes at a lower price and sometimes at a higher price. This portfolio; however, is designed to be static (no trading).

From August 21,2015 through May 1, 2020, the portfolio has returned a gain of 163% (exclusive of dividends) while the S&P has returned 43.7% and the DOW 44%. The portfolio has continued to outperform even in times of turmoil, which is how it was designed to perform.

The next update will happen on August 21, 2020.

June 2019 permanent portfolio update

Here we are with another update of the Permanent Portfolio and it has been performing well. Overall, it has increased in value of 159% with an annualized return of 27.47% (inclusive of dividends). During the same time frame, the DOW has increased in value by 50.7% and the S&P has increased by 39.6%. The relatively small original investment in Bitcoin (3%) has taken over a disproportionate percentage (41.1%) of the portfolio due to its dramatic rise over time. The portfolio’s worst performers have been investing in the Swiss Franc (a loss of almost 9%) and silver (a loss of over 6%). Besides Bitcoin, the best performers in the portfolio are NVR (108%), PayPal (over 213%), and the New Zeland Dollar (over 51%).

As said in the intro, this portfolio is designed to remain static (no trading) while also keeping one’s tax bill and fees to the lowest levels. I feel it would have been prudent to have trimmed the Bitcoin investment so it didn’t “take over” the portfolio with its wild swings. But we’re in for the long haul on this one, so it will be interesting to see its progression. Next update will be on the four-year mark – August 21, 2019.

See the portfolio page here.

Paul Tudor Jones rolls out “JUST” ETF with Goldman Sachs in effort to ‘modernize capitalism’

Today, June 12, 2018, legendary macro investor Paul Tudor Jones did a commercial free interview on CNBC to promote tomorrow’s rollout of the new ETF “JUST”. Jones is someone I have followed for decades and is someone worthy of respect as he has built a multi-billion dollar fortune while privately preserving thousands of acres of land around the globe. Jones has long had the confidence of life and business strategist Tony Robbins and recently opened offices on Palm Beach, Florida.

“JUST” is based on backtesting the performance of socially responsible companies based on a nationwide poll of Americans to their definition of what it means for a company to be socially responsible. Based on that backtesting it is projected to outperform the Russell 1000 and the S&P 500. As one can imagine, there is a wide array of opinions about social investing and conscious capitalism.

First and foremost, there is nothing wrong with conscious capitalism and I personally would subscribe to many of its standards. Conscious capitalism is completely in tune with the base term of capitalism though some try and twist its true meaning. Before going further, I welcome JUST to the ETF stage so this is simply a brief examination of Jones’ interview and whether we need to “modernize capitalism.”

During the interview, Jones took issue with the Milton Friedman philosophy that the responsibility of a corporation is to return profits to its shareholders. Jones said, “When Milton Friedman said, that tax rates had just come from 91 percent to 70 and income inequality was one-fifth of what it is today. You can see how it was relevant at the time but fast forward to where we are today, it’s a different deal.”

I would argue that trying to redefine “capitalism” or “modernize” the word is an unneeded exercise. People need to understand what capitalism actually is as opposed to the distortions made by many. Capitalism is only the free voluntary exchange of value from one to another. That is it. There is no other valid definition. Where we run into the weeds is when we confuse cronyism and government force with capitalism. When a company uses government force or taxpayer money in the name of “economic development” to advance itself over its competition then that is NOT capitalism. When are corporate uses fraud and other deviant means to profit, then that is NOT capitalism.

An interesting fact not asked of Jones during the interview is that arguably the best investor alive today is Warren Buffett and he has long held through his Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) the same opinion of Friedman. Buffett holds that it is the duty of the corporation to profit well, compensate employees & stockholders, and through an employee’s personal income and investor’s profits of stock to donate to their preferred charity. It is not the corporation’s responsibility to be charitable, but to maximize profits. BRK and Buffett do not believe corporations should give charity directly but it is expected of their employees and shareholders to perform charity on their own terms.  So, while Buffett is personally the single most charitable man in America, one would be hard-pressed to find any meaningful charity from BRK. It is because BRK has grown to such a level that Buffett is able to personally be as charitable as he is.

It is important to bring up Buffett because he is mostly an equities investor as JUST will be as well, while Jones is more of a macro investor which extends far beyond equities. It will be interesting to see how JUST develops and performs over the coming years in its returns to investors and society as a whole. And by the way, although I hold Buffett in high esteem, he is not without his own flagrant crony capitalistic exploits.

Jones and Buffett do agree that the government is a horrible redistributor of capital and it is best to leave it to private business through voluntary exchange rather than forced government takings. Buffett has said, “The free market’s the best mechanism ever devised to put resources to their most efficient and productive use. … The government isn’t particularly good at that. But the market isn’t so good at making sure that the wealth that’s produced is being distributed fairly or wisely.” On the same issue of government redistribution, Jones said during the interview, “THAT’S THE WORST OF ALL OUTCOMES BECAUSE THAT’S THE WORST WAY TO REDISTRIBUTE INCOME.” Through JUST and his other causes, Jones is looking to redistribute wealth organically, outside the inefficiencies and force of government.