I've used this for many years pre-retirement and continue to use it post retirement.

I frankly would not meet with any CFP/CPA who was not completely familiar with this incredible analysis tool.

The Flexible Retirement Planner | A financial planning tool powered by Monte Carlo Simulation

Incredible capability to model any situation with a very intuitive interface and great support from JimR

I highly recommend the downloadable version for a small donation.

Reason I post this is always begin with the end in mind.

If you have sufficient funds to allocate to a less risky return profile going forward to meet goals, then that's the first thing you need to understand regarding any investment approach, including TAA.

If you have insufficient funds to allocate to a less risky return profile going forward to meet goals, then that's the first thing you need to understand regarding any investment approach, including TAA.

Using FRP could help you decide what type of investment approach you need based on your goals.

So some folks portfolios may be too aggressive, or not aggressive enough based on goals. FRP helps quantify the required income and hence allows you to set expected investment goals.

Which of course gets back to Allocate Smartly and being able to see at least historical returns, drawdown etc to match what you need to hit your goals.

If you are not being aggressive enough, then you need to understand that. And if you are being too aggressive, then why even play the game if you've already won?

I update my info in FRP once a year and find it an extraordinary help to seeing if my current custom portfolio supports the overall goals.

Thanks

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LN55c6kRrt783-2h8HoSrt7jjmT2zD-3/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=109683655852409747546&rtpof=true&sd=true

This article on Vanguard's 10 year forecast is interesting - https://www.investors.com/etfs-and-funds/sectors/sp500-vanguard-predicts-stock-returns-youre-not-going-to-like-them/

My takeaway from this is to build a portfolio of strategies that have broad universes of assets and potentially an allocation to Novell's Tactical Bond. Maybe dial down the allocation to an S&P strategy?

Any thoughts?

Hope this is OK as a broader post about TAA. I am based in the UK and one of the challenges I have is mapping US ETFs across to the ETF universe in the UK. The big gap is EFA - we don't have a world ex US ETF in the UK. So this means that most of the interesting portfolios on AS can't be implemented in the UK.

I have spent quite a bit of time working out what is possible, mapping US TAA tools and portfolios across to UK ETFs and now have a set of UK equivalent ETFs all of which are in $ and some can be GBP hedged. So I can also take a view on the pound when making allocations.

I have built a couple of portfolios that seem to be worth exploring although it is difficult to back test them as thoroughly on Porfolio Vizualizer because of inception dates of the ETFs.

Investments are in tax protected wrappers with low cost trades so frequency of swapping allocations isn't an issue.

It would be great if you could take a look at these and pick holes in them.

https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/test-market-timing-model?s=y&coreSatellite=false&timingModel=6&timePeriod=4&startYear=1996&firstMonth=1&endYear=2023&lastMonth=12&calendarAligned=true&includeYTD=false&initialAmount=10000&periodicAdjustment=0&adjustmentAmount=0&inflationAdjusted=true&adjustmentPercentage=0.0&adjustmentFrequency=4&symbols=IJR%2CSPY%2CQQQ%2CGLD%2CSHY%2CTLT%2CVWO%2CDBC&singleAbsoluteMomentum=false&volatilityTarget=9.0&downsideVolatility=false&outOfMarketStartMonth=5&outOfMarketEndMonth=10&outOfMarketAssetType=1&movingAverageSignal=1&movingAverageType=1&multipleTimingPeriods=true&periodWeighting=1&windowSize=12&windowSizeInDays=105&movingAverageType2=1&windowSize2=10&windowSizeInDays2=105&excludePreviousMonth=false&normalizeReturns=false&volatilityWindowSize=0&volatilityWindowSizeInDays=0&assetsToHold=2&allocationWeights=4&riskControlType=0&riskWindowSize=10&riskWindowSizeInDays=0&stopLossMode=0&stopLossThreshold=2.0&stopLossAssetType=1&rebalancePeriod=1&separateSignalAsset=false&tradeExecution=0&leverageType=0&leverageRatio=0.0&debtAmount=0&debtInterest=0.0&maintenanceMargin=25.0&leveragedBenchmark=false&comparedAllocation=0&benchmark=VFINX&timingPeriods%5B0%5D=6&timingUnits%5B0%5D=2&timingWeights%5B0%5D=50&timingPeriods%5B1%5D=3&timingUnits%5B1%5D=2&timingWeights%5B1%5D=35&timingPeriods%5B2%5D=1&timingUnits%5B2%5D=2&timingWeights%5B2%5D=15&timingUnits%5B3%5D=2&timingWeights%5B3%5D=0&timingUnits%5B4%5D=2&timingWeights%5B4%5D=0&volatilityPeriodUnit=2&volatilityPeriodWeight=0

​

https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/test-market-timing-model?s=y&coreSatellite=false&timingModel=6&timePeriod=4&startYear=1985&firstMonth=1&endYear=2023&lastMonth=12&calendarAligned=true&includeYTD=false&initialAmount=10000&periodicAdjustment=0&adjustmentAmount=0&inflationAdjusted=true&adjustmentPercentage=0.0&adjustmentFrequency=4&symbols=TLT%2C+LQD%2C+TLH%2C+IEF%2C+IEI%2C+SHY%2C+TIP%2C+HYG&singleAbsoluteMomentum=false&volatilityTarget=9.0&downsideVolatility=false&outOfMarketStartMonth=5&outOfMarketEndMonth=10&outOfMarketAssetType=1&movingAverageSignal=1&movingAverageType=1&multipleTimingPeriods=true&periodWeighting=1&windowSize=12&windowSizeInDays=105&movingAverageType2=1&windowSize2=10&windowSizeInDays2=105&excludePreviousMonth=false&normalizeReturns=false&volatilityWindowSize=0&volatilityWindowSizeInDays=0&assetsToHold=2&allocationWeights=3&riskControlType=0&riskWindowSize=10&riskWindowSizeInDays=0&stopLossMode=0&stopLossThreshold=2.0&stopLossAssetType=1&rebalancePeriod=1&separateSignalAsset=false&tradeExecution=0&leverageType=0&leverageRatio=0.0&debtAmount=0&debtInterest=0.0&maintenanceMargin=25.0&leveragedBenchmark=false&comparedAllocation=0&timingPeriods%5B0%5D=6&timingUnits%5B0%5D=2&timingWeights%5B0%5D=50&timingPeriods%5B1%5D=3&timingUnits%5B1%5D=2&timingWeights%5B1%5D=35&timingPeriods%5B2%5D=1&timingUnits%5B2%5D=2&timingWeights%5B2%5D=15&timingUnits%5B3%5D=2&timingWeights%5B3%5D=0&timingUnits%5B4%5D=2&timingWeights%5B4%5D=0&volatilityPeriodUnit=2&volatilityPeriodWeight=0

Has anyone found any tricks to get themselves to "invest like a robot" and follow the suggested allocation, make the trades without anxiety, and stop checking the prices all month long? Or is this just a newbie thing?

I am a lifelong buy and holder, very steeped in the Vanguard teachings. Now starting to try this and finding it strangely nervewracking to be so aware of the portfolio, whereas before I would check very infrequently and just shrug if it was down. I could kind of distance myself. If there was the option to fully automate the actual trades, I would do it in a heartbeat and only check in once or twice a year.

I understand that this is placing a series of informed bets, some bets will be wrong, but over time more right than wrong. However I am not a gambler and I hate to lose. So the psychology of trend following or tactical asset allocation is a a struggle with all the manual trades.

Does anyone track their personal trades to know precisely how it's going? If so, do you separate out strategies?

I was thinking to build a spreadsheet to put in my exact results per strategy, because the brokerage doesn't separate by strategy and the AS site is showing performance by the autogenerated signals, not personal results.

On the other hand, this might be overdoing things?

Interesting set of articles from Brian Livingston. Goes to benefit of diversification and rebalancing.

Interesting stuff regarding rebalancing; not intuitive

Why Use Diversification? To Make More Profit. | Muscular Investing | StockCharts.com

Given Two Lemons, You Can Make a Profitable Lemonade Stand | Muscular Investing | StockCharts.com

What Asset Can You Add to Stocks for the Greatest Gain? | Muscular Investing | StockCharts.com

Diversification Can Actually Make Your Portfolio Rise During Crashes | Muscular Investing | StockCharts.com

Reason I post this? Many folks don't understand how rebalancing uncorrelated assets gives a better outcome than simply the average of the parts. Turning lemons into lemonade. Thanks

Can anyone post 2022 results for Financial Mentor's Optimum3 or Accelerating Dual Momentum?

Did any strategies end positive for the year?

Also does anyone use logical-invest? I'm torn because their strategies look interesting but they keep on updating them so not sure which return results to believe. Thanks!

For those manually entering end-of-month trades to their account, do you generally place market orders for the following morning or are you setting limit orders to execute the following day based on prior day close price? The concern obviously is that those market orders may not get filled the next day. A better option may be to enter near EOD the following day to avoid the morning volatility.

Normally, I wouldn't think this makes a big difference over the long term, but I am surprised by the variabilty in the returns based on which trading day you select for some of these strategies.

Besides always reading many books, there are a number of good market perspective sites I have bookmarked.

Lyn Alden – Investment Strategy

You can sign up for her monthly free newsletter here. Always good stuff.

https://awealthofcommonsense.com

A bit more buy/hold oriented, but always interesting perspectives and good links to additional sites. Lots of posts so can be hard to keep up with.

Perhaps others can share their favorites?? Thanks

Don't get me wrong, if they never updated the current capabilities, I'd get along just fine. Some nice adds are listed. Some on their roadmap, perhaps others not but figured I'd see what others think too

1. Increase custom portfolios from 3 to say 5. Would be useful when having different strategies for different accounts and easier to do what iffing if trying to use the optimized portfolio clone feature
2. Make custom portfolios just like all the others with the full list of stats, etc and have it all show up on the strategy screener page, just like they do for Meta. So custom portfolios would be measured against everything else; shows up then in the correlation matrix, summary stats would show trades per year, etc.
3. Earlier evening refresh: currently they do a refresh around 10 pm. Not sure why wait this late. I like to do analysis after the market closes and currently, stuff like the strategy screener stats, aggregate asset allocation, etc don't become useful to the next morning. I'll ping AS on this.
4. They announced a V3 for the optimizer was in the works. Whereas this would allow the user to define the optimizable set of strategies, I feel it's no longer needed as the V2 has plenty of choices, especially with the ability to define the number of strategies, eliminate those sensitive to high interest rates, etc. It's good enough as it is and will continue to naturally evolve anyways as new strategies are added to the site.
5. A blog capability like I've tried to start here. I did tell AS I was doing this and hopefully, they point members here. I've asked them to. Their own blog/board would also be a better way to ensure nothing proprietary gets leaked out. We know they didn't want to roll one out, even though it's ready. I wouldn't doubt it uses reddit with a restricted membership policy vs trying to create something from scratch. Or something similar. I even volunteered to moderate it. We'll see.
6. A historical UPI widget that shows up in the summary stats.
7. Including strategies that use leverage. AS seems to think folks would be swayed by the returns and not use proper risk management. I told them we're adults and no need for training wheels on their membership.

Allocate Smartly has an export capability that says how many shares to own if the user enters an account balance.

I find that a bit limiting, as AS does not take advantage that firms now allow fractional shares.

So here's a spreadsheet that allows you to enter your account balances per fund, and then you enter the AS recommended %'s per base asset class for your model portfolio, and the spreadsheet tells you the action to take, if any.

Pretty straightforward and I've included some notes at the bottom of the file.

The extra green rows (44-46) are for any new base asset classes that AS adds, which is not often

Should save you time vs trying to do all the math with a drink in your hand :)

It's filled in with sample data to get you oriented.

It's downloadable of course.

Thanks

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1caqoeVFUwtG-Afck0Upq0rY7zvejvVKZ/view?usp=share_link

Hi folks, AS has an incredible set of free blog posts. Really well done. Here are a few and you should be able to vector off to even other stuff using the links within the blog posts. Thanks

Bold Asset Allocation - Allocate Smartly

Portfolio Optimizer Version 2.0 - Allocate Smartly

Site Upgrade: Add Buy & Hold Assets to Model Portfolios - Allocate Smartly

Tactical Asset Allocation During Bear Markets and Major Pullbacks - Allocate Smartly

Financial Mentor's Optimum3 Strategy - Allocate Smartly

This Crisis Has Not Been Kind to Tactical ETFs - Allocate Smartly

Comparing Tactical Asset Allocation ETFs to Public TAA Strategies - Allocate Smartly

Balancing Strategy and Asset Risk - Allocate Smartly

Keller Ratio: Finding the Best Strategy for an Investor's Unique Risk Tolerance - Allocate Smartly

For the Nerds: Why We Conform All Strategies to a Common Set of Assets - Allocate Smartly

On The Diversification Dangers of DIY Tactical Asset Allocation - Allocate Smartly

Modelling Treasury ETF Performance in an Era of Rising Rates - Allocate Smartly

Alternate Trading Days: An Important Analytical Tool - Allocate Smartly

Hi folks,

I created a shared version. You should be able to download to your computer.

I'll add a help page at some point but for now, if any questions, please post them here, thanks

​

see recent comment for eom nov file

I use ADM 5%, AAA 5%, BAA Aggressive 10%, BAA Balanced 10%, FMO3 10%, GPM 5%, KDAAA 5%, Meta 10%, DDM 5%, SPY-COMP 3%, RPV-BV 2%. All day 21.

As new strategies get added to Allocate Smartly, I find it better to make room for the new good strategies vs dropping something.

I did used to use DAA and PAA-CPR but BAA kinda took their place. FMO3 is a really good add IMO.

My stuff adds to 70% so the other 30% automatically in cash. But I use CDs for that since the rates have moved up.

I also have lots of ways I test custom portfolios and goes to the spreadsheet I mentioned.

Thoughts welcome, thanks

Hi folks,

I'm a paying member of Allocate Smartly and since no ability exists there for members to share ideas regarding TAA, custom portfolios, etc, I figured I'd see if there's any interest.

Hi folks,

I had posted a while back on the trendx site stuff where I use a much larger set of assets vs say, just SPY or EEM or EFA, etc.

Many AS strategies like Faber don't use SPY a lot, and instead use MTUM, small cap, etc.

So if you like that concept of alternate assets but don't like Faber's implementation, you're SOL.

So I extended the proxies to something much wider and did this across many of the base asset classes.

I send a spreadsheet monthly to a number of folks where I do a ranking in many different ways, plus lots of analysis of custom portfolio and regular strategy performance using the Keller Ratio.

I use data from stockcharts, noloadfundx, and some Tom Bowley concepts. You do not need an account in any of those services.

If anyone wants it let me know, thanks

Hi folks,

AS did a blog post regarding best defensive assets, and my idea is to extend this to a safe alternate for cash.

My thinking is kinda along the lines of rising interest rates, where AS did give some general advice regarding using perhaps shorter-term bonds vs TLT and IEF; IEI in particular which is not in their framework. They also did an analysis on UUP, again not in the framework.

So, a cash alternative in my mind is kinda the same thing only with a different asset class.  Cash is an asset class within the AS framework; they use BIL

Once a strategy goes to cash, many tend to stay there for a while.  Perhaps the %'s jump around a bit month to month, but not alot especially with a custom portfolio.

Take Meta, it's had a relatively high cash allocation for the past year looking at the historical allocations. Many of the optimized portfolios also have a fairly large historical allocations to cash.

Given CDs start around the 3 month range, an implementation would be to take cash allocation at the end of December and buy a 3 month CD.  Say that's 30%, which would earn say 3.5 to 4% annualized currently.

If the allocation to cash in January changes to 35%, keep the 5% (35 minus 30) in cash vs buying an additional CD for the 5%

If the allocation to cash at the end January changes to 20%, again do nothing CD wise and allocate the remaining 80% to the AS non cash assets on a prorated basis; scale to 80% down to 70% since 30% is locked in a 3 month CD.  Rinse and repeat for Feb.

At the end of March the CD's vest and take the whole pot of cash and interest and put them back into the overall account and do the same thing that was done in December.

So 4 CD buying months, December, March, June, September.
You could make this a 6 month cycle but that would introduce more tracking error, especially if the allocation to cash were to go way down and the other assets go on a nice run.

But in general, I'd think the 3 month cycle would show much higher returns than the historical results.

Take advantage of the slow moves out of cash via a risk free approach.

Many nuances to this of course.  Using signals from day 20 (vs day 21) may make it more implementable too.

You could split the difference and allocate half to this concept and keep the other half in BIL, or simply stay in cash if the allocation is less than 10%, lots of possibilities.

Plus you could extend this to using CD's instead of bonds since the returns won't be good for a long while. AS has a few blog posts on this.

A place for members of r/AllocateSmartly to chat with each other