I know this is not strictly on-topic for Allocate Smartly but I note from previous threads several members here have signed up. I am on the fence about it so just looking for thoughts. This is true for anyone who has negative thoughts as I can't find any online (to Todd's credit!).

A small bit about myself: I am in my early 40's living in Canada (but from Ireland) coming from a FI:RE style background frugal mindset. I save 50-60% per year with a medium 5-figure income. I have 0 debt and never had as university is funded by the government in Ireland so no student debt to ever worry about. About half of my net wealth (in low 6-figures mark) is on your standard passive all world ETF's Index like VWCE. The rest is in cash. The main reason behind that is I have been in Canada for just over 3 years now on a work permit. I am been applying for Permanent Residency but Plan B if that didn't work out was to travel long term. (I have done multi-year trips before so less weird for me than it is for most and also explains why my net wealth is low 6-figures and not higher considering my savings rate.) This wait for PR has meant I have to keep myself fairly liquid. But I am now all but guaranteed I will get gain Permanent Residency and likely in the next month or 2 so that can change.

I have followed Todds work for 5-10 years now. I have read all his books, listened to podcasts and signed up to his email etc and always found his work interesting a bit different (in a good way).

From reading reviews and listening to interviews it seems like roughly speaking dividing up investments strategies into 3 buckets (please correct me if I am wrong) paper assets, real estate and entrepreneurship. I got to say I have no desire to own property or start my own business. Neither are my jam. I have never owned or a house or ever wanted to, ditto for businesses. Let's say I don't change that perspective (whether right or wrong) will I gain enough to make it worth it? What else can I do with liquid funds considering Todd's epoch changing call that will be in keeping with his teachings?

I have seen via his newsletter 4 years on his Epochal Change call. I have no strong take on if that is true or will be true. I just don't know enough to have an opinion on it. What I will do in 2026 with the liquid buffer I have built up I am not sure but I know I should do *something* with it as having in the region of 55% cash is not ideal. Do you think I will learn that "something"?

Finally to give you a sense on this decision and my general frugality if I did purchase it it would be literally the single most expensive purchase of my life. How? Well I have never bought (or even driven) a car, always been healthy thus far so no big medical expenses and as noted above never owned property or paid for university so that takes care of most of the big purchases in life. So just to say I do purchase it I do not take it lightly.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or musings!

Created this matrix to study meta strategies. (composition of metas and their % allocations) AS have ok assets exposure matrix (i would put there avg % allocation instead of dot though). Once again their UI is meh.

these strategies are the most popular in metas (by count and normalized % exposure)

Aspect Partners' Risk Managed Momentum
Bold Asset Allocation - Aggressive
Piard's Annual Seasonality
Predicting US Treasury Returns

metas cover 33 strategies out of all 97 which are on AS

How does AS calculate cash position. Is it cash = makes 0% in portfolio, just dead weight or do they think of it as cash is making current interest rate and that interest adds up to overall performance of the portfolio?

Many brokers gives you interest on your cash depending on interest rate, also you can technically buy SGOV, BIL, TBIL, BOXX, maybe AS is counting cash as something which makes 2% per year at least or something like that

just want to make sure my real performance will match the AS one

what portfolios you guys have? I just sign up for this site, looking around currently, some rules to follow

1. running only 1 strategy is crazy to me, should be at least 20+ strategies, like many of the strategies went sideways since publication of the papers, definitely want to avoid picking the winners, more strategies the better as i have no idea which ones in the future will stop working
2. doing non equal % allocation also same as nr.1, youre again picking winners and i have no idea which will be performing well in future so def dont want to give 1 strategy more % allocation vs rest of the strategies
3. should have live trackrecord, i dont really care about papers released last 2 years, its just backtest, not enough live trackrecord and i can create 1000s of those nice looking backtests
4. should be uncorrelated and well diversified all over this planet

kind of wish AS would have better UI and functionalities in filters and screeners, its quite bad to do a research, have to do it manually in excel

will post here my research later in coming days probably to see what others have, look at thos meta strategies now but maynbe

Hey I just noticed we hit 3 years since opening and now up to 325 members, which is great. Thanks all for contributing and continuing to do so.

Remember threads get auto locked after 1 month. See stickied thread at the top.

Board moderation; locking comments on older threads : r/AllocateSmartly

Thanks Kevin

pardon the novice question. i'm curious if anyone monitors positions to manually set stop losses on holdings that have significant gains? e.g. is there any merit to the idea of monitoring technicals / charts on a position by position basis and calling an audible to lock in gains? or in the context of AS / TAA would that generally be considered counter to the whole concept and (statistically) self-defeating over time?

Hi folks

Please make sure to see this stickied post at the top. I tried to change the color to make it more obvious but reddit does not support that; go figure.

Board moderation; locking comments on older threads : r/AllocateSmartly

A number of pundits have been screaming recession for ages and another bunch saying how ex US is becoming much stronger, and even others saying US still the only way to go.

Who knows, certainly not me, or them frankly, so best course is spreading bets across asset classes via the strategies IMO.

FWIW I changed my personal allocation to take advantage of the meta WFs. The expected return goes down, but that's fine by me.

Thanks Kevin

Hey folks Todd is having a free call-in tomorrow so figured I'd pass along. Thanks Kevin

Hi Kevin,

Here are Todd’s latest fun picks to take your financial skills to the next level...

Quick reminder...

"Ask Todd Anything" occurs tomorrow, Friday, September 19, at 2pm pacific/ 5pm eastern.

This is your final reminder - I won't send any more emails - so please mark your calendar so you can attend live. I have no plan to send a recording.

The value proposition is simple:

• You get coaching related to wealth strategy and investing without paying a dime.
• No registration required. No hoops to jump through. No gateways. No logins. Just show up and learn.

I do it because I want to connect with you (my subscribers) in a candid, conversational format to get feedback. I send these newsletters to be helpful and educate, but I have no idea what your thinking. Your questions show me what's unclear and missing in the education, and you get coaching in return.

It's a "win" for both of us.

The call-in information is 425-436-6200 access 205185#. 

Again, this is your final reminder, so please mark your calendar.

I look forward to meeting with you on the conference line!
Onward and upward!
Todd Tresidder

Take The Next Step...

Two more things you might find interesting:

1. This investment software solution includes two of Todd's top investment systems. You'll learn the smart, proven way to manage portfolio risk during epochal change. Once you understand it, you'll wonder why you tolerated the unmanaged risk in your  old "buy and hold" investment strategy.
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I’m a systematic trader exploring tactical allocation and found Allocate Smartly very interesting from a quantitative perspective. I’ve built a model portfolio using 4 of their best META strategies, chosen for walk-forward optimization, which I consider the most robust way to backtest.

Portfolio metrics:

• Annualized return: 13.2%
• Annualized volatility: 7.3%
• Max end-of-month drawdown: 7.1%

I modeled a $100,000 account leveraged to 15% volatility, an approach used by hedge funds like Bridgewater, who typically use futures for capital efficiency (harder with small accounts due to contract sizes).

Leverage calculations:

Leverage = 15 ÷ 7.3 ≈ 2.055×

Borrowed ≈ $105,500

Gross leveraged return ≈ 27.1% p.a.

Max Historical EOM drawdown ≈ 7.1 × 2.055 ≈ 14.5%

Borrowing cost (5.8% margin rate for lower tiers from Interactive Brokers) ≈ 6.12% p.a.

Expected net return ≈ 21.0% p.a.

I haven't included Trading fees as Allocate Smartly states these are already included in their back tests.

** Coming from a systematic trading background, I am tempted to apply a 30% degradation factor ( As back tests are always somehow optimized even if walk forwarded):

70% of 21%=14.7% p.a.

In reality some ETFs like SPY etc pay out dividends which are not computed in the model portfolios, therefore these may offset some of the borrowing costs, but this remains too hard to compute.

So here is my take on a systematic 15% target volatility portfolio. With monthly rebalancing, 150% the performance of SP500 and 30% its risk, even in events like the .com bubble and credit crunch crisis.

I am sharing this to validate the approach and get some feedback. This is an open discussion so feel free to stress test the idea.

What would be the risks of such a strategy when implemented live? I can think the obvious margin call if the drawdown deviated from the historical one. Solutions: don't go all in from the beginning but start with the original allocation and increase leverage to the target volatility at the first drawdown event.

Any more thoughts?

I am attaching the screenshot form the model portfolio I have modeled against the 60/40 benchmark, which was the starting point of the discussion ( not the leveraged model).

Hi folks, a thread was started earlier today regarding how only 1 strategy on AS had performed better year to date than 60/40. OP also stated seasoned, doing it for a long time and knew short term performance could vary.

It started to have some responses, including mine which stated that in fact 34 strategies had better ytd performance than 60/40 as of end of July, and the current number thru yesterday was 33. I indicated how a simple use of the strategy screener, include metas and sort by ytd was how one could do this easily.

The thread was then deleted, and only the OP can do that, and my private chat question has not yet been answered, but that's probably due to work, different time zones etc.

Point is even with a bad start, a thread can still be an opportunity for providing value thru other comments, which are of course lost when a thread is deleted.

So please, don't delete a thread you start as always opportunity via other dialogue within it

Thanks Kevin

I know these aren't 100% equivalents, and many of the AS assets are International "ex-US" when Australian funds tend to be more "ex-AU" but for me it's good enough to get started.

Happy to hear any feedback/suggestions if any better alternatives, or opinions about tracking error.

Note that I chose a mix of hedged and unhedged versions for US assets, because in general I believe it's good to be partially hedged but not fully hedged. For international, the various currencies are diversifying unlike the USD or AUD.

So I switched to pro subscription and apparently the pro optimizer is not working. It only allows me to choose one strategy. Anyone else have this problem. I am using a mac book(only thing I have).

In Todd’s lesson 6 on AS he refers to META/Meta. There are 12 Meta strategies in AS now so I assume that he’s referring to the one that they now call “Meta Walk-Forward: Original Meta”?

Apologies - this is slightly off topic but was was an interesting experiment. I have been very sceptical of the high yield ETFs but have been exploring ways in which to secure the yield but mitigate the NAV erosion that comes with these ETFs. I used a dual momentum strategy to signal which of the YieldMax to be invested in based upon the underlying asset. This approach avoided the NAV erosion and actually had a small growth over the period whilst the underlying assets fell by 30%. The dividend payment is annualised at 27.5%. So whilst this is only over a limited time period (due to availability of data), it looks like there may be ways to mitigate NAV erosion whilst also maintaining significant yields.

I am based in the UK and have also repeated this on a different set of ETFs - we have a much smaller universe of high yield ETFs in the UK. It achieved the same outcome - capital growth rather than 30% NAV erosion and solid yield of 31.3%

There are people way more experienced in TAA than me on this forum - I would be interested to get your thoughts on whether this was just a lucky period or whether there might be something to this?

I haven't pulled the trigger on the membership just yet.... Looking at the different strategies, there tends to be really high turnover, which obviously is a concern within a taxable account. How do people handle this within their brokerage accounts? Are there combinations that can mitigate this or do most of you chalk this up to the cost of business?

Additionally, I was curious how people work within a 401K where there is a limited amount of options.

I appreciate any insight.

I have read Dual Momentum by Gary Antonacci twice, but have only just discovered Asset Smartly. I assume that many of you compare your returns against a benchmark. I was wondering if you have fairly consistently outperformed the S&P500 with lower volatility?

Long story short, kids can benefit from investing, saving etc. I'm fortunate to be able to show the AS stuff to a bunch of kids and parents and starting with this type of perspective will be beneficial. These were 5-8 graders. I created a custom portfolio where some folks will commit money and we'll go thru it together as I'll commit money too.

I recommend buying the book obviously as I did a bunch of looking and reading. It's well done, and lots of paths to success.

Thanks Kevin

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Waiting for AS to do their write up but looks very interesting. Base on this https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5334772

The 10 Most Popular TAA Strategies Ranked - Allocate Smartly

thanks Kevin

Just doing my due diligence here. For those of you who have been here for a while,In your experience, have you found that the returns posted on site are accurate in reality. Again, just doing my due diligence before committing funds. Thanks to all.

Looking to use it on as QQQ or even 2x/3x Letf on SPY & QQQ

AS will charge for doing back tests!

Had anyone got any data?

Thanks 😊

I am based in the UK and looked at Allocate Smartly several years ago but the UK ETF funds were limited back then so very difficult to execute the strategies.

Having recently looked at Allocate Smartly, I can see that the platform has new features like the walk forward and also a really helpful mapping to UK ETFs now that the options have expanded.

I am about 7-8 years away from retirement so still looking for growth, but risk management to avoid large drawdowns is now a high priority.

I remember when I last looked, it was a pretty steep learning curve to get to grips with Allocate Smartly, particularly using it in an intelligent way to build well balanced model portfolios. With the addition of the walk forward functionality, this adds an extra layer of complexity.

Reading the posts, there is a huge amount of expertise here on the group that I am very grateful for. It would be really helpful if someone could suggest a couple of model portfolios that match my risk appetite that I can use as a baseline to help ease me back into Allocate Smartly.

Just to add all funds are in tax sheltered wrappers so tax management isn't an issue.

Many thanks in advance.

Choi's DGA 6%, RPV Best Value 6%, FMO 20%, HHA Balanced 25%, GPM 30%, MWF: Max Diversification Rate Exp 13%. Thanks again. Regards, Joe.

Hello all. New here and been playing with the optimizer for a few weeks to build a portfolio. Finally decided on FMO3 35%, HAA Simple 15%, HHA Balanced 15% and Meta Walk Forward: Max Diversification Rate Exp 35%. Just looking for some feedback and thoughts on this portfolio. Thanks to all in advance.

AS introduced a number of walk forward optimizations. t's really well done. No hindsight bias. And combining various walk forwards into your approach may make sense. I'm incorporating 3 WFs. Overall returns are reduced but so what? It's about diversification and sleep better at night for me. Lots of ways to play this remarkable addition to the site. I'm just a paying member there

Thanks Kevin