I used to be very risk adverse and sat for a long time with a very cash heavy portfolio allocation. Around the beginning of 2021 I started to worry about inflation and decided that I had to take on more risk to be able to keep up with inflation caused by all the liquidity injection. I became enamored with the "disruptive new technology" theme and started to increase my equity exposure in that area.
Today I decided to try to see what would have happened had I just stuck with my 11/31/2019 allocation. I pulled up that spreadsheet and updated all the current prices. I realize that this leaves out some dividend income, but I think it is pretty close.
In 2019: 37% cash,13% I-bonds, 22% equity funds, 10% bond funds, 17% alternatives.
In 2022: 29% cash, 17% I-bonds, 33% stocks and funds, 21% alternatives.
Using the price-updated 2019 sheet as my baseline.
My current portfolio value is 11.59% lower than it would have been had I sat tight with my 2019 holdings.
Taking the total amount of my 2019 portfolio and adjusting it to reflect 60% in VTI and 40% in BND it seems to be about 2% lower than my 2019 baseline.
Interestingly, the adjustment multiplier for VTI is 1.1429, i.e. still in profit compared to .8493 for BND, i.e. about a 15% loss.
I guess it remains to be seen if my riskier current holdings will recover faster than the general market if that ever happens. Supposedly they go down more and up more than the less volatile total market.
I had sat for over five years with my ultra-conservative allocation and finally got itchy and started making changes at what, in hind sight, was not a good time.
I suppose I should do a similar comparison using my 2016 allocation. Maybe the 2016 60/40 numbers might be higher due to more equity appreciation time.
Today I decided to try to see what would have happened had I just stuck with my 11/31/2019 allocation. I pulled up that spreadsheet and updated all the current prices. I realize that this leaves out some dividend income, but I think it is pretty close.
In 2019: 37% cash,13% I-bonds, 22% equity funds, 10% bond funds, 17% alternatives.
In 2022: 29% cash, 17% I-bonds, 33% stocks and funds, 21% alternatives.
Using the price-updated 2019 sheet as my baseline.
My current portfolio value is 11.59% lower than it would have been had I sat tight with my 2019 holdings.
Taking the total amount of my 2019 portfolio and adjusting it to reflect 60% in VTI and 40% in BND it seems to be about 2% lower than my 2019 baseline.
Interestingly, the adjustment multiplier for VTI is 1.1429, i.e. still in profit compared to .8493 for BND, i.e. about a 15% loss.
I guess it remains to be seen if my riskier current holdings will recover faster than the general market if that ever happens. Supposedly they go down more and up more than the less volatile total market.
I had sat for over five years with my ultra-conservative allocation and finally got itchy and started making changes at what, in hind sight, was not a good time.
I suppose I should do a similar comparison using my 2016 allocation. Maybe the 2016 60/40 numbers might be higher due to more equity appreciation time.
Last edited: