Permanent Portfolio

In passing of Harry Browne, I promised you I would explain his Permanent Portfolio investments as best as I can (Browne had a gift of making difficult things look easy, better than I can). After this, I will be leaving this blog (...for now), but I promised I would show his Portfolio, so here it is.

Now, you own and control your own money, and you will make your decisions with your money as you see fit. In other words, the ball is in your court. And thus, you will experience the consequences of your decisions. All I can to is offer a different view of looking at this. As I can explain best, Browne's Permanent Portfolio has two simple but commence sense rules. So here it goes.

Rule No. 1: we live in a financially uncertain world. As most financial experts tell you, they want to invest your money in their financial system. They tell you, "This will make you the most money", or "my financial products are the best", or "invest in my plan, and I can promise you won't go wrong." But, one principle is constant, and you don't hear it from the financial experts: we live in an uncertain world. Things change, and we don't know when things will change, or to what. All the actions of economic and financial indicators are the result of literally billions of people all around the world, making economic decisions, doing financial things, and it is impossible to gather all the data that would be necessary in order to know what's going to happen next in the market.

And even if you could assemble all the data in the world, it would be obsolete in a second. These billions of people have billions of independent, unpredictable minds. Let's face the truth: no human can forecast the future. No one. Like I said, we live in an uncertain world. So what are we going to do?

We accept uncertainty. So we invest our money in a fail-safe, fully balanced and diversified portfolio, called a "Permanent Portfolio" [PP]. We call it PP because once we set it up, it is permanent, we leave it alone; there is nothing to change. If you want to tinker around with your investments, set up two portfolios. The second we will name "Variable Portfolio" [VP]. The first is money you can not afford to lose; the second is money you can.

Browne compares the VP to a trip to Las Vegas. Let's say I want to play blackjack, or I want to play craps, or whatever, and I will sit aside $500 or some amount of money to play with. The best thing is I strike it rich, but there is a very unlikely chance I will be lucky (or the casinos will go broke). The worse (and probable) thing is I lose $500. But in advance, I already know there is that chance I will lose. Obviously I won't bet my life savings on a card or dice game. The VP is like a trip to Vegas; you invest money you can afford to lose. But, with money you can not afford to lose, you invest it in a PP. You can not bet on the future with it, you can not tinker with it; it is permanent. It's your money you can not afford to lose.

So what's in this PP. Like I said, the PP will be balanced and diversified. I don't know next year whether it will be prosperity, inflation, deflation, or recession. But I know one thing, the world will be in one of these four situations. There is no other. Now, there may be a transaction period from one to another, or there may be more than four climates, like stagflation or hyper-inflation. But all of these terms are variables of one of these four economic environments. And we need to be secure in whatever conditions may occur. Fortunately, there are certain investments that are tied to favor certain envirements.

In prosperity, stocks do well. In a time of prosperity, money is plentiful, and the people want to spend their money. The stock market will flourish in a time of prosperity. In prosperity, people have money and they are buying things, and thus, the price of stocks will go up.

In inflation, precious metals are strong. Precious metals, gold in particular, never change: an ounce of gold in the time of Christ will purchase the same amount as an ounce of gold today. Where there is inflation, there is more money in the marketplace, and the dollar is devalued. When the dollar isn't worth as much, prices will rise, including gold. In the 18th century, American money was backed by silver and gold. Now, money is backed by nothing (but a printing press).

The third economic environment is deflation. Stocks and gold do bad during deflation, but bonds do well. During deflation, interest rates will go down, and there is a basic rule about bonds: when interest rates go down, bonds will go up, and vise versa. In the '30s, the interest rates was 1%. Today, bonds would double or triple with interest rates at 1%.

Now, the one economic environment that there is no investment tied to it is recession, or period of tight money. But such a period is short. Recession means people don't have as much money that they are used to. So they have to sell things, and save (now personally, I think savings is smart economics, but that's besides the point). But, it is only at most 1 or 1 1/2 years before they revert to a different situation. Money market funds, or cash, are investments that are under one year (prosperity, inflation, and deflation may last 5 years or longer), and cash will do marginally well whatever the forecast may hold, so cash will tide the people over during recession. So stocks will do well during prosperity, gold will do well during inflation, bonds will do well during deflation, and cash will weather the storm during recession.

But, if just one investment will go up, then up to three investments will go down. That brings me to rule No. 2: in any period of time, investments that are doing well will have a greater impact on your portfolio than investments that are doing badly. Browne offers us an illustration. In 1970, you have $100 to invest, and you invest in the stock market. But a friend said you ought to diversify, so you will take $10 and purchased gold ($90 stocks, $10 gold; $100 total). Ten years later (1980), stocks will fall to $50 or so, but gold will have risen to $200 (20 times during the '70s). At the end of the decade, you have $50 worth of stocks, but $200 worth of gold ($250 total). The winning investment will have more pull than the losing investment, even though originally you have 90% in the losing and 10% in the winning.

So, we have 4 investments. How much in each? The answer: I simply don't know. Like I said, we live in an uncertain world. So, for me, we invest equally: 25% in stocks, 25% in bonds, 25% in gold, and 25% in cash. And we invest in it for the same amount money-wise every fixed amount of time [dollar-cost averaging]; invest a lot when the prices are low and invest a little when the prices are high. In that way, we'll stay ahead whatever the market shows.

Finally, you have to check on it once in a while (like a year or so). You may start the investments the same, but after time, your investments grow at different levels. Don't worry about this. But, if it gets to the point where one investment rises above 35%, or falls below 15% of the total, you have to rebalance your portfolio (buy some and sell some) and bring them back to 25%.

That's it. Easy, isn't it? When you prescribe the PP, after some time, you start to relax. You start to realize that these things are not going to affect the outcome of your portfolio in any significant way. Browne has a chart plotting his PP from 1970 to 2003, and it is a strait line going up. Also, he has a table where every year he showed his results. In 33 years, the PP has an average yearly gain of 9%. In the same 33 years, the PP only has a losing year only 4 times (1981, 1990, 1994, 2001), the most is 6.2% (the most gain is 36.7, back in 1979). He gives you some examples on what goes into the PP. Personally, the stocks, bond, and cash, I go with T. Rowe Price that copies what Browne taught (Equity Index 500, U.S. Treasury Long Term, U.S. Treasury Money). As for gold, I go with GoldMoney. However, you can use anyone that you want. Like I said, it's your money (i.e., you make the call).

That it. If you want to know more, read Browne's book, Fail-Safe Investing. It's short (176 pages) and cheap (around $10), but it gives in detail what I said in this post. After I saw the PP concept, I concluded that it makes perfect sense. It is safe, it is simple, and it is stable. Of all what Browne had taught me, the PP is the most powerful. Again, thank you Harry Browne...for everything, especially wisely investing my money.