Give the benefit of the doubt to the classic 60% stock/40% bond portfolio. That’s not easy, given its awful performance so far this year. On Jun. 13, the day the S&P 500 SPX, +1.06% officially entered bear-market territory by closing more than 20% below its Jan. 3 high, long-term U.S. Treasurys were sitting on an even bigger loss — down 22.1%, as judged by the Vanguard Long-Term Treasury ETF VGLT, +1.05%.
What this means: If the 60/40 portfolio’s recent loss was in fact sufficient to disqualify it from future consideration, then you shouldn’t have been following it in the first place. What about interest rates? The Mann-Whitney test focuses only on raw performance numbers and not on the underlying market conditions that might cause a deterioration in the future. One such factor that worries many investors is interest rates. Even though rates have risen over the last year, they remain low by historical standards.
To be sure, you would want to avoid the bond portion of your 60/40 portfolio if you were certain that rates will rise in coming years. But confidence that you can time the bond market represents a triumph of hope over experience.
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Source: CoinDesk - 🏆 291. / 63 Read more »