A Portfolio for Those Who Just Give Up

In every bear market, some folks decide they aren't cut out for stock market investing. However, that realization doesn't eliminate the need to save for the future and have that savings grow at a reasonable rate.

This got me thinking about what these folks could do, and I came up with the "I Give Up" portfolio.

The portfolio has very few holdings, should be less volatile than the market and will hopefully be a decent holding place. Of course, bear markets come and go, they tend to be similar to past bear markets, and eventually give way to a new bull market, so investors who give up should still consider getting back in the game at some point.

But in the meantime...

Gateway Fund (GTEYX) -- 30%

This is the no-load version of the more-well-known GATEX. Gateway is a call-writing fund, but unlike some of the other products in this space I have written about previously, GTEYX is actively managed. The managers have done a good job of being less volatile than not only the S&P 500 but also the CBOE Buy Write Index, which is the benchmark index for this type of fund.

GTEYX is down 5% since the market peaked, vs. a 20% decline for the S&P 500. The expectation for this fund should be that it will outperform the S&P 500 during down and flat markets, be about the same when the market is up a little and lag when the market is up a lot.

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