ETFs for 'Lazy' Fixed Allocation Portfolio

I've written about NARFX, an absolute return product, a couple times before. Year to date, NARFX is down 2.8%, which is pretty good in a 40% down world. The fund attempts to offer consistent returns with low volatility by implementing a long-short strategy.

TIP has a small weight in AOA but not enough to create concern about duplication. Asset prices have been deflating for a while, and the risk of higher inflation than we are used to becomes a big issue in the next few years as the Fed prints money to inflate out of the financial crisis. If that makes sense to you, a TIPS fund makes sense. If not, there are plenty of plain vanilla bonds funds that do not provide inflation protection.

PLMIX also benefits from inflation in the U.S. assuming that higher inflation is dollar negative. However, the fund has proven susceptible to a strong dollar. The fund is down 23% since early August (not including dividends). The dollar has panicked higher as the markets have melted down. At some point, that will end and the fundamentals should become more important. If so, PLMIX will prove to be a good hold.

The mix above covers a lot of ground for people who want to take a lazy approach, though it would have been crushed in this bear market, down 31% for the year compared to a 40% decline for the S&P 500.

My take from the above result is that you cannot set it and forget it. One very simple idea is to sell AOA (but keep the other funds) when the S&P 500 goes below its 200-day moving average (DMA) and buy back in when it goes above the 200 DMA. This strategy would have had the portfolio out of AOA the entire year (had the fund existed that long), and so the portfolio would be down 4.1% year to date and currently have a very large weighting to cash.

While that would be a great result, there are drawbacks, too. Occasionally, the market dances around its 200 DMA, so there would be some extra trading and commission dollars spent, but it would only be one fund being traded. Another problem is that the S&P 500 is now 30% below its 200 DMA. While it is likely the 200 DMA will keep heading lower and it is a good bet that when the S&P 500 crosses back over, it will be at a lower number than it was when it went below, which was around 1480. This means the market might go up a lot before the strategy lets you back in.

No portfolio or strategy can be perfect. The concept laid out here allows for capturing the general effect of the market without riding it all the way down and without spending hours working on something you've come to no longer enjoy.