Since January, we’ve all watched how volatile equities have been. Portfolio Shield™ is a long-equity strategy that hedges with long-term bonds during such volatile or Bear markets. Because equity volatility has now subsided, Portfolio Shield™ formulas removed the bond hedge (TYA) for April. Despite the bond hedge hurting returns, it is important to understand Portfolio … Read more

Portfolio Shield™ remains hedged for March. I am pleased to report the Simplify funds continue to reduce some the downside risks in the equity market and the long-term bond hedge has started mitigating some of the downside move in technology stocks. The underperformance in the portfolios with an allocation to AGG has largely been due … Read more

Portfolio Shield remains hedged for January. I am pleased to report the Simplify funds reduced some of the downside risks in the equity market. However, the long-term bond hedge remains a slight drag on returns. Several of you have expressed a valid concern about the ability of the hedging mechanism to hedge risk because it … Read more

Several people have reached out to me expressing concerns about the returns over the past couple of weeks as we have seen both stocks and bonds decline in value. For strategies such as Portfolio Shield™ which invests in both stocks and bonds, this hurts returns in the short run. I think it’s important to understand … Read more

Linked below are the latest Morningstar® Investment Detail Reports for the Portfolio Shield™ family. Portfolio Shield™ maintained the same percentage to its long-term bond hedge (TYA) for January. There were only very slight changes between the two equity positions (SPD & QQD) for the month. Due to the very slight change this month, you may … Read more

Linked below are the latest Morningstar® Investment Detail Reports for the Portfolio Shield™ family. Based on how the markets are performing, I anticipate Portfolio Shield™ will remain hedged into early next year, which I think is good. From a return perspective, the strategy hedging has been effective. With the additional downside protection through the use … Read more

Linked below are the latest Morningstar® Investment Detail Reports for the Portfolio Shield™ family. When I designed Portfolio Shield™ I wanted a strategy that attempted to anticipate volatile or bear markets by reducing risk before a large move lower occurs rather than a reactionary strategy that adjusts after stock prices start to plunge. While Portfolio … Read more

Linked below are the latest Morningstar® Investment Detail Reports for the Portfolio Shield™ family. With the rebalance to the new allocation is complete I want to address a question that has come up about the daily tracking of SPD and QQD. One aspect that makes the Portfolio Shield™ strategy great is its ability to control … Read more

I’m very excited to share with you how Portfolio Shield™ is going to get even better! Simplify Asset Management and I have formed a strategic partnership to improve the original design of Portfolio Shield™. By replacing the existing ETFs with ETFs from Simplify and making a slight change to the allocation the strategy will improve … Read more

Linked below are the latest Morningstar® Investment Detail Reports for the Portfolio Shield™ family. Portfolio Shield™ began hedging the equity allocation this month. It reduced its allocation to the S&P 500 (SPY) and the Nasdaq-100 (QQQ) by 17% to add long-term U.S. Treasury bonds (TLT) to the equity allocation across all models. Hedging Expectations: For … Read more