Risk Parity Radio

In this episode we answer an email from Cameron.  First, we consider the long history of consumer marketing and how the retail financial services industry fits into it, including reviewing developments in financial services business models over the past century.  In that context, we then break down why the current most popular business models are fear-based, which leads to retirement planning firms pushing “paycheck replacement,” annuities and other inefficient solutions involving buckets, ladders and flower pots.   We also discuss how AUM combined with fear-based business models leads to the biggest current problem in retirement planning -- chronic underspending, and why that is unlikely to change in the near future.

And THEN we our go through our weekly portfolio reviews of the eight sample portfolios you can find at Portfolios | Risk Parity Radio.

Links:

Empire of Things:  Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First – An Epic History of Goods and the Modern Material Life: Trentmann, Frank: 9780062456328: Amazon.com: Books

Propaganda:  Bernays, Edward L. Propaganda [1928] [1936] : E. Bernays : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Influence:  Amazon.com: Influence, New and Expanded: The Psychology of Persuasion (Audible Audio Edition): Robert B. Cialdini, Robert B. Cialdini, Harper Business: Audible Books & Originals

Psychology of Human Misjudgment:  Charlie Munger - 24 Cognitive Biases - Human Misjudgment full speech (Improved Audio & Captioned)

Thinking, Fast and Slow Summary:  Microsoft Word - Thinking Fast and Slow Book Summary.doc

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds:  The Project Gutenberg eBook of Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, by Charles Mackay

Fifty Years in Wall Street:  Fifty years in Wall Street by Henry Clews | Project Gutenberg

Where Are The Customers' Yachts?:  Where Are the Customers' Yachts?: or A Good Hard Look at Wall Street (Wiley Investment Classics): Schwed Jr., Fred, Arno, Peter, Zweig, Jason: 9780471770893: Amazon.com: Books

Classifying Financial Advisors By Their Business Models:  Interacting with the Financial Services Industry with SC Gutierrez

White Coat Investor Podcast Episode -- (start at 57:30 -- "6 out of 7 retirees are underspending"):  Advanced Financial Planning Q&A for Physicians - WCI Podcast #489

Source For The 6 Out of 7 Are Underspending Statistics:  How Do Retirees Actually Spend Their Money?

Breathless Unedited AI-Bot Summary:

A retirement plan that “feels like a paycheck” can be a comforting story, but comfort is not a strategy. We respond to a listener who sat through a pitch from an Atlanta-area retirement planning firm and walked away hearing the same two levers again and again: income and annuities, followed by taxes and crash fears when challenged. That’s the hook for a much bigger conversation about why so much retirement advice is designed to manage anxiety instead of maximizing outcomes.

We trace the roots of modern financial marketing through consumer culture and the persuasion playbook, from early propaganda techniques to the behavioral finance insights that explain how fear and incentives shape decisions. Then we map that history onto the financial services industry itself: the commission era, the loaded mutual fund era, the rise of assets under management (AUM), and today’s shift toward selling “sleep well at night” reassurance. Along the way, we talk about why “income-first” retirement planning can be tax-inefficient, why liquidity and total return matter, and why bucket, ladder, and flower pot strategies often solve for feelings before they solve for math.

After the big-picture rant, we bring it back to practical portfolio work. We run through the weekly market snapshot and performance across the show’s diversified sample portfolios, spanning stocks, Treasury bonds, gold, commodities, managed futures, and more. We also detail an OPTRA portfolio rebalance after a long stretch without rebalancing, including exactly what we sold and bought and what the rule-based experiment is meant to reveal.
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In this episode we answer emails from Jon, David, and Trevor.  We discuss teaching teens personal finance without boring them and learning by doing, an early retirement checkup for a high-saving household confirming a $3.6M portfolio can support retirement plans, getting granular on expenses and planning for health care costs, asset location basics, and a useful managed futures white paper.

Links:

If You Can Book:  Microsoft Word - If You Can.doc

Set For Life:  Set for Life: An All-Out Approach to Early Financial Freedom: Trench, Scott: 9781947200807: Amazon.com: Books

FIRE For Dummies:  Amazon.com : fire for dummies

So Good They Can't Ignore You:  So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love: Newport, Cal: 9781455509126: Amazon.com: Books

Meketa Managed Futures Paper: MEKETA Trend-Following Managed Futures Paper.pdf - Google Drive

Breathless Unedited AI-Bot Summary:

Most money advice for teenagers boils down to three lines, yet somehow it still doesn’t stick. We dig into why that happens and how to fix it with a simple shift: stop treating personal finance like a reading assignment and start treating it like a hands-on skill. With no-fee trading, fractional shares, and AI tools that can summarize any classic finance book on demand, the real edge is helping young investors build confidence by actually using accounts, placing trades, and watching what happens.

We share book recommendations that still earn a spot on the list, including a short starter PDF that delivers the core principles fast, plus a more modern early-career path-to-financial-independence perspective. Then we make the case that the most important “money book” for many teens isn’t about investing at all. It’s about building skills and career capital so earning, saving, and investing become possible in the first place.

Next, we answer a detailed listener question from a burned-out attorney with $3.6M saved who wants to know if he’s basically at the finish line. We walk through how to sanity-check retirement readiness, why expense tracking and health care planning matter, and how to think about asset location for tax efficiency. We also tackle the mortgage decision as the personal part of personal finance, and discuss liquidity options like HELOCs and low-rate brokerage margin as tools to keep flexibility.

We close with a listener-shared managed futures and trend following white paper and why managed futures can diversify both stocks and bonds in a resilient portfolio. If you find this helpful, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a rating and review so more DIY investors can find the show.
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In this episode we answer two emails from Stephen and one from Melanie.  We walk through the eight sample portfolios and talk about what each one represents, discuss how different portfolios are appropriate for different goals and the relevant comparison between two withdrawal rates is the relative difference (e.g., 6.0% versus 4.3% is a 40% difference in annual spending, not a 1.7% difference), and talk about what the performance numbers on the website represent.  We also remind the listeners that additional resources in blog form can be found at Risk Parity Chronicles. 

And THEN we our go through our weekly portfolio reviews of the eight sample portfolios you can find at Portfolios | Risk Parity Radio.

Links:

HedgeFundie Portfolio:  HEDGEFUNDIE's Excellent Adventure (UPRO/TMF) - A Summary

Testfolio Backtest of Aggressive 50/50 Portfolio (also on website):  Portfolio Backtester for ETFs and Asset Allocation | testfolio

Risk Parity Chronicles Blog Signup (Free):  Risk Parity Chronicles | Justin | Substack

Risk Parity Chronicles YouTube Channel:  Risk Parity Chronicles - YouTube

Breathless Unedited AI-Bot Summary:

A portfolio can look “safe” right up until the moment it isn’t, and nowhere is that clearer than with leveraged stock and bond strategies. We start with a deceptively simple listener question about the Aggressive 50-50 sample portfolio: did we backtest it, and what did the results say? That opens the door to a bigger point about risk parity, diversification, and why “sample portfolio” never means “recommendation” on our site. Some models are references, some are practical retirement portfolios, and some are intentionally risky experiments designed to teach us what can break.

Next, we tackle a classic retirement investing debate: should you accept a lower long-run return if it buys you a higher safe withdrawal rate? The answer depends on your goal. If you want to spend more in the early years of retirement, drawdowns and sequence-of-returns risk matter more than spreadsheet projections that assume steady annual returns. We talk through why a 4% versus 6% withdrawal rate is a lifestyle-changing gap, and why a 100% stock portfolio can still fail in worst-case starts even when long-run returns look attractive.

We also clear up a common confusion about performance reporting: when a portfolio is “up X% since inception,” those numbers reflect withdrawals as tracked in Fidelity, and you can reconcile comparisons by adding withdrawals back for a rough no-withdrawal view. We point you to Testfolio for running your own backtests with tickers, start dates, and withdrawal rates, then finish with a quick weekly snapshot across stocks, Treasuries, gold, commodities, managed futures, and our experimental portfolios. If this helps you think more clearly about portfolio allocation and retirement withdrawal planning, subscribe, share the episode, and leave a rating or review.

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In this episode we answer emails from David, Olavo, and Nick.  We discuss evaluating a sample portfolio and transitioning, helping parents and other relatives with their situations and milk-shake drinkers, being careful with leverage, large cap growth and small cap value funds for U.K. listeners and adding a 5% allocation of managed futures to a mix.
Links:

Afford Anything Risk Parity Portfolio Blueprint:  Afford Anything frank-vasquez-risk-parity-portfolio-BluePrint.pdf - Google Drive

Steve Eisman Podcast:  P&C Stocks Worth Owning: The AI Hedge with Ryan Tunis | The Real Eisman Playbook Episode 74

David's Leverage Analysis:  Portfolio Backtester for ETFs and Asset Allocation | testfolio
Breathless Unedited AI-Bot Summary:

A portfolio can look brilliant on a chart and still fail the moment real life shows up. We tackle that gap with three listener emails that force the question most investors avoid: what does “good investing” look like when the goal is sustainable spending, family responsibility, and staying out of trouble?

First, we unpack a detailed risk parity style decumulation portfolio that blends U.S. growth, small cap value, international small cap value, property and casualty insurers, gold, managed futures (DBMF), and long-duration Treasury STRIPS (GOVZ), plus a small Bitcoin slice. We translate “implied leverage” so you can see the true macro allocation to stocks, bonds, and alternatives and judge whether the mix fits the safe withdrawal rate guidelines many retirees aim for. Then we zoom out: for aging parents stuck with a high-fee AUM advisor and a sister-in-law facing a life insurance payout, we explain why planning comes before portfolio construction, touching health and longevity, taxes, RMDs, spending needs, legacy goals, and the very practical issue of who will manage the money over time.

We also go deep on leverage. If you are considering 1.5x exposure using margin at Interactive Brokers, we discuss how to model margin interest, why drawdowns matter more than averages, how margin calls happen, and why a small test allocation beats going “whole hog.” Finally, we answer a UK-specific question with UCITS ETF ideas for large cap growth and small cap value, and we give a quick framework for whether 5% DBMF can move the needle alongside 10% to 15% gold.

Subscribe, share this with a friend who is redesigning their retirement portfolio, and leave a review with your biggest investing question so we can address it next.

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In this episode we answer emails from Optimus Bill, Sin Nombre, Darren, and George.  We discuss sizing small bitcoin ETF allocations, identify resources to learn more about managed futures, and talk about how underspending or hoarding strategies are often dressed up in various ways that often have surface appeal, but are ultimately unnecessarily restrictive and lack meaningful or useful purpose.  Basic financial tools like selling shares are meant to be used, not avoided.

And THEN we our go through our weekly portfolio reviews of the eight sample portfolios you can find at Portfolios | Risk Parity Radio.

Links:

Father McKenna Center Donation Page:  Donate - Father McKenna Center

Catching Up To FI -- Donor Advised Funds:  A Donor-Advised Fund For You (Daffy): Democratizing Philanthropy for Everyone | Adam Nash | 200

Understanding Managed Futures Paper:  Understanding Managed Futures

Demystifying Managed Futures Paper:  Demystifying Managed Futures

A Century of Evidence on Trend-Following Investing Paper:  A Century of Evidence on Trend-Following Investing

List of Books from Top Traders Unplugged:  Top Traders Unplugged Ultimate Guide to Investing Books.pdf - Google Drive

"Follow The Trend" Book:  Amazon.com: Following the Trend: Diversified Managed Futures Trading (Wiley Trading): 9781119908982: Clenow, Andreas F.: Books

Excess Returns Managed Futures Presentation:  Why Most Investors Won't Buy the Best Diversifier | Andrew Beer on Managed Futures

IM Global Partners YouTube Channel (DBMF):  iMGP DBi Managed Futures Strategy ETF Update with Andrew Beer | June 2026

Overcoming Underspending Habits To Improve Well-Being in Retirement:  RPR Episode 436 Illustrated: The Two Halves of Your Financial Life

Breathless Unedited AI-Bot Summary:

Bitcoin in a risk parity portfolio sounds like a harmless side bet, until you ask the only question that matters: will a tiny allocation actually move the needle, or is it just a story you tell yourself? We dig into the practical reality of a 1% Bitcoin ETF position, why volatility can make small weights matter, and why correlation to tech stocks can feel stable one month and chaotic the next. If you’re considering crypto as a “moonshot” inside a diversified portfolio, we talk about what makes it behave like a levered risk asset and how to keep it from dominating your results.

Next, we respond to a listener who wants to learn managed futures and trend following the right way. We lay out a no-fluff roadmap: key papers, episodes to revisit, book recommendations, and ongoing video resources from fund providers. If you’ve been looking at managed futures ETFs like DBMF or KMLM and wondering what they really add to a portfolio, this section helps you separate trading curiosity from allocation decisions, and makes the case for managed futures as a serious diversifier alongside stocks, bonds, gold, commodities, and REITs.

Then we tackle a retirement hot button: living off dividend ETF income and never selling shares. We argue that “dividend-only” is often just window dressing for an ultra-low spending plan, and we make the case that selling shares is a normal tool, not a moral failure. We close with our September portfolio review and monthly distributions across the sample portfolios, including leveraged and return-stacked designs, so you can see real-world asset allocation decisions play out.

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