Description

Recommended for: Capital growth, speculation and young investors.

The Aggressive Risk Portfolio is appropriate for an investor with a high risk tolerance and a time horizon longer than 10 years. Aggressive investors should be willing to accept periods of extreme ups and downs in exchange for the possibility of receiving higher relative returns over the long term. A longer time horizon is needed to allow time for investments to recover in the event of a sharp downturn. This portfolio is heavily weighted with stocks which are historically more volatile than bonds and may include leveraged ETFs such as UGLD, SPXL and TMF.

Methodology & Assets
This portfolio is constructed by our proprietary optimization algorithm based on Modern Portfolio Theory pioneered by Nobel Laureate Harry Markowitz. Using historical returns, the algorithm finds the asset allocation that produced the highest return with volatility less than 17%.

While this portfolio provides an optimized asset allocation based on historical returns, your investment objectives, risk profile and personal experience are important factors when deciding on the best investment vehicle for yourself. You can also use the Portfolio Builder or Portfolio Optimizer to construct your own personalized portfolio.

Assets and weight constraints used in the optimizer process:
  • Bond ETF Rotation Strategy (BRS) (0% to 60%)
  • BUG Permanent Portfolio Strategy (BUG) (0% to 60%)
  • Global Market Rotation Strategy (GMRS) (0% to 60%)
  • Global Sector Rotation Strategy (GSRS) (0% to 60%)
  • Short Term Bond Strategy (STBS) (0% to 60%)
  • Universal Investment Strategy (UIS) (0% to 60%)
  • Universal Investment Strategy 2x Leverage (UISx2) (0% to 60%)
  • US Market Strategy 2x Leverage (USMx2) (0% to 60%)
  • US Sector Rotation Strategy (USSECT) (0% to 60%)
  • World Top 4 Strategy (WTOP4) (0% to 60%)

Statistics (YTD)

What do these metrics mean? [Read More] [Hide]

TotalReturn:

'Total return, when measuring performance, is the actual rate of return of an investment or a pool of investments over a given evaluation period. Total return includes interest, capital gains, dividends and distributions realized over a given period of time. Total return accounts for two categories of return: income including interest paid by fixed-income investments, distributions or dividends and capital appreciation, representing the change in the market price of an asset.'

Which means for our asset as example:
  • Compared with the benchmark SPY (84.4%) in the period of the last 5 years, the total return, or performance of 64.6% of Aggressive Risk Portfolio is lower, thus worse.
  • Compared with SPY (71.1%) in the period of the last 3 years, the total return, or increase in value of 41.6% is smaller, thus worse.

CAGR:

'The compound annual growth rate isn't a true return rate, but rather a representational figure. It is essentially a number that describes the rate at which an investment would have grown if it had grown the same rate every year and the profits were reinvested at the end of each year. In reality, this sort of performance is unlikely. However, CAGR can be used to smooth returns so that they may be more easily understood when compared to alternative investments.'

Which means for our asset as example:
  • Compared with the benchmark SPY (13.1%) in the period of the last 5 years, the annual return (CAGR) of 10.5% of Aggressive Risk Portfolio is smaller, thus worse.
  • Compared with SPY (19.7%) in the period of the last 3 years, the annual return (CAGR) of 12.4% is lower, thus worse.

Volatility:

'Volatility is a statistical measure of the dispersion of returns for a given security or market index. Volatility can either be measured by using the standard deviation or variance between returns from that same security or market index. Commonly, the higher the volatility, the riskier the security. In the securities markets, volatility is often associated with big swings in either direction. For example, when the stock market rises and falls more than one percent over a sustained period of time, it is called a 'volatile' market.'

Applying this definition to our asset in some examples:
  • Compared with the benchmark SPY (17.2%) in the period of the last 5 years, the historical 30 days volatility of 13.8% of Aggressive Risk Portfolio is lower, thus better.
  • Compared with SPY (15.3%) in the period of the last 3 years, the historical 30 days volatility of 12.8% is lower, thus better.

DownVol:

'The downside volatility is similar to the volatility, or standard deviation, but only takes losing/negative periods into account.'

Which means for our asset as example:
  • Looking at the downside volatility of 9.8% in the last 5 years of Aggressive Risk Portfolio, we see it is relatively lower, thus better in comparison to the benchmark SPY (11.8%)
  • Compared with SPY (10.3%) in the period of the last 3 years, the downside volatility of 9% is lower, thus better.

Sharpe:

'The Sharpe ratio was developed by Nobel laureate William F. Sharpe, and is used to help investors understand the return of an investment compared to its risk. The ratio is the average return earned in excess of the risk-free rate per unit of volatility or total risk. Subtracting the risk-free rate from the mean return allows an investor to better isolate the profits associated with risk-taking activities. One intuition of this calculation is that a portfolio engaging in 'zero risk' investments, such as the purchase of U.S. Treasury bills (for which the expected return is the risk-free rate), has a Sharpe ratio of exactly zero. Generally, the greater the value of the Sharpe ratio, the more attractive the risk-adjusted return.'

Which means for our asset as example:
  • Compared with the benchmark SPY (0.62) in the period of the last 5 years, the Sharpe Ratio of 0.58 of Aggressive Risk Portfolio is lower, thus worse.
  • During the last 3 years, the ratio of return and volatility (Sharpe) is 0.77, which is lower, thus worse than the value of 1.12 from the benchmark.

Sortino:

'The Sortino ratio measures the risk-adjusted return of an investment asset, portfolio, or strategy. It is a modification of the Sharpe ratio but penalizes only those returns falling below a user-specified target or required rate of return, while the Sharpe ratio penalizes both upside and downside volatility equally. Though both ratios measure an investment's risk-adjusted return, they do so in significantly different ways that will frequently lead to differing conclusions as to the true nature of the investment's return-generating efficiency. The Sortino ratio is used as a way to compare the risk-adjusted performance of programs with differing risk and return profiles. In general, risk-adjusted returns seek to normalize the risk across programs and then see which has the higher return unit per risk.'

Applying this definition to our asset in some examples:
  • Compared with the benchmark SPY (0.89) in the period of the last 5 years, the ratio of annual return and downside deviation of 0.82 of Aggressive Risk Portfolio is lower, thus worse.
  • Looking at excess return divided by the downside deviation in of 1.1 in the period of the last 3 years, we see it is relatively lower, thus worse in comparison to SPY (1.67).

Ulcer:

'The ulcer index is a stock market risk measure or technical analysis indicator devised by Peter Martin in 1987, and published by him and Byron McCann in their 1989 book The Investors Guide to Fidelity Funds. It's designed as a measure of volatility, but only volatility in the downward direction, i.e. the amount of drawdown or retracement occurring over a period. Other volatility measures like standard deviation treat up and down movement equally, but a trader doesn't mind upward movement, it's the downside that causes stress and stomach ulcers that the index's name suggests.'

Applying this definition to our asset in some examples:
  • Compared with the benchmark SPY (8.45 ) in the period of the last 5 years, the Ulcer Index of 5.57 of Aggressive Risk Portfolio is lower, thus better.
  • Compared with SPY (3.52 ) in the period of the last 3 years, the Downside risk index of 3.94 is greater, thus worse.

MaxDD:

'Maximum drawdown is defined as the peak-to-trough decline of an investment during a specific period. It is usually quoted as a percentage of the peak value. The maximum drawdown can be calculated based on absolute returns, in order to identify strategies that suffer less during market downturns, such as low-volatility strategies. However, the maximum drawdown can also be calculated based on returns relative to a benchmark index, for identifying strategies that show steady outperformance over time.'

Applying this definition to our asset in some examples:
  • Looking at the maximum reduction from previous high of -19.6 days in the last 5 years of Aggressive Risk Portfolio, we see it is relatively greater, thus better in comparison to the benchmark SPY (-24.5 days)
  • Looking at maximum drop from peak to valley in of -13.2 days in the period of the last 3 years, we see it is relatively greater, thus better in comparison to SPY (-18.8 days).

MaxDuration:

'The Drawdown Duration is the length of any peak to peak period, or the time between new equity highs. The Max Drawdown Duration is the worst (the maximum/longest) amount of time an investment has seen between peaks (equity highs) in days.'

Using this definition on our asset we see for example:
  • Looking at the maximum days below previous high of 289 days in the last 5 years of Aggressive Risk Portfolio, we see it is relatively lower, thus better in comparison to the benchmark SPY (488 days)
  • Compared with SPY (87 days) in the period of the last 3 years, the maximum days below previous high of 190 days is larger, thus worse.

AveDuration:

'The Drawdown Duration is the length of any peak to peak period, or the time between new equity highs. The Avg Drawdown Duration is the average amount of time an investment has seen between peaks (equity highs), or in other terms the average of time under water of all drawdowns. So in contrast to the Maximum duration it does not measure only one drawdown event but calculates the average of all.'

Which means for our asset as example:
  • Looking at the average days below previous high of 65 days in the last 5 years of Aggressive Risk Portfolio, we see it is relatively smaller, thus better in comparison to the benchmark SPY (119 days)
  • Compared with SPY (21 days) in the period of the last 3 years, the average days under water of 43 days is greater, thus worse.

Performance (YTD)

Historical returns have been extended using synthetic data.

Allocations ()

Allocations

Returns (%)

  • Note that yearly returns do not equal the sum of monthly returns due to compounding.
  • Performance results of Aggressive Risk Portfolio are hypothetical and do not account for slippage, fees or taxes.
  • Results may be based on backtesting, which has many inherent limitations, some of which are described in our Terms of Use.