Tactical asset allocation insights, strategy deep dives, and platform updates.
Once a month we ship a small batch of new strategies. May is diversification month. Five strategies, four classic ways a portfolio can fall apart, one BestFolio Original. Here is what we released, how each performs over 30 to 40 years, and how they complement each other in a blended portfolio.
Read more →What if you ran five tactical strategies side by side and let the data decide every month which deserve more weight? Two real walk-forward portfolios, 26 to 30 years out-of-sample. Conservative sleeve: 9.3% CAGR with -6.3% max drawdown. Aggressive sleeve: 19.8% CAGR over 30 years.
Read more →Our April 11 piece arguing 9Sig would ruin you used a flawed engine. We rebuilt it with the full Kelly rulebook: 10% bond floor, 90% buying-power throttle, 8-quarter 30-Down lookback, skip-2-sell-signals, base reset, spike reset. The corrected 9Sig drew down 99.7% through the dot-com crash, worse than the 99.3% we originally reported. The closed-system thesis survives. Here are the receipts.
Read more →2022 was the cleanest A/B test the tactical asset allocation community is ever going to get. Classic dual momentum strategies (GEM, ADM, CDM) lost between 10 and 24 percent. Three Keller canary-family strategies (BAA-G4, BAA-G12, HAA) closed the year with positive returns. Same tactical framework, completely different design choices, and a lesson about which defensive asset actually defends when the "safe haven" bond is the thing falling.
Read more →Portfolio Visualizer is the most-cited free portfolio research tool, and for good reason. But research and implementation are different problems. Here is an honest, side-by-side look at where Portfolio Visualizer excels, where BestFolio is built differently, and how to decide which tool fits your workflow.
Read more →Kelly's 3Sig, 6Sig, and 9Sig systems are marketed as mechanical rebalancing genius. Our walk-forward backtest confirms the headline CAGR (21% for 9Sig) but exposes a 99% max drawdown and a Sharpe ratio that does not improve with aggression. Here is why we built a rejection log instead of listing it.
Read more →Classic diversification has felt like a tax for a decade — because funding it by selling equities in a bull run is the wrong question. A new Quantica Capital paper (March 2026) reframes it as a stacking problem, and spells out exactly why we built SmartStack™: layer gold and managed futures on top of any TAA strategy without selling what is working, using leveraged ETFs at fractional weight. No margin, no futures account.
Most investors have no idea what factor bets they are actually making. FactorLens runs a Fama-French 5-factor regression on your portfolio and shows you exactly where your returns come from.
Read more →We built four new strategies from scratch — including Composite Momentum, which achieves a Sharpe ratio above 1.0 over 25+ years. Plus a community-sourced Golden Ratio portfolio. Here is how we designed them.
Read more →The average investor underperforms the market by 3-4% per year — not from bad picks, but from emotional decisions during downturns. Rules-based tactical asset allocation removes the panic trigger and keeps you invested through the chaos.
Read more →Running tactical strategies from Europe means more trades, UCITS constraints, and FX costs. We compared IBKR, DEGIRO, XTB, Trading 212, Saxo, and Lightyear for TAA suitability.
Read more →Tactical strategies involve more trades than buy-and-hold. Between commissions, spreads, subscription tools, and whole-share constraints, what is the smallest portfolio where TAA still makes sense? We run the numbers.
Read more →RP Gold+SCV (Risk Parity Gold + Small Cap Value) is Martin Schwoerer's innovative strategy that combines risk parity weighting with gold and small cap value tilts. With a 7.5% CAGR and managed drawdowns, this approach offers a differentiated portfolio that blends factor investing with risk-balanced asset allocation for investors seeking alternatives to traditional stock-bond mixes.
Read more →Momentum factor ETFs like SPMO and FMTM give you cheap exposure to the momentum premium. But they leave significant returns on the table compared to tactical momentum strategies that adapt their exposure based on market conditions.
Read more →Paired Switching is a relative momentum strategy that rotates between just two assets — typically stocks (SPY) and long-term bonds (TLT) — based on recent performance. With a remarkable 10.7% CAGR over nearly 40 years of backtesting, this ETF rotation strategy proves that tactical asset allocation does not need to be complicated to be effective.
Read more →The Golden Butterfly enhances Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio by replacing the cash allocation with small cap value stocks — historically the highest-returning equity factor. With a 7.9% CAGR and just -19.9% max drawdown over 25 years, the Golden Butterfly offers a compelling middle ground between safety-first fixed allocations and aggressive growth strategies.
Read more →The Classic 60/40 portfolio — 60% stocks, 40% bonds — has been the default institutional benchmark for balanced investing for over half a century. With a backtest CAGR of 8.8% over 39 years, it remains the standard against which all tactical and alternative strategies are measured. Understanding its strengths and limitations is essential for any serious investor.
Read more →The Permanent Portfolio divides your money equally among stocks, long-term bonds, gold, and cash — four assets designed to thrive in different economic environments. Created by Harry Browne in the 1980s, this fixed allocation strategy has delivered steady 7.1% annual returns with remarkably low drawdowns, making it a favorite among conservative investors seeking simplicity and resilience.
Read more →Global Equities Momentum (GEM) is Gary Antonacci's flagship dual momentum strategy that rotates between U.S. stocks, international stocks, and bonds based on 12-month returns. With a backtest CAGR of 11.3% and a systematic approach to avoiding bear markets, GEM remains one of the most popular tactical asset allocation strategies for individual investors.
Read more →Market crises are inevitable. Tactical asset allocation strategies use momentum, trend, and volatility signals to systematically reduce exposure before the worst damage is done. Here is how TAA performed during four major crises.
Read more →Dual momentum is the foundation of many tactical strategies. We explain how it works and compare the three main implementations: GEM, ADM, and CDM.
Read more →A practical, step-by-step guide to building your first tactical asset allocation portfolio. From choosing strategies to executing monthly rebalances.
Read more →Three of the most popular fixed-allocation portfolios compared head-to-head. We break down historical performance, drawdowns, and who each portfolio is actually best for.
Read more →Honest comparison of BestFolio and AllocateSmartly: strategy coverage, walk-forward methodology, signal pipeline, blending, UCITS, pricing, and what each platform genuinely does better. Updated 2026-04-27 after factcheck feedback.
Read more →Tactical asset allocation shifts your portfolio between asset classes based on market conditions. Learn how TAA works, why it matters, and how to get started.
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