Investing has changed. Algorithmic trading, the popularity of index investing, the continuous news cycle have helped investing go mainstream. But with that evolution comes massive hype from unproven investing sources, many of whom have never navigated a bear market.

At the same time, the crowding of so much wealth into the S&P 500 index has led to a near-total “risk on/risk off” situation. As a result, we need to retire much of the traditional investing playbook. For those who see investing as more than simply relying on the S&P 500 to get them to retirement and/or keep them there, ROAR 10 was created. Here’s a look at this model portfolio strategy, how it works and how it has performed in a back tested study we performed.

ROAR 10: an ETF portfolio for the times we live in

The ROAR 10 portfolio is built on a simple philosophy: If you take major losses off the table, the gains tend to take care of themselves. Instead of guessing which securities will go up, this strategy focuses on what we can actually measure: Risk.

By owning a set of 10 ETFs, each chosen to play a specific role in the total portfolio, owning them at all times and tactically adjusting their position sizes, the model seeks to minimize exposure to assets at high risk of a major decline while staying positioned for growth.

The Roster: 10 Assets, 10 Roles

Every one of these 10 ETFs has a permanent seat at the table. We don’t guess which one will “win”; we scout which ones are currently most at risk of “losing.”

• Growth: QQQ (Nasdaq 100), DIA (Blue Chips), and IWC (Micro-Caps). These drive the portfolio forward.

• Protection: BIL (Treasury Bills), BTAL (Market Neutral), and VIXY (Volatility). These are the tools used to slow the portfolio down. They are always present, but their position sizes expand significantly when market danger is scouted. They also give the portfolio a fighting chance of making money in down markets.

• Lower Correlation contributors: GLD (Gold), PDBC (Commodities), GOVI (Treasuries) TBF (Short Treasuries),. These help the portfolio navigate inflation or interest rate shifts that can rattle traditional stock-and-bond holdings.

Here’s that low correlation in action. This table shows how much in sync each of the 10 ETFs is with the others. If we were looking at 10 very similar ETFs, the whole table would look like that dark pink diagonal section at the top.

Instead, there is hardly any dark pink. That indicates that these 10 ETFs tend to move independently of each other. Translation: ROAR 10 is structured to provide an opportunity to succeed in a very wide range of market climates. This is what makes it so different from the masses of traditional approaches.

The ROAR Score: A proprietary risk measure, based on 45 years of hands-on technical analysis

The ROAR Score, created by ETFYourself.com creator Rob Isbitts, serves as the central intelligence of the strategy, acting as a real-time “scouting report” for market health. Rather than attempting to predict the next big winner—which often descends into guesswork—the score measures the objective risk of a major decline.

It monitors price trends, volatility and historical tendencies across the financial landscape to estimate the risk of major loss in any security, at any point in time. ROAR Scores are part science and part art, in that investment analysis is never perfect. However, ROAR swaps out “finding big winners” for “minimizing maximum regret” across the portfolio.

When the ROAR Score signals that risk for an ETF in the ROAR 10 portfolio is accelerating, the portfolio doesn’t exit that market. Instead, it shifts its weight downward, using that cash to increase the allocation to ETFs whose risk is judged by ROAR to be decreasing. Or, if there is a temporary shortage of such parts of the portfolio, the cash ETF (BIL) serves as the “residual” portfolio position.

The bottom line: capital preservation is prioritized before a market pothole becomes a catastrophic crash.

This chart shows the maximum and minimum weightings which apply to each of the 10 ETFs in ROAR 10. The “neutral” weight is what the allocation is expected to be during periods in which risk is judged to be closer to average.

ROAR is essentially an automated, high-powered “chart reader” based on Rob Isbitts’ decades of chart-reading. It has served as the backbone of his ETFYourself.com investment research site on the Substack platform.

However, as opposed to manually reading every chart every day, ROAR Scores are generated on nearly every ETF and stock, through a research portfolio Rob created with PiTrade.com, at the site ROAR.PiTrade.com.

ROAR Scores in action

When the ROAR Score signals that risk is accelerating, the portfolio doesn’t exit that market. Instead, it shifts its weight from growth-oriented assets to defensive ones, so that capital preservation is prioritized before a market pothole becomes a catastrophic crash.

To turn this intelligence into action, each of the 10 ETFs is assigned a Neutral, Minimum, and Maximum range. This framework ensures the portfolio is never “out of the game” but always solidly protected.

The Neutral setting represents the standard baseline for a stable market. If the ROAR Score detects rising danger, the model downsizes assets toward their Minimum floor. Conversely, in a healthy bull market, the model pushes the gas pedal by moving assets toward their Maximum limit. This systematic re-sizing removes emotional bias, ensuring that position sizes are dictated by measured risk rather than investor impulse.

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Note that with a range of ETF assets in ROAR 10, a rising ROAR Score for a defensive asset often implies higher risk to the stock or bond markets, or both. As opposed to many allocation strategies that offer very limited “escape hatches” which the markets act uniquely poor, ROAR has many ways to try to profit, in virtually any environment.

The Story of the Backtest: Scouting for Risk (2020–2026)

The history of the ROAR 10 backtest is a story of continuous scouting. The model isn’t looking for Alpha. It is looking for Danger. Because over a market cycle, avoiding danger is a major factor in generating long-term returns.

• The 2020 Pivot: Entering the pandemic, the model scouted a massive spike in equity risk. It didn’t exit the market, but it shifted the weight. It dialed down high-volatility players like IWC and QQQ and redirected that capital into primarily BIL and GLD. By taking the risk of a major equity decline off the table, the portfolio stayed stable while the broader market crashed.

• The 2022 Traction: When both stocks and bonds struggled, the model identified the risk in traditional fixed income. It leaned on PDBC (Commodities) and TBF (Inverse Treasuries) to act as shock absorbers. By having these 10 diversifiers always available, the portfolio found traction on a road where 60/40 portfolios were sliding.

• Capturing the Lead (2024–2026): As the risk of a major decline subsided, the model shifted the weight back toward the proverbial gas pedal. Because IWC, QQQ, and DIA were always in the portfolio, the model didn’t have to “buy back in”—it simply increased their position sizes. This allowed the portfolio to capture a solid portion of the broad stock market’s gains.

What to Expect: Priority on Protection

When explaining ROAR 10 to investors, the focus is on the Defensive Side of the Ball:

1. No Guessing: We don’t predict which of the 10 will go up the most. We scout for which of the 10 are currently at the highest risk of a major drawdown and reduce that exposure.

2. Always Invested: We never go to 100% cash. By keeping all 10 ETFs in the portfolio, even at small position sizes, at all times, ROAR 10 is always ready to participate when the market turns positive. Cash is a solid hedge, but in times of sustained market crisis, having a few ETFs which tend to rise when stocks or bonds fall is a significant advantage versus traditional defensive or “market timing” strategies.

3. Risk Management First: Our primary goal is to take the 30% or 40% loss off the table. Once the “major bad thing” is avoided, we seek to make as much as possible with the remaining growth exposure. The model’s backtested historical performance

Conclusion

• ROAR 10 is for investors who understand that the best offense is a great defense.

• By constantly scouting for risk and adjusting the position sizes of our 10 core assets, the model portfolio aims to protect capital first.

• That creates a smoother, more resilient path to long-term wealth.

Past Performance: backtested analysis

(Sources: ROAR.PiTrade.com and Ycharts)

IMPORTANT: The following analysis is based on a hypothetical backtest. Backtested results have inherent limitations, as they are designed with the benefit of hindsight. This is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Past performance—real or hypothetical—is no guarantee of future results.

ROAR 10 vs. Conservative Allocation ETF (AOK)

ROAR 10 is by definition a conservative portfolio strategy, based on its “defense first” approach to investing. As this chart below shows, it held its ground during the 2020 Covid shock and other market plunges since. Because it is always structured and prepared for that purpose. The ability to keep capital intact during such periods is a key factor in generating competitive long-term returns.

ROAR 10 outperformed a traditional conservative stock-bond approach. (AT=All-Time returns, inception 1/1/2020).

ROAR 10 exhibited a consistent return pattern on an annual basis from 2020-2025.

Where the traditional role of bonds as a stock market hedge has been less reliable this decade, ROAR 10 has been able to capture most of the upside of a conservative stock/bond mix, but with far less downside.

Standard Deviation is a standard and pure measure of a strategy’s volatility, since it tracks the variability of returns versus its long-term average. ROAR 10’s 5-year Standard Deviation of 4.4% is about that of a 5-year US Treasury Note, but with much higher returns. That produced a 5-year “alpha” to AOK of 4.6%.

Most importantly, the maximum drawdown was only 5%. This, amid a period including multiple stock market declines of 20-30%, and the worst year for bonds in half a century, It is that controlled decline in value which can potentially result in a more comfortable investment experience, as opposed to the gyrations we’ve become so used to.

ROAR 10 vs. SPY ETF

To help investors understand ROAR 10’s backtested performance versus the S&P 500 ETF (SPY), here is a summary table over the past 5 years. A beta of under 0.25, strong alpha, and an up/down capture of 34%/20%.

Concluding thoughts

Investors have been conditioned over the past decade or so. Market declines in the broad averages have been brief, and the return of the S&P 500 index has masked growing weakness in other areas. This is particular the case since interest rates re-established higher levels after many years sitting near zero, due to central bank policy.

As we see it, investing is NOT “beat the S&P 500.” That would equate to be OK with making or losing about 40% in a single calendar year. ROAR 10 was created by Rob Isbitts to offer investors a path to follow, in cases where simply tracking the S&P 500 up and down over time is an uncomfortable proposition.

For further information

For more information on the ROAR 10 model portfolio, sign up for ETFYourself.com on Substack and/or email us at info@sungardeninvestment.com.

For information on how to have the ROAR 10 model portfolio “copy-traded” for you, visit PiTrade.com or email support@PiTrade.com.

Backtest & Risk Disclosure: ROAR 10 is a hypothetical model. Backtested performance does not represent actual trading and may not reflect the impact that material economic and market factors might have had on decision-making if the assets were actually managed. Investors may lose money. Strategic shifts in the model (e.g., into VIXY or TBF) involve specialized risks, including volatility and interest rate sensitivity. All figures are gross of fees, which would reduce actual returns.

Let’s say the quiet part out loud: the stock market is grossly overvalued. So why is the S&P 500 still 3% from its all-time high? Because risk of major loss, my top focus as an investment analyst, is not a certainty, it’s a probability. Like your team winning a game, the price of gasoline at the pump a month from now, or having a health issue.

And that’s what so many investors miss, and should get in sync with. Before they find out that markets travel in all directions, not only north.

To size up where we are, and potentially where we are going at any moment in time, I created the ROAR Score. It is not a guarantee. It is more like those new, hot, sexy prediction markets, like Kalshi or Polymarket.

Or like my favorite sport, horse racing. The favorite does not win every race. Actually more like 1/3 of races. And not all favorites have the same odds. And long shots come in, with some sharp racing analysts developing a nice habit of finding them. Investing is analogous to horse racing in many ways. That’s one reason I created my other (free) Substack site, HorseClaiming.com

As for the S&P 500, and the other major stock indexes, they are getting smoked as this week closes. The impulse reaction from many newer investors (those who have not had significant assets at stake during a bear market) is to ask “should I buy the dip with both fists today, or wait until next week?” In other words, they’ve been trained by market pundits that every drop in stock prices is a “buying opportunity.”

That’s not true. But try telling some of them. I have tried.

What’s the market telling us right now?

Below, as I’ll show in living color, the major stock indexes are presenting what to me is one of the more threatening pictures I’ve seen in a while. The ROAR Scores are reflecting it for the most part. However, I think it is the rest of this month of March that will be the proving ground, one way or the other.

Why do I think that? Because I’ve spent 30-something years looking at charts, and recently developing an automated way to read them. And when I see pictures that look like this, I know I’ve seen them before. Many times, since the 1980s.

Some of them led to huge drawdowns, reversing years of gains in a fraction of the time. And others were just false alarms.

But my mantra as an investor, back in my days as a fiduciary client advisor, and today as a semi-retired investment writer and “Chief ROAR Score Evangelist” has always been the same. And my portfolios’ paths during uncertain times like this support it: if you manage risk tightly at all times, you get your fair share of the ups. But more importantly, you will also do what one some describe as “minimize maximum regret.”

We are in one of those market eras in which wide swings in value should be expected. The question, as Taylor Swift would ask, is this: are you ready for it?

ROAR.PiTrade.com is our free “lab” you can try out.

ETFYourself.com (paid levels) is where I explain what I see there, and in my direct chart work too.

PiTrade.com is where those who simply want to copy what I do in some of my risk-managed portfolios can do so.

Now, let’s get to the charts and ROAR Scores.

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After 30 years and over 130,000 hours in the professional investing world, I’ve reached a conclusion that would have shocked me at the start of my career: For many investors, a core portfolio can consist of as few as two ETFs. This has much more to do with how markets now function.

In today’s market, complexity is often a distraction. We are surrounded by algorithmic trading that creates daily whipsaws, a dominant indexing culture that moves thousands of stocks in unison, and a “risk-on/risk-off” environment that has neutered traditional diversification. For the modern DIY investor, the biggest remaining edge isn’t stock picking—it’s risk management.

The Evolution of the “Core” Portfolio

The 2-ETF portfolio is actually more of a 3-piece investing suit designed for the realities of modern markets:

1. A way to play “Offense”: Something related to the stock market, most likely.

2. A way to play “Defense”: Something that can do well when stocks don’t.

3. A tactical allocation method: A disciplined system to shift the weight between those two ETFs. Importantly, every investor can potentially have their own preference for what type of “guardrails” they install around that 2-ETF mix.

Think of it like a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich. You own both ingredients all the time, but the secret is in determining how much PB and how much J to put in that sandwich at any given point in the market cycle.

The ROAR Mechanism: The Engine of Tactical Allocation

The ROAR (Reward Opportunity And Risk) Score is the tactical engine I created over the course of 3 decades. I use it to dictate the mix between a set of 2 or more ETFs (or stocks) at any given time. Developed as a technical indicator, it processes raw market data to answer one critical question: “Is this stock or ETF more likely to rise 10% in price before it falls 10%?”.

By identifying where the path of least resistance lies, the ROAR mechanism allows for a disciplined, weekly adjustment of my portfolio weights. This systematic approach removes the guesswork and emotional stress, focusing entirely on capturing upside while prioritizing the avoidance of major “learning experiences”—otherwise known as big losses.

Why Simplicity Wins (and Diversification Fails)

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Let’s be honest: Wall Street loves to make investing sound like rocket science. They’ll sell you a 30-fund “diversified” portfolio that ends up being nothing more than a giant, expensive closet index. Over my 30-plus years as an advisor and fund manager, I’ve learned that complexity is often the enemy of clarity—and the enemy of your returns.

That’s why I developed my 10-ETF Model Portfolio. It isn’t just a list of tickers; it’s a philosophy. It’s built on the idea that you don’t need 500 stocks to win; you need 10 focused “buckets” that allow you to play offense when the sun is shining and a rock-solid defense when the clouds roll in.

The Architecture: 10 Slots, One Mission (a Core Portfolio)

Here’s what this portfolio looks like when I include and update and commentary on it every Tuesday in our Weekly ROAR newsletter for paid subscribers. This portfolio is also available as part of our “Copy-Trading” agreement with our friends at PiTrade.com. More on that below.

The 10 portfolios slots are always used. That is, I always have at least a token allocation to all 10. This makes it like a more flexible version of the popular “permanent portfolio” approach. Except that here, every week the weightings of each of the 10 ETFs is up for review, based on their ROAR Scores.

As market cycles evolve, I may find it helpful to “upgrade” one or more of the slots. Return and Risk characteristics of different markets change over time, and I’ve seen too many mistakes by investors clinging to things like “income stocks” or “value” or “small caps,” when in fact those market segments can be uncompetitive for a decade or longer. So I remain flexible at all times. I think that’s what helped get me this far (I started managing money professionally in 1993).

This model portfolio is designed to be a “core” investment vehicle. I use it alongside a “bond ladder,” my 2-ETF portfolios, and some short-term trading. That’s my total portfolio.

I use 10 specific ETFs to cover the waterfront, but I don’t just “buy and hold” them forever. I manage them tactically using what I call the ROAR (Reward Opportunity And Risk) Score. That’s the name I gave to the systematic approach to analyzing ETF and stock charts, which is now a process whose bottom-line can be seen for any security at any time, at our analytics site, ROAR.PiTrade.com.

Here is how the 10-ETF framework is structured:

Based on the allocation model as of February 22, 2026, here is a simple breakdown of the roles for each of the 10 ETFs, categorized by their mission on the field.

The Offense Squad (Growth & Inflation Protection)

These five positions are designed to capture market upside and protect against the erosion of purchasing power.

• QQQ (Core Equity): This tracks the Nasdaq 100, serving as a high-growth engine focused on technology innovators.

• DIA (Core Equity): This tracks the Dow Jones Industrial Average, providing a concentrated anchor of 30 blue-chip stocks that are easy to monitor.

My research has concluded that QQQ + DIA + ROAR Score = a better return/risk tradeoff than the S&P 500 (SPY). As long as I believe that to be the case, I’ll keep these two paired within the portfolio, allocating among them.

• PDBC (Commodities): An inflation-fighter that invests in a broad basket of commodities like energy, gold, and agriculture.

• GLD (Gold): While commodities include some gold, this slot isolates the metal as a dedicated inflation fighter and offset to long-term concerns about fiat currencies.

• IBIT (Bitcoin): A modern “spot” Bitcoin tracker included to ensure the portfolio doesn’t exclude the crypto era’s growth potential.

The Defense Squad (Stability & Hedging)

These five positions are designed to preserve capital and even profit during market downturns or rising interest rate environments.

• GOVI (Core Bond): This provides diversification across the U.S. Treasury yield curve (1–30 years) to act as a stabilizer against stock market volatility. In falling rate environments, it also has significant profit potential.

• TBF (Hedge/Inverse): This “Short” position profits when long-term Treasury bond rates rise, often providing a hedge against equity market drops.

This is one part of “income investing” research that I think many in my field miss. Bonds yield more than stocks, but as we saw in 2022, rising rates can destroy their total return, resulting in a years-long climb back to even. I prefer to treat rising rates as just another in a wide range of possible outcomes to try to exploit for growth with managed risk.

• BIL (Cash & Equivalents): Focused on the shortest-term Treasury bills (0-3 months to maturity, this is the “parking lot” for safety. At times it can actually rival the returns of stocks and bonds. It does not often get close to its 60% maximum weight, but in a case where virtually nothing is working, BIL can be a nice place to hang out.

• BTAL (Long-Short Equity): A sophisticated “Anti-Beta” play that aims to profit when low-volatility stocks outperform higher-volatility stocks. At times I have used a straight “inverse” ETF in this slot. But the first half of this decade was so dominated by higher volatility stocks, I felt this one was a better fit, for a while at least. Especially when paired with the last ETF position, described next.

• VIXY (Wildcard): A high-volatility “tail” position that spikes when the stock market freaks out, providing a compact way to hedge large equity exposure. As such, is high, low and neutral allocation levels are the lowest of any of the 10 ETFs.

Why 10? Why Not 2 or 20? A case of “less is more”

You might wonder why I settled on 10. It’s the “Goldilocks” number for the modern DIY investor:

• Precision: 10 ETFs are enough to capture every major market trend—from AI booms to interest rate spikes.

• Manageability: You can review ten tickers in 15 minutes. You can’t do that with a portfolio of 30 mutual funds, much less 100 stocks. Markets are so highly correlated now, less is more.

The “ROAR” Factor: Why It Makes Sense

The biggest mistake investors make is staying “all in” during a bear market. My 10-ETF portfolio makes sense because it is dynamic. It can tilt toward a more aggressive or conservative mix, or somewhere in between. And with the diverse set of markets represented, it tends to be less vulnerable to market shocks and whipsaw.

With this model portfolio, I’m not trying to predict the future. I am navigating the present, without creating the stress that comes with making constant “binary” decisions. This is not a matter of “buy or sell,” it is about how much to own, at any point in time, given the players on the team around each ETF.

Investing isn’t about being right or wrong. It is about trying to keep worst-case scenarios off the table at all times, then make as much as I can.

10-ETF Allocation Portfolio: Copy Trading Capability

That means investors can go to that site, choose “ETF Yourself Allocation” portfolio and have this same portfolio I run for myself managed for you through that RIA (Registered Investment Advisor) firm, through an account custodied at Interactive Brokers. The 10-ETF ROAR Scores and the portfolio allocation/rebalancing methodology I set up with PiTrade.com is automatically traded weekly, if there are any changes to the positions.

Summary Thoughts

The 10-ETF portfolio is about helping investors confront modern markets with a sense of control, moderation and confidence. It’s about moving away from the “hope and pray” method of 60/40 indexing and moving toward a tactical, risk-managed approach that prioritizes capital preservation as much as growth. It’s simple, it’s transparent, and most importantly, it’s built to survive whatever the market throws at us next.

Here’s the thing about past performance in investing. Every advertisement for an investment that includes performance information has a disclaimer such as this: “past performance is not a guarantee of future results.” That’s absolutely true. However…

There is one thing about past performance that IS a guarantee. We can’t have it. In in the past!

I’m not trying to be cute here. The fact is, past performance of an investment strategy, on the surface, does not tell us anything about how that same approach will work in the market climate of today, or at any point in the future. Markets change, the players involved change, and the effectiveness of strategies that used to work definitely changes.

What shouldn’t change? The OBJECTIVES of a investing strategy. Case in point, the way we run things at ETF Yourself. We have our priorities straight:

1. Avoid Big Loss (ABL). A drop from any peak to trough of 10% is about all we’ll allow. Many investors will tell you that can’t be controlled, that market volatility is not something we can do much about. We say they’re not trying hard enough!

2. Make as much as we can, after doing all we can to take big loss off the table.

3. Control the range of possible outcomes (ROPO, as we call it). Using our ROAR Score and position sizing techniques, developed and evolved over decades. Including through 7 bear market cycles.

4. Continuously seek to improve, in good markets and bad. A big part of being an ETF Yourself subscriber is joining us on that journey. We are not a service that is based on “just follow my picks and get rich.” Because that assumes every investor is going to take our work and use it the same way. So instead, we lead by example, walking subscribers through our ongoing thought process.

Our past performance record: what it is and isn’t

We get it. Everyone wants to know “how did you do?” And that’s what show just below. It is a record we think shows a consistent pattern over a long period of time: we manage risk. And by doing so, we achieve consistent long-term results, while skipping the panicky periods most investors go through.

These performance records are presented in 3 parts:

1. The live record of our 2-ETF Conservative Portfolio, governed by our weekly ROAR Score. We’ve compared it to what we think is a logical benchmark, a conservative mix of 30% stocks/70% bonds as a comparison. This mix has been shared with our subscribers weekly since the start of 2022.

Our conclusion over the past 4 years of running these, and showing them weekly to subscribers? SIMPLE works pretty well!

2. We also share the Moderate version of the same 2-ETF portfolio, which mandates SPY be at least 50% of the portfolio at all times, and allocating the other 50% as per the ROAR Score. This mix has been shared with our subscribers in addition to the Conservative portfolio above, for a while, via our weekly letter. We compare it to a balanced mix of 60% stocks/40% bonds.

3. The last performance record shown is one had to go into the proverbial attic to create. It is a mix of Rob Isbitts’ investment returns through multiple segments of his investing career. It goes all the way back to late 2002, and links together what were audited returns from his past life as a fiduciary investment advisor to high net worth families. The benchmarks we chose for this linked-together record of more than 20 years reflect the concepts of low-volatility returns, and the general objective Rob had for his then-clients during most of his advisory career: do better than a total bond portfolio, such as the Vanguard mutual fund shown here. That mandate is still a priority for the Isbitts family in managing their own money, so we included a 5% and 6% annualized return to service as “guardrails” for the live, long-term record (purple line).

Finally, here’s a quick summary of some performance analytics, covering the 3-year period ending 12/19/25. Explanations below this graphic.

Over this 3-year period, the Conservative 2-ETF portfolio, comprised only of SPY, BIL and using ROAR as an allocation system, produced an annualized return of just over 8%. The standard deviation over that time was only 3%, about half that of both the Conservative Allocation ETF (AOK) and the Vanguard Total Bond Index ETF (BND). That was also about 1/4 the standard deviation of a popular dividend ETF (SCHD), which returned 7.3% of that period.

The upside and downside statistics measure the percentage of the up and down moves of the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) were experienced by the 2-ETF strategy. It captured about 30% of the upside, but only 12% of the downside of SPY over this 3-year period.

Finally, the maximum drawdown for the 2-ETF strategy over this period was less than 4%. BND and SCHD fell by 16-17% each during this time, while SPY had a drawdown of nearly 20%.

The last figure is a “Sortino Ratio,” a standard measure of risk-adjusted return. This allows us to compare investments of different risk levels, on a more direct basis. A Sortino Ratio of more than 2.0 during this period compared favorably to 1.2 for AOK, 0.1 for SCHD and -0.1 for BND.

The bottom-line: over this 3-year period, the simple, easy-to-trade 2-ETF portfolio created for ETF Yourself subscribers. was a significantly more successful form of risk-managed investing.

Importantly, the strategy name and techniques evolved over time. But as we alluded to above in discussing the concept of investment performance, the OBJECTIVES have not changed. Those objectives are what ETF Yourself service is based on. We are not your typical high-risk investment publishing service.

While the modern incarnation of this approach is a simple 2-ETF Conservative portfolio, the predecessor strategies used ETFs, mutual funds, and to a lesser degree, options and stocks, to pursue those same priorities. Back then it was for our clients. Since 2020, when we retired from that business, it has been for our family only.

So, that’s as complete a description of what the performance record below is, and isn’t. It is not “GIPS compliant” which is the standard for investment managers. We had the returns audited at times in the past, but it is not all audited. Frankly, unless someone is selling advisory services based primarily on past performance, there’s not much benefit in taking on the time and expense to meet the very high standards the industry places on it.

But the full record was on actual accounts Rob was the full decision-maker on. And unlike a lot of performance records out there these days, you have a detailed explanation of where it came from.

We’ll continue to provide performance updates if our subscribers think it is important to them to follow along with how we are managing our money, apart from our bond ladder, option collars and trading accounts.

We are NOT about selling past returns. But we do realize they can help people understand what true risk-managed investing looks like in practice.

We are about “ABL” and then making as much as we can. In as straight a line as we can. That will not change.