One of the quirks of being an engineer who is still quite creative is that there’s always a natural tension when it comes to tidiness. For example, my desk is usually a chaotic collection of notes, sketches, and various new items that build up over time. But there eventually comes a day when I reach my breaking point and my left brain kicks in to remind me that it’s time for a cleanup to get organized and make space for new ideas.
At Portfolio Charts, that day is today.
The main thing that instigated the changes was the need to improve the organization to make everything easier to find. There were charts in the portfolio section, supplies in the charts section, and a lot of the documentation for how things work was buried deep enough that people had trouble finding it. It all made sense at the time, but just like my desk it eventually grew into a hot mess.
To fix all of that, I’ve been working behind the scenes recently on a bit of a reorganization. Here are a few updates to be aware of.
Home Page
The home landing page is now a lot cleaner with an intro section followed by a collection of Portfolio Charts resources. It’s designed to help you get oriented without boring you or talking your ear off, and it also includes a few links that weren’t there before. Pay particular attention to the User Guide, which is a new page where I collect all of the methodology stuff that you may find informative.
Portfolios
While the Portfolios page used to contain a mix of professional asset allocations and comparison charts, I’ve narrowed it to focus on the namesake items — portfolios. In addition, I added a new filter and search tool to help you find what you’re looking for. For example, type in “Dalio”, and it will highlight the All-Seasons Portfolio. Or if you want to filter for portfolios that include some form of cash or short term bonds, just choose the “Includes Cash” button. Pretty cool, right?
The portfolio filters are particularly fun, and perhaps even more educational than I anticipated. For example, flipping between the “Traditional” and “Risk Parity” options and looking at the color breakdowns in the portfolios is an interesting lesson on the structural difference in the two strategies.
I’ll likely expand on that functionality over time, and the differences in portfolio categories definitely deserves it’s own future post. So it’s a cool foundation to build on.
New Portfolio Name
While cleaning up the portfolios, I also took the opportunity to rename the Merriman Ultimate to the Ultimate Buy and Hold portfolio. Nothing changed with the underling asset allocation, and I did this simply to align the name with how Paul Merriman talks about his own portfolio ideas.
Charts
Beyond moving the Portfolio Matrix, Portfolio Finder, and Risk and Return charts to a new home on the Charts page with all of the other visualization tools, I also added new filter and search capabilities. So for example, let’s say you want to find a tool that uses the baseline return but can’t remember which ones that applies to. Just type it into the search box, and you’ll get the full list right away.
Particularly detail-oriented readers may also notice that the URLs changed for each chart page to better organize the site structure under the “charts” heading. This shouldn’t affect your experience at all, but please let me know right away if you happen to find a broken link that I missed.
Patrons
(Update)
Rather than having separate pages spread around the site for memberships, supplies, and donations, I created a new top-level page for Patrons. So you can now quickly find every support option in one place. None of that is required, but I truly appreciate everyone who chooses to give back.
TL;DR: It’s Just Easier
Long story short, I always take pride in presenting complicated information in a manner that simple, helpful, and intuitive. The new site updates are part of that communication strategy, and the goal is to make everything just a little bit easier to navigate.
So no matter whether you’re new to the site or a long-time fan, please take a minute to look around. If you have any questions or suggestions for how to make it easier to find what you’re looking for, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I’m always open to constructive feedback.
And in the process, my hope is that you’ll also find a portfolio to love for the long run.
Happy portfolio hunting!
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