The elegance of numbers is everywhere if you just know where to look. From the spiral of a seashell to the scales of a pinecone, a surprising number of natural objects exhibit a remarkable affinity for a special quantity. An irrational number approximately equal to 1.618 may seem like a strange fixation for thousands of years of mathematicians, but it appears so often that it has earned its own name — the golden ratio.

The golden ratio is everywhere. And not just in the world around us but arguably in our very essence. Long considered an example of the perfect divine proportion, it remains a mainstay for artists and designers seeking to appeal to humanity’s desire for order and beauty. You’ll find it in the composition of Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” and maybe even the dimensions of computer monitor you’re reading this on. Math, nature, and beauty are more intertwined than you realize.

With that type of history, it seems appropriate that an insightful individual would apply the same universal concept to finance. So today I’m honored to add a new portfolio to the site.

It’s called the Golden Ratio Portfolio by Frank Vasquez. And make no mistake — the classic name serves as a reference for a decidedly modern investing philosophy.

A refreshing example of the importance of proportions can be found at your local pub. While beer is generally made of four primary ingredients — malt, hops, yeast, and water — the specific combination of those core ingredients has an important effect on the end result.

A bright, grassy IPA gets its distinct flavor by leaning heavily on the hops, while a smooth, dark porter relies more on roasted malts. Even with the same foundation, the end experience is very different! So before passing judgment on beer as a whole, it’s important to try a few different things to see what you like. Everyone has different preferences, but there are lots of tasty combinations to suit all types of people.

Recently I received a nice email from Taylor Larimore, the “King of the Bogleheads” and author of the Three-Fund Portfolio. Taylor politely asked me to use a slightly different baseline definition of his portfolio with 80% stocks rather than the 60% I showed before. And more importantly, he requested that I clarify that there is actually no fixed allocation in the Three-Fund Portfolio. Instead, he believes each investor should determine their allocation to the three namesake funds according to their own personal situation.

I always strive to accurately reflect the ideas of portfolio authors, so naturally I’m happy to oblige. And beyond a simple recounting of his statement and update to the Three-Fund definition, I thought this would also be a good opportunity to explore Taylor’s point about variable allocations more thoroughly.

What exactly does it mean to choose Three-Fund percentages to best meet your needs?

Like mixing the same four ingredients in different proportions can make distinct beers, rearranging the same three funds in a portfolio really can create different investing experiences. So let’s order a full flight of Three-Fund data to help you identify your favorite.

When you hear about something weird, that’s usually an indicator that it doesn’t follow the crowd. But whether that’s a good or a bad thing is a matter of perspective. So when a fellow blogger named Value Stock Geek first approached me a few years ago about referencing a few charts in an upcoming book about what he called the Weird Portfolio, I had an open mind. After all, sometimes the most compelling ideas are the ones that stand out from the sea of similar mainstream opinions passing as common knowledge.

Fast forward to today, and not only have the ideas behind the Weird Portfolio held up quite well but I’ve also found myself frequently thinking about them as answers to common questions. For example, what if you added international stocks to a portfolio like the Golden Butterfly? And how might other assets like real estate fit into the equation? Well, it turns out that someone has indeed thought about these things and documented it all quite well.

So in honor of a weird idea that I’m confident will speak to many interested investors, I’m happy to introduce a new portfolio on the site — the Weird Portfolio.

Now that June has come to an end, economists are busy tabulating various indicators as usual to close the quarter. And while the numbers are not yet final, early reports indicate that the US experienced its second consecutive quarter of negative growth. Those uninitiated in technical jargon may simply shrug their shoulders, look around, and give a hearty “no crap” to the suggestion that the economy is floundering. But it’s a fairly big deal in economic circles, as that meets the classic definition of the big R-word.

Welcome to the recession.

As stocks swoon, rates rise, inflation takes off, and recession takes hold, clearly it has been a challenging year for investors. So while economists are doing their thing looking at the big picture, I thought it would be educational to run my own numbers on investing choices more within our personal control.

Would you like to know how your favorite portfolio compared against all of the others in the first half of 2022? Let’s dive in and explore what it took to do relatively well in particularly tough investing timeframe.

As we patiently wait for updated market data for the new year, it seems like an appropriate time to talk about “the market.” That simple term is tossed around daily in financial circles, but the true meaning is so often misunderstood that it can unfortunately perpetuate a warped viewpoint of asset allocation that leads well-intentioned people down a measurably risky path. So what is the market? And how might educated investors formulate a portfolio that tracks a true global benchmark rather than a small subset of fleetingly popular securities? The answers to those questions can be found in a straightforward but deceptively tricky to pin down asset allocation called the Global Market Portfolio.