I recently listened to this excellent podcast with investor Ray Dalio and it once again struck me how, out of all the “investment gurus”, Dalio really preaches simple, actionable investing that us regular people can easily understand and implement.
Dalio has just published a new book, which I haven’t read yet, but contains some eye-opening assessments of the decline of the United States, (30% probability of civil war in the next 10 years) and the rise of China. However, it’s the part covering how to invest in this turbulent environment that really caught my attention. Dalio sees the world economy approaching the end of a major cycle that could have dramatic repercussions for risk assets.
Here are some of the key points from the interview:
- Don’t judge your wealth in nominal terms – i.e. how many dollars or yen you have. Judge it in terms of buying power. The ballooning of central bank debt has pumped up risk assets so people are feeling rich at the moment. However in real terms, inflation is eating away at your wealth.
- Cash and bonds are a terrible investment in this inflationary environment. Both have negative real returns now, when measured against inflation.
- Diversification is key. A diversified portfolio of assets should include inflation indexed bonds, stocks, and gold. Take a look at Dalio’s All Weather allocation to understand what a diversified portfolio should look like in an inflationary environment.
- Don’t try to time the market yourself – that’s an extremely competitive game that even the pros struggle with.
- Look for balance in your portfolio and make sure that once a year you rebalance back to your original weighting, effectively selling a portion of the assets that went up and investing them into the parts that went down.
- Dalio is neither a raging bull or bear on Bitcoin and digital assets. He is impressed that Bitcoin has stayed around this long and been adopted so widely, and that means that some of the initial risks of hacking or replacement by a better asset have diminished. However there are risks that money in Bitcoin could flow to something else, and of course regulatory issues as the threat of a better (non-inflationary) currency is a perceived as a risk by governments who have outlawed gold and silver in the past. In all he says an allocation of 1-2% of your total portfolio to Bitcoin is about right.
- Dalio also makes a great observation on the value of stock indexes, whereby all companies die at some point, but the index is refreshed as the old companies exit and new ones come in, so you don’t have to have your finger on the pulse continually. Simply buy the index and relax.
Just picking up on an important point here: Dalio talks about the negative returns on traditional government bonds, and suggests investing in inflation indexed bonds instead. These are often referred to as TIPS (Treasury Inflation Protected Securities) and seeing as some people may not know what they are here is the Investopedia definition. You are going to struggle to find these in a Japan-based account, but if you have a US account then the TIP ETF is a great way to get exposure. ITPS works for European accounts.
From my experience, I find that people who organise their own investments are often under-diversified. When you boil it down they are largely invested in global / US stock ETFs which all have a high concentration in the same major companies (mostly big tech). In the good times this allocation will perform perfectly well, but there is little protection there when markets take a turn for the worse. So if you are conducting your annual portfolio review as 2022 gets going, it would be a good time to consider if you are really properly diversified.
Disclaimer: This should go without saying, but the information contained in this blog is not investment advice, or an incentive to invest, and should not be considered as such. This is for information only.
Smart Money Asia 