Lazy Portfolios

Long-term model portflios

Famous investment gurus like Warren Buffett, David Swensen and Willaim Bernstein have proposed model portfolios that invest in ultra-low cost index ETFs or mutual funds. These funds represent major investment asset classes such as US stocks, Foreign stocks and bonds.

The portfolios are ‘lazy’ as they are meant to be essentially buy and hold for a long term, only rebalanced regularly like annually. 

The following is the list of guru proposed lazy portfolios. Click on them to reveal their holdings and historical returns and many portfolio statistics.

Bogleheads, a site devoted to buy and hold of index funds,  has some wonderful detailed descriptions on some of the lazy portfolios listed here.

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Lazy Portfolio Latest Performance

Ticker/Portfolio Name YTD
Return**
1Yr AR 3Yr AR 5Yr AR 10Yr AR 15Yr AR
P David Swensen Yale Individual Investor Portfolio Annual Rebalancing 1.5% 15.0% 3.0% 7.4% 7.2% 10.6%
Warren Buffett Index Fund Portfolio 5.9% 24.0% 7.5% 12.2% 11.4% 13.3%
MyPlanIQ Core Four Assets 0.7% 10.6% 0.7% 6.0% 6.1% 8.3%
MyPlanIQ Core Five Assets 0.7% 10.6% 0.4% 5.9% 6.0% 8.2%
MyPlanIQ Core Three Assets 1.6% 11.9% 1.2% 6.6% 6.4% 8.4%
MyPlanIQ Core Six Assets 0.4% 10.2% 0.1% 5.7% 5.9% 8.2%
MyPlanIQ Core Two Assets 1.8% 14.2% 2.4% 7.6% 7.7% 9.6%
William Bernstein Sheltered Sam 60/40 Allocation 1.4% 10.3% 2.5% 6.3% 6.1%
William Bernstein Cowards 1.8% 11.2% 1.9% 6.3% 5.8% 7.7%
Bernstein Smart Money - 5.1% 3.7% 4.4% 4.8% 7.2%
Talmud -5.0% 5.5% -1.9% 4.3% 5.6% 9.2%
Scott Burn`s AssetBuilder DFA Model Portfolio 09 2.1% 7.6% 1.2% 3.1% 2.0% 4.8%
Harry Browne Permanent Portfolio 2.7% 7.9% 2.4% 6.5% 5.3% 6.4%
P Permanent Portfolio ETF Version 3.6% 9.0% 4.4% 6.9% 4.2% 5.9%
The Coffee House Lazy Portfolio ETFs 1.1% 11.9% 1.4% 6.0% 5.9% 8.4%
The Original Coffee House Lazy Portfolio Index Funds 0.5% 11.8% 1.3% 5.8% 5.7% 8.3%
Wasik Nano 2.7% 17.7% 4.0% 6.9% 6.4% 8.9%
The Couch Potato - 10.3% 4.7% 7.5% 6.9% 8.4%
P Ted Aronson Lazy Portfolio Annual Rebalancing - 11.6% 1.8% 6.1% 6.2% 9.1%
Roger Gibson Five Assets 1.0% 9.0% 4.0% 7.2% 5.4%
FundAdvice Paul Merriman Ultimate Buy and Hold All Stocks 0.2% 11.9% 0.9% 6.2% 6.5% 10.2%
Rick Ferri Core Four Lazy Portfolio 0.6% 10.5% 0.8% 5.8% 6.0% 8.1%
Alex Green The Gone Fishin Lazy Portfolio 1.3% 10.3% 1.2% 6.1% 5.7% 8.4%
Israelsen 7Twelve Portfolio 38.3% 49.1% 13.7% 13.2% 8.5%
Armstrong Ideal Index - 5.5% 1.8% 4.0% 4.2% 6.8%
P Andrew Tobias Three Fund Lazy Portfolio Annual Balance - 10.7% 2.7% 5.8% 5.4% 7.6%
Burton Milkier Mid-Fifties Portfolio 1.2% 11.7% 1.2% 6.3% 6.5%
Ben Stein Long Term Lazy Portfolio 1.4% 13.0% 2.1% 6.9% 6.6% 9.1%
Vanguard Four Fund Portfolio 1.8% 11.6% 1.5% 6.3% 6.2%
VBINX (VANGUARD BALANCED INDEX FUND INVESTOR SHARES) 2.0% 13.9% 2.3% 7.5% 7.6% 9.6%
DGSIX (GLOBAL ALLOCATION 60/40 PORTFOLIO GLOBAL ALLOCATION 60/40 PORTFOLIO - INSTITUTIONAL CLASS) 2.8% 13.5% 2.8% 7.0% 6.1% 8.4%
VTI (Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund ETF Shares) 5.5% 25.6% 6.3% 12.6% 11.8% 14.4%
VNQ (Vanguard Real Estate Index Fund ETF Shares) -8.6% 2.8% -2.9% 2.3% 5.2% 10.6%
VEA (Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets Index Fund ETF Shares) 2.3% 8.5% 1.9% 6.1% 4.6% 7.6%
VWO (Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets Index Fund ETF Shares) 1.9% 10.6% -4.6% 2.4% 3.1% 5.7%
GLD (SPDR® Gold Shares) 12.9% 16.2% 9.1% 12.4% 5.7% 6.0%
BND (Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund ETF Shares) -3.2% -1.8% -3.7% -0.2% 1.2% 2.3%

**YTD: Year to Date

Model portfolios for brokerage investors

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  • Retirement IRAs or solo 401(k)
  • Taxable brokerage investment accounts
  • ETFs or no-load no-transaction fee mutual funds

Model portfolios for income investors

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  • Based on total return bond ETFs
  • Outperformed even best bond mutual funds for past decade

Advanced Portfolios

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ETFs & Mutual Funds

  • Historical total returns & risk data
  • Dividend histories and up to date dividend data
  • Charts and tables for comparison
  • Risk managed ETF or mutual fund clones

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Portfolio Calculator (Simulator)

Quickly enter fund allocation and get a back test result on the performance of this 'lazy' portfolio.

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