Why prefer ETFs over physical metal

In this episode we answer emails from Gregory, Rick and Graham.  We discuss some more amateur ideas on gold and cash buffers, and modeling managed futures, and we explain why costs and liquidity often matter more than the story you’re told. We share tools, back-tests, and resources that help DIY investors build smarter, calmer portfolios.

Graham's  "Fall Back" instructions for inputs for Testfolio:  "For example, since you typically use DBMF but would want to back test further, one can write DBMFSIM?FB=KMLMSIM which will use DBMF as far back as it can, then fall back to using KMLM. Did you know these can be chained? One can fallback onto commodities beyond the KMLM simulation, like this: DBMFSIM?FB=KMLMSIM?FB=GSGSIM."

Links:

Father McKenna Center Donation Page:  Donate - Father McKenna Center

Three Ingredients:  Three Secret Ingredients of the Most Efficient Portfolios – Portfolio Charts

Video on Hedge Fund Market Wizards:  Jack Schwager presents: 15 Hedge Fund Market Wizards trading secrets & insights in their own words

Infinite Loops Podcast with Cliff Asness:  Surviving the Meme Stock Bubble | Cliff Asness

Damodaran 2026 Critiques of CAPE Ratios:  Aswath Damodaran 2026 Critiques of CAPE Ratios.pdf - Google Drive

Managed Futures/Trend Following Paper for Download:  A Century of Evidence on Trend-Following Investing

Graham's Full House Portfolio:  testfol.io/?s=5cyAAHgo1OH

Breathless Unedited AI-Bot Summary:

What if the biggest edge in your portfolio isn’t a hot strategy but the boring details—costs, liquidity, and the ability to rebalance in seconds? We dig into listener questions on gold, long-term treasuries, cash buffers, and managed futures, and we separate evidence from stories that sound good but quietly erode returns. We look at why an 80 percent stocks and 20 percent gold mix can be fine during accumulation, yet struggle in retiree withdrawals when stocks and gold sometimes fall together. Then we explain how duration from long treasuries can change the drawdown math, especially in recessions.

We also push back on the temptation to chase yield on vaulted physical gold. Once you add spreads, storage, transaction fees, and redemption friction, that “yield” comes at a cost, and you sacrifice the instant liquidity your rebalancing plan needs. Gold ETFs give you precise position sizing and near-zero friction so you can trim, add, and move on. On cash, we keep it blunt: a small buffer for bills makes sense, but large multi-year cash cushions drag safe withdrawal rates over time. Replenish cash by trimming whichever asset has run hot—simple rules, fewer regrets.

For listeners trying to model managed futures, we cover why commodity funds are poor proxies and how to use Testfolio’s fallback feature to extend DBMF or KMLM backtests across regimes. The larger message is pragmatic: stop searching for the perfect allocation and build a naively diversified mix that can handle growth, inflation, and shocks without prediction. Want to see how this plays out? Hit play, take notes, and test a small, real-money experiment in a side account to learn your own behavior.

Support the show