NTSX
WisdomTree 90/60 US Balanced
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Simplify alternative ETFs - QIS and SPQ. What is this black box quantitative strategy? I love the idea, but hate how its not transparent
What is a sensible place to put $50,000 for a 70-year-old?
thoughts on my return stacked leveraged ETF portfolios?
Thoughts on my return stacked leveraged portfolios?
thoughts on my return stacked and leveraged portfolios?
How to create a VT like portfolio using ETFs like NTSX, NTSI, AVUV, and AVDV?
Implementing small-cap value and large-cap growth tilt in US equity portfolio
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NTSX looks pretty good. 2022 didn't obliterate it surprisingly. Maybe i'm missing something though.
NTSX and NTSI are not pure stock funds: they already contain Treasury futures exposure. Then you EDV and DBMF and you have a lot of interest rate sensitive investments. Also, While on paper it seems like you have 72% equities, because of the stacked structure it will perform like a balanced portfolio. Given your age and that it's in a roth IRA, I would suggest being more aggressive. You have such a long timeline that you don't need the gold and bond hedges, they will just limit your growth potential.
NTSX i think is something like that but 1.5x leverage. Doesn't seem to exist with 2x leverage.
60/40 portfolio but it's 60% NTSX 40% GDE
Thoughts on NTSX? Didn't know etfs could be leveraged without having leverage in the name.
Fidelity is very good overall, especially on the brokerage side. Unfortunately, the banking side goes through UMB. Fidelity can't accept cash deposit and doesn't handle wire transfer directly (although it's free both ways) so there can be confusions with international transfers, and Fidelity can't connect with many online payment portals like for paying rent, etc. Fidelity is very good about execution quality with trades so they usually get you the mid price or better. Merrill Edge and Bank of America aren't great in general but it's hard to beat the BofA Rewards program as long as you have a combined balance of at least $30k between Merrill and BofA. BofA stops charging you weird fees when you hit the $30k tier. You also get prioritized customer service and extra credit card reward points. It's a good choice for a young adult who needs physical banking as BofA is also a proper traditional bank that has a SWIFT code for handling international transactions. One bad thing about Merrill Edge is that it can be overly conservative in what ETFs you can buy. It won't let you buy certain ETFs that it deems too risky, like NTSX, which is not considered risky by most people. It may not be super useful for a Roth IRA but one good thing is that you can buy most money market funds at the "admiral" tier without the typical $100k to $1 million minimum because of the deals that Merrill made with the funds. In fact, you can buy Fidelity money market funds for better rates at Merrill than with Fidelity directly. Merrill's execution quality is not great. You won't ever get better than mid price, and often you end up with the ask price for a market order. I'd lean towards Fidelity but also consider BofA if the traditional and physical banking needs aren't met. If you want maximum flexibility in a Roth IRA (which I'm not sure is the best thing for a 22-year-old), Tastytrade is the most flexible brokerage. They will let you buy just about anything but it's really contingent on you to know what you're doing and not screw up. They tend to be very customer-friendly but they rely on Apex for clearing as a small brokerage so they have all of the downsides of using Apex.
Actually you are very good at it but couldn't overcome the greed. I have gone from $850k to $988k and then dropped to $690k in an attempt to cross the million mark. I am upset like you and irritated on myself. But will not trade till the anger is over. I am near retirement so this loss hurts but I stopped before it fell below US average retirement savings. A few things to note. 1. Do not chase a target number like you did towards $100k and fell for a million. These totals are a side effect, instead focus on winning and risk management. 2. Maintain at least two accounts. One is for active option and the other for saving the profit. You started only with $500. When reached some celebration number, say $3000; move $1000 to the profit keeper account and store in VTI NTSX like investment. That way you have preserved some to restart without putting more. When you get to $50k, move $5k to that savings account from option. You are young, so can keep all in stock. 3. You saw that option can gain like crazy in a bull market. Just wait till you are comfortable again. If you could win all the time...., realize that you are just a trader without risk management skills. Read on that. Not many can convert $500 to $50k+, so be proud, but it's a side gig, not your career, or entire life. So, relax.
Hardly, I'm far from being an expert, but been investing for 15 years or so. Look up NTSX. Leverage can be used, not only to seek additional risk, but to seek similar levels of expected return, while having better sharpe and sortino ratios.
Nope, still leverage. NTSX uses futures.
Daily reset leveraged ETFs suck. Monthly reset mutual funds, quarterly reset futures, or a balanced ETF (NTSX) are much more sound products/strategies.
No. Does it need to be Vanguard? There's NTSX but it's 90/60. There's AOR but it's global.
NTSX - 60/40 stock & bond mix leveraged at 1.5x as my base Individual companies I’ve taken shots on this year include PLTR and UMAC. Plenty of people on PLTR but I think UMAC deserves some more hype. I would expect a drawback from current prices and would target a $10 entry point.
> Does the same hold true with one that’s based off a market etf like spy? The same concept applies, but shouldn’t show up to the same degree for a broad-market index vs a more-volatile single stock as the underlying. (Likewise for a 2x leveraged fund vs a 4x leveraged fund.) > I’ve always been a voo and chill guy but would a leveraged etf based off the s&p or spy be worth considering for a long term hold? Those funds come with a disclaimer that they should not be held for periods longer than an intraday trade. Any use of leverage long-term should involve asset class diversification (i.e. bond exposure with rebalancing) to reduce risk of total loss. Funds like NTSX or RSSB provide leveraged exposure to stocks + bonds (not an endorsement; carefully consider the risks & invest only money you could afford to lose).
I'd start here: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio The bonds are the part that adjust risk level. More bonds equals less risk. Alternatively, a target date (index) fund is effectively the 3 fund concept in a single wrapper, managed for you. They are designed to be "one and done," the only thing you hold. They're fully diversified internally for you. These can be found with expense ratios as low as 0.08%-0.12% for the Fidelity, iShares, Schwab, and Vanguard index based ones. The target date and target allocation funds typically are not recommended for taxable accounts but are fine for tax advantaged. Just about every company would be represented in either the US total market or international market sections of that, or VT (2 letters) covers both stock roles in 1 fund. Then if 100% stock isn't enough for you, there's factor investing (I think I provided those links in another reply already) and possibly the use of certain types of leverage (I myself wouldn't use the 2x or 3x daily, but rather the "returns stacking" ideas like RSSB or NTSX/NTSI/NTSE but you can look into the different types yourself).
Some leveraged ETFs are designed for buy and hold, like NTSX. But yeah, most aren’t.
It's seems to me that you could essentially Reconstruct this strategy for 0.35-0.40% cheaper by combining together NTSX/NTSI/RLY and maybe some BNDX ?
Most of my savings are in index funds like VTI, AVUV, NTSX. Don’t sell right? I’m 27.
Holler NTSX club! I did drastically reduce my exposure to US equities a few weeks ago so captured some nice gains on this one but I still kept some of it. The bond portion will be interesting to see over the next months.
Just to be clear, this logic only applies to LETFs that reset their leverage daily (or any interval really). Some leveraged ETFs use other methods of leverage that doesn’t require resetting, which can remove that aspect of decay. NTSX, for example, it’s 90% s&p500 and 10% treasury futures (set up so that the futures end up being worth about 6x the holding amount). This ends up at an effective 90/60 split without any resetting decay. I’m not an expert on this so there are probably other sources of decay with futures, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
A common sensible approach is to just use UPRO or SSO to juice your US exposure, and then diversify with alts. Like, RSST gives you 2x by giving you 1:1 SPY/Managed futures, or RSSB, which is 1:1 VT/IEF (essentially), or NTSX gives you 90/60 SPY/IEF. Instead, you can get a way higher volatility contribution from longer duration bonds, which is similar to buying that bond leverage but without the leverage costs. For example, long duration behaves like TYD but without embedded leverage costs. This is by far, in my opinion, the way to go, especially for younger investors. Youth can handle vol, and buying even as much as 2x leverage on raw equities has been shown to be more optimal than unlevered equities in papers like Ayer's and Nalebuffs research on leverage, even in the circumstance that you wipe out in an event like the GFC and start again from zero. I prefer a less crazy approach, and take traditional portfolio construction wisdom and simply add modest leverage to it, slide out on bond duration to the long end, and diversify with managed futures. I get global equity exposure trend following funds, long bonds, and its all great. The three asset classes are uncorrelated to each other, they all have positive real expected returns, and they should help crutch each other when tail events like 2022 (stock and bond simultaneous bear market) occur, or GFC (huge stock bear market butressed by bonds and MF) similar to dot com too,
Absolutely, this is 100% the best way to use LETFs in my opinion. My long term buy and hold (with quarterly rebalancing) portfolio in my IRA is ~1.6x leveraged, using UPRO to get me more exposure to US beta, and the space that opens up in my portfolio lets me buy long term treasury bonds, international equities, and managed futures funds. I love the concept of NTSX/I/E and RSSB, my only gripe is their target duration on their bond futures. They mostly hit durations similar to IEF (~7yr effective duration). I want longer duration, so I do it myself with UPRO, small cap value funds, managed futures funds (CTA, KMLM, etc), and then I use GOVZ and ZROZ (effectively the same thing, ~26yr effective duration STRIPS) for my long term treasury bonds. Rebalance agnostically, ride into the future, hope for the best. That diversification (to managed futures, bonds, and international) has really helped during this 2025 so far.
im fully conservative, outside of the mstr play I closed for a nice profit today. BTC i've like since 2014. NTSX is interesting. I didnt realize it was leveraged 1.5x. Historically the only time it gets fucked is when both bonds and stocks fall, otherwise it has lesser draw downs compared to voo/spy. All that to say I like it and I may carve a chunk of my port to follow. Thanks!
I wouldn't say so, especially in mango man era..... especially if BTC/MSTR is a high % of port. I expect it to be less volatile in 5 years but until then this is a fairly high beta portfolio. NTSX is levered, so its beta is around 1.4, and BTC/MSTR are very high vol. (2-3)
Currently I'm VTI/AVUV/MSTR/BTC I want the same bond exposure and I probably have too much small cap right now so will be selling VTI for NTSX as soon as I can avoid cap gains.
60% Large cap exposure 15% Small Cap Value 35% intermediate bonds 20% BTC/Gold. 1.3x total leverage. NTSX provides leverage on the bond side with 90% of the exposure of VOO. Yeah I think its great.
Why 5% MSTR, why not 20% BTC instead? Why NTSX? Why Small Caps? Sorry but no
I think this is the port to get rich forever and chill. No options necessary. 60% NTSX 15% AVUV 15% BTC 5% MSTR 5% Gold
Leveraged ETFs are not meant to be held long term. They rebalance daily, locking in losses immediately. Recovery after a crash will be significantly longer. You’re better off using portfolio margin applied to a risk adjusted ETF like WTEF (NTSX). The expected return should be higher than S&P 500 and lower max drawdown in a crash scenario.
I would pay off the loans, open a Roth Ira and max out contributions before tax day for 2024 and do 2025 (7k per year). In the Ira, figure out your risk tolerance and decide on what you want to invest in like: half VOO or NTSX and half GLD until this presidency is over (for instance). The important thing is this money will continue to grow tax-free forever. Keep adding the max contribution every year. Then put the rest in a normal brokerage account (taxable) figure out how much you’ll need to live off of and buy some money market fund or some CD’s that mature when you expect to need them. I like Schwab because you can do all of that in one place and they have a built in CD market where you can get better rates than most big banks offer on their in-house cds. You can open the investor’s checking account and brokerage account at the same time online, and then add the Ira after that is open.
I immediately think of covered calls when you say "hedge". If you sell a call, you make money when the stock is flat or goes down by promising to sell to somebody if the price gets high enough. Essentially, you're temporarily selling some of your upside for cash and reducing your "delta" (an options term roughly meaning your exposure to price changes). r/thetagang and r/options have info in their wikis to help you get started. In my opinion, looking for short opportunities is looking for trouble most of the time. "Markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent" and all that. As far as diversification goes, I'm big on having (a) global diversification and (b) market cap diversification. Stock standard international indexing gives you VXUS or your own blend of Emerging and Developed (SCHF and SCHE, for example). I hold AVUV and XMMO as my factor investing/market cap diversification plays. NTSX is awesome and it sounds like exactly what you're looking for as far as "sp500, but better resilience and less volatility". You could sort of get a DIY version by adding TMF to your US Large Cap holdings or playing with derivatives on bonds/bond ETFs, but just holding NTSX for some of that sweet, sweet risk parity juice is enough for me.
40 year old Canadian. Fairly low income. Self directed TFSA @ $35000 USD NTSX 50% NTSI 15% CGDG 10% BTGD 10% KMLM 7.5% DBMF 7.5% $10000 CAD in 5 year GIC, 2 years to go. $25000 CAD in aggressive allocation options in work RRSPs
Yeah if I could go back in time, my personal choice would have been NTSX, but it didn’t exist.
My question would be for the NTSX holding. It has a higher expense ratio than VOO and comparing their longest comparable return periods it under performs VOO. So you're paying the fund more of your returns to perform worse overall.
Just wondering what people think I might be able to do better: 47 yo, married but we keep our finances separate. No kids together, mine are all grown Income: $88k USD from job, $48k VA Disability (tax free) Expenses: $1500 rent, $400 bills, usually around $1200 monthly on other expenses Investments: Roth IRA $52k split 80/20 US Total Market/International Total Market, Brokerage $20k NTSX $24k MMF I've also got $500 ETH but I'm a crypto-skeptic in general. I think I'm doing ok other than the fact that we rent (I used to own two homes but lost them due to divorce) but feel like I'm not optimizing my investing. I do question whether my emergency fund is way too big. Had a career change that involved four years out of the workplace so I've only been working five years since college. Late start in life/investing.
Haha I feel you. I'm doing half UPRO, half NTSX.
Leverage isn’t evil but margins are. There’s other leverage strategies like NTSX/I/E or RSSB which are very reasonable. Maybe check those out or another returns stacking strategy fund
Anything might… but TQQQ is not a good long-term investment for a number of reasons most notably being volatility decay due to its daily reset. All other reasons to avoid TQQQ would be the same but heightened due to 3x leverage to why an investment in QQQ(M) is nonsensical. Those reason include arbitrary exclusion of financial companies, investing based on a stock exchange listings, and overweight of tech (many fail to understand that this increases uncompensated risk). If you’re looking to include leverage in a long-term portfolio then return stacking is really the only viable option. So funds such as NTSX/I/E or RSSB
It’s a great way to apply leverage to your retirement, via NTSX.
Read [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bogleheads/comments/1fbi6uc/is_leverage_1x_good_and_if_so_whats_the_best_way/) It basically comes down that you can outperform the market with moderate leverage, but in order to keep drawdowns tolerable you should hedge with bonds or managed futures. You could build your own with something like UPRO+TMF (+VXUS+VOO) or a more direct NTSX+NTSI+NTSE (1.5x 60/40 > 90/60), or RSSB (100/100). Rebalancing is needed, oftentimes done on a quarterly basis. [Illustrative backtest](https://testfol.io/?d=eJy9kEFLw0AQhf%2BKzHmx27SmEBAv4smDgggiJYzZTVzd7NbZbaqE%2FHfHVGqxBHOpe9rhDe9981qorH9Ce4OEdYCshRCRYq4wasgABGin9qat2qCFbCr5CUD1khtXWozGO8hKtEELKDA8l9ZvIJM%2FQ16SfmOfB41kP9iNvLXGVfnGOPW1m8pOwMpTLL01nnEeW3BYf2cb1%2BgQL01jFEOxGmnNUaSZH12hr365R1O8atq6bP%2Bs3sdgahZXmgrtYn9GtxSgCCuG7cQucXp69n6Syslcjs%2B%2BXXM9%2Bq%2F4i%2BtzNt%2BHSPvg3dadjZEOt%2BYDpMnxOJMRlMkYxr7NhZzM%2FqHNxag2Z8NtHoszGUGZDDMuu08EwzUP)
For DIY: Margin is easiest, but one of the more expensive variants. However, most brokerages are a rip off. Interactive Brokers is the only place as far as I know that has reasonable rates (and maybe Robin Hood? Haven't looked in a while, but I know they have a bazillion other problems). Futures are the way to go for IRAs and treasury exposure, much cheaper than margin. Box spreads should be used instead of margin for taxable equity exposure. They're a little difficult to set up, but unbeatable. I effectively got a $300k 2-year loan at like 1.8% a few years ago. For a non-DIY method, there are LETFs, but they're generally more expensive (NTSX is pretty good though).
Keep in mind that he's talking to already wealthy people trying to gain generational wealth for their large families. Not middle-class folks hoping to become millionaires someday. With that some thoughts: No one should seriously say "holy grail" when it comes to investing. Not even Ray Dalio and he probably knows it. I think he may be selling his fund in that talk over their to wealthy investors. Second, he is right. When you combine uncorrelated sources of return with positive sharpe ratio and "overlay" or "stack" them on top of each other with a reasonable amount of leverage, you are going to good long term returns with lower volatility and lower overall risks. $NTSX is a good simple example of this. Actually finding these uncorrelated sources and executing them such that you get positive sharpe ratios after costs is difficult. It also requires a very long time horizon. Some would say that 65 years may not be enough. You're really speaking about multi-generational wealth here. If you're interested for an extreme example available for non-wealthy investors (i.e. with "just" a 100k minimum) check out Mutiny Fund: https://mutinyfund.com Ignore ad-hominem attacks here.
Is NTSX something you could hold onto for long term?
The easy way is with funds like NTSX. It's a 90/60 US large caps and treasuries.
Don’t stress too much. You learned a lesson but the situation honestly isn’t that bad. You still have upwards of 500k to invest. It’ll might take you like 70 years to tax-loss harvest 200k but modern medicine keeps getting better so you’ll probably be alive First things first, sell out of intel. I know it sucks to sell at a loss but you’re taking on too much risk. Keep like 20k in intel if you must and you truly believe in the company Consider these investments instead ordered from low to high risk: 1. a 60/40 portfolio rebalanced quarterly 2. NTSX 3. SPY or VOO 4. QQQ 5. One of the mag 7 companies 6. 60/40 UPRO/TMF rebalanced quarterly 7. 60/40 TQQQ/TMF rebalanced quarterly 8. 60/40 FNGU/ TMF rebalanced quarterly 8. LEAP’s on SPY, QQQ, or mag 7 Also don’t invest a large some at once. Try to spread it out over the course of 1-3 years to reduce your overall risk
The sensible answer : vanguard life strategy 60 https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investments/vanguard-lifestrategy-60-equity-fund-accumulation-shares/price-performance The fun answer: 50/50 split RSSB and DBMF. Gives you 50% world equities, 50% treasure exposure (via futures) and 50% managed futures (hedge fund commodity trading strategies). Yes that is 150% so 50% leverage built in to buy bonds. Backtests show similar performance to s&p 500 with a fraction of the drawdown. If you don’t have access to US based ETFs you could achieve something similar with 60 40 NTSX and the IMGP DBi Managed Futures Fund. Downside is ntsx is only S&P on the stocks side, and the leverage is less.
You could do half HYSA and half QQQ, or you could do half SPAXX/SGOV/BOXX and half with the HFEA strategy (55% TQQQ, 45% TMF) or similar, slightly less risky strategy (75% NTSX, 25% DBMF/KMLM). Use that leverage to your benefit where you can!
NTSX is diversified, relatively cheap, gives you 1.5x exposure to a 60/40 portfolio, and because it only leverages the lower volatility bond side is much less susceptible to volatility decay than most leveraged etfs. Otherwise sector etfs can be riskier but the risks won’t be compensated by equivalent returns.
Everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that you have no essential monthly expenses rn bc of your job. While it’s possible you could lose your scholarship (if your GPA falls) or your job (HIGHLY unlikely as an RA though, at least at my school), those scenarios are pretty unlikely and have very little to do with what happens in a stock market crash (RAs don’t get laid off like that). So here’s what you should do… 1. Open a Roth IRA with Fidelity to contribute however much you can toward your current annual limit. (This is tax-free money for you in the future that you can’t go back and make up for later. Also I recommend Fidelity bc they have no fees for so many things most other brokerages charge for.) 2. In the Roth IRA, invest 50% of your money into either FXAIX, VTI, or VT. Invest the other 50% into something that is not correlated at all with equities, examples being bonds, managed futures, and cash equivalents. I personally would do 50% into the leveraged stocks/bonds ETF NTSX and the other 50% into the managed futures ETF DBMF, but it’s important to only invest in what you understand! So for you, I’ll recommend FXAIX and a cash equivalent (SPAXX, SGOV, BOXX, etc., all with very nice yields). 3. If the worst case scenario happens, you can take your contributions (not your earnings) right back out of your Roth IRA penalty-free and tax-free, and since you’re invested in different uncorrelated assets, you can start with only withdrawing whichever one is not at a loss/is losing less. But the worst case scenario seems very unlikely in your situation, so just keep letting that money grow and trying to earn more money to put into that account. This will function as a back-up emergency savings account. 4. Open a credit card and start building your credit score if you haven’t already. Credit cards can buy you up to a month in most cases (or longer if you are willing to take on interest, which I don’t recommend) of extra time to pay off your expenses in that worst case scenario. There are so many good student credit cards out there; let me know if you need recs.
In the grand scheme of things, those ETFs are pretty low cost. I will say, if you aren’t interested in options, SPLG > SPY in my option. My vote is NTSX because I’m a math nerd who’s all into the risk parity and quantitative finance risk management stuff.
What also matters is volatility and risk free rate. Return minus risk free rate over standard deviation is how you calculate Sharpe, a proxy for your risk adjusted return. A good guide would be to try and maximize Sharpe and then lever up or de-risk that portfolio to your desired volatility / return tradeoff. You can de-risk by holding more risk free rate and retreating from the efficient frontier, or you can lever more, which isn't linear since leverage costs money, but still, it's the theory. For example, risk parity portfolio of stocks and bonds but leveraged. One example is NTSX, or HFEA
Margin loans suck; I think there are better ways to lever up. The advantage of this is that you can keep a diversified portfolio, which might mean you don’t feel the need to go beta chasing. Maybe it’s a perspective you haven’t seen before, at least. You could take the NTSX approach and lever the bonds side of things. NTSX is 90% S&P 500 and 10% 6x levered long-term US treasuries for an effective exposure of 90/60, or 1.5x a 60/40. For a simple DIY version, TMF is a 3x US long-term treasuries ETF. I suppose you could also buy the treasury futures and manage your leverage that way too, but that gets too involved in the day-to-day for my liking. Another way you could do it is with options. Stock + call options will let you get to whatever leverage amount you want based on the lambda of the options and how you weigh the stock/option ratio of a given ticker in your portfolio.
I see there as a few paths that are attractive for people in the accumulation phase. 100% low cost equity ETF (common choices are VOO, VTI, VT just choose 1) 85% low cost equity ETF, 10% long term treasuries (VGLT, TLT, EDV), 5% gold (GLDM). This historically smoothes out volatility with no major impact on returns. Need to rebalance. 100% NTSX. Leveraged ETF thst gives you 90% stocks, 60% bonds. Growth plus diversification.
You have to know what you’re getting into for sure. No one should be jumping head first into 3x leveraged ETFs without understanding what they’re buying. There are also these “lower stakes” leveraged ETFs that are a bit less wild. The most popular of these is NTSX which gives you 90% exposure to SP500 and 60% exposure to US treasuries.
Consider the traditional 60/40 portfolio of stocks (ideally global equities, or just the s&p), and bonds (ideally global bonds currency hedged, or just some other low correlation fixed income asset like Treasury bills or bond index funds like BND). Or, you could leverage slightly that to get returns extremely similar to the s&p500 but with bond exposure to decrease volatility. NTSX is 90% s&p500 with 10% levered futures, so you get 90/60 US large cap / mid term treasuries. If you compare NTSX to the index, it performs extremely similarly but with less volatility. It should outperform in a bear market thanks to the Treasury exposure, and perform similarly in all conditions as long as rates rise expectedly (a sharp increase unexpectedly in interest rates hurts mid term treasuries). It's called the wisdom tree efficient core fund. They also have aversion for international markets, NTSI.
Professional hedge fund managers are often not concerned with beating the market. They're concerned with better risk adjusted returns. They want to beat the risk free rate but at nearly risk free exposures for their clients. Many do try and beat the market, a few do (often not on a risk adjusted basis) most don't. Going forward, consider wisdom tree efficient core! For example, NTSX is 90% s&p500 and 10% 6x leveraged treasuries. Similar to index performance with ideally lower volatility. Pretty cool products (NTSX, NTSI, NTSE).
Its a very modest amount of leverage, 1.5x on a 60% equity, 40% bond portfolio. With NTSX, NTSI, and NTSE, you can have exposure to 90% global equities and 60% US bonds, effectively giving you near market returns with lower volatility. Check out [this article](https://www.optimizedportfolio.com/ntsx/) if you're interested.
40 NTSX, 40 NTSI, 10 AVUV, 10 DISV I end up over-allocating to emerging markets in other accounts to compensate - no way am I dealing with that tax drag.
> I am okay with the risk since I intend to hold it longer term. I'm more focused on not having overlap. I don't think overweighting the US is taking more risk. Arguably it's the exact opposite. > Feel free to drop your ideal portfolio. RSSB *would* be the ideal "core" of portfolio, and I'll probably buy into later when it's a bit older and more established. For now I use NTSX instead of VOO or VTI and mix it in with AVUV and DFAX.
> well then look at the 5 year chart for QLD and NTSX. Right, that's just performance chasing. My point is less about leverage and more about QQQ because it's a pretty random basket of stocks. It's cool that it's doing so great at the moment, but I see no reason to place any bets on it moving forward. I'd much rather be in UPRO.
> I don't think leveraging QQQ makes all that much sense to me well then look at the 5 year chart for QLD and NTSX.
It essentially creates a juiced up 60/40 portfolio. The cost of NTSX is pretty low (for a leveraged ETF) at just .20%. Leveraged bonds [can get pretty wild](https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio?s=y&sl=6QmRhKGkCKeDFBbVahnG6h).
> NTSX Is that just since interest rates are up, or for an extended period.
You do understand that 5 years is not a very long time, right? And that the specific circumstances of the current economic conditions are the perfect storm to be bad for NTSX, right? And I just gave you 30 years of economic data that you decided to ignore. Anyway, because you mentioned SSO - [here is the backtest with SSO included](https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio?s=y&sl=6ZPLyl5n7TkRZ1inRSQNqE).
Being a big fan of an investment that has down the worse of NTSX, SPY and SSO over the 5 year.... NTSX barely beat the 500 in the first two years, then lost the race in the next 3. Possibly as commented as rates fall this performance will improve.
If you only look at the last 5 years, then yeah. NTSX went down more than SPY in 2022 because there is *more risk* - which is entirely the point. The rising interest rate environment was the perfect storm to give NTSX a bad performance, which would be true of *any* leveraged product. But [here is what NTSX did](https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio?s=y&sl=xKHXcJT2RgFMpZUZaXyD1) before 2022 since it's inception 2 years earlier. And [here is a backtest](https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio?s=y&sl=12nTmf8TXUo8oHuHPU7c9S) with similar assets going back to 1985. In the long run NTSX should produce better results than SPY. But in this particular moment with the inverted yield curve? Sure, SPY will do better in that particular scenario.
NTSX has interest rate exposure and interest rates rose. It will easily outperform if interest rates fall.
NTSX did not beat the 500 in the 5 year. Why not just be SPY? Further it lost 25% in 2022, while SPY lost 18%. Isn't the goal of more risk more reward? Meanwhile SPY keeps being the standard. I just do not understand being a fan of NTSX.
The easiest way to add leverage to your portfolio is with a leveraged ETF. For 2x SPY you can use SSO and for 2x QQQ you can use QLD. I don't think leveraging QQQ makes all that much sense to me -- seems like just performance chasing since there isn't really much rhyme or reason to QQQ's holdings. I am a big fan of NTSX though which uses leverage to get you 90% SPY/60% US treasuries, which is pretty neat.
I think NTSX is a much better choice for a long term buy and hold leveraged SP500 ETF.
Thoughts on AVUS and NTSX ?
Here’s a good primer on the WisdomTree funds: *[NTSX ETF Review – WisdomTree U.S. Efficient Core ETF (90/60)](https://www.optimizedportfolio.com/ntsx/)*
Use of leverage in my portfolio. It took me a while to come around to the idea because leverage has historically exacerbated market crashes and caused all kinds of problems for investors. But rather than using risky margin loans or individual options, the new breed of ETFs that can give retail investors access to low cost leveraged treasury bonds via futures contracts in their portfolio, without sacrificing space for stocks, are very clever and advantageous. I am talking about funds like **NTSX, NTSI, NTSE, and RSSB** (not 3x daily leverage UPRO, TMF etc). Many investors can say that they are aggressive and hold 100% stocks and you can be like yeah I am 90-100% stocks too, but I am also 60-100% bonds. That’s a similar amount of risk/volatility, but with higher expected returns due to better downside protection. These strategies are apt to be less appealing to people these days because of the inverted yield curve and 2022 being the worst correlated decline of stocks and bonds in half century, but their long term expected performance is solid. Judiciously leveraged investing is a proven strategy with hundreds of years of data.
I think for most people probably 98% of people the performance over 20 to 30 years will be much better and ETFs. It was a great post in here from a professional trader 30 years in Wall Street he back tested his entire life's work and said he doesn't think he can outperform the indexes may be in the short term he does but then in the short term, he also loses more, there's a reason why Albert Einstein coal company interest the eighth wonder of the world the other option would be pick a basket of stocks and just enter low positions dollar cost averaging to them the same thing you would do with ETFs but realistically you need to set up your own ETFs if you're by an individual stocks and most people are concentrated in the big runners and then when the big runners tank theyre doomed most leveraged ETFs are not meant to buy and hold, but this one's very interesting it leverages response and if we had to Adan market treasuries will explode finally NTSX it's not a recommendation just something to look at as part of peoples portfolio
I am not a financial adviser, so make sure to talk to a financial adviser before making any decisions Step 1: A 9 month emergency fund, and if feasible, either buy a home or pay off your mortgage. Step 2: Roth IRA and Custodial accounts for your kids. Try and get an custodial broker account up to 20/30k to take full advantage of kiddie tax(free $2,500) moving it to a custodial savings accounts, or the kid turns 15. Step 3: Maxed out Roth? I guess start a normal investment account. A simple portfolio would be 60% VTI and 40% BIL(60/40 stocks bonds), but fitting 10% GLD could help with inflation. An aggressive account could be 60% NTSX, 10% GLD, 20% VGSH, 10% VRIG. NTSX is 90% stocks and 10% treasury futures with 6x leverage, so it's effectively 90/60 stocks/bonds. There is more risk in using leverage.
>The entire strategy was also based on a back test of the 60 40 portfolio because it offered better risk adjusted returns than the S&P 500. Well good thing I didn't propose a 60/40. I proposed a strategy with managed futures which Cliff also recommends in the article. You can buy less NTSX and more RSST if you want more stock/managed futures and less treasuries. >The S&P 500 is a great bet both in principle and in a backtest. But more importantly, if you believe this despite Cliff Asness disagreeing, then there's no convincing you. Good luck with your 100% equity portfolio.
The S&P 500 is a great bet both in principle and in a backtest. Theory doesn't always translate to practice in equity markets, I'd wager it doesn't most of the time. Reading Wisdom Tree's paper on NTSX, one of the main issues was a correlation with bonds and stocks, and to my understanding, this correlation has been increasing in the past 20 years (post 2008). Their fear was realized in 2022. Hedge funds have to be constantly updating their strategies because they stop working overtime. It would be difficult for anyone who isn't a hedge fund (even hedge funds) to be reliably developing strategies that beat the S&P 500 in both returns and risk. I'd bet that the only hedge fund who has legitimately done this is Renaissance Technologies, and other hedge funds are most likely just a back tested sales pitch with constantly changing goal posts/strategies to get rich people to invest in them while underperforming the S&P 500. The entire strategy was also based on a back test of the 60 40 portfolio because it offered better risk adjusted returns than the S&P 500.
Well it seems you're already aware of NTSX, there's also NTSI. Two new ETFs that add managed futures are RSBT and RSST. For every $1 invested, you get $1 of managed futures and $1 of either treasuries or S&P 500. With just those 4, there are a lot of portfolios you could construct. Let's do 40/40/15/5 of NTSX/NTSI/RSST/RSBT That gives you 51/36/53/20 in US equities, intl equities, treasuries, and managed futures.
NTSX runs that allocation you described
A lot of people don't understand that professional money managers use "risk adjusted return" in **combination with leverage** to achieve the desired target return. So if you think 100% equities has a total expected return of 10% but 60/40 only has 6%, you need to lever that 60/40 more than 1.5x to get the same target return. Does that approach have less downside risk for the same return? Comparing 100% SPY to something like NTSX is trying to replicate a 90/60 fund which is pretty close. It obviously did underperform during a rate hike cycle (bonds got killed too) but that should be over now.
I am personally in NTSX with is 90% S&P500 and 60% bonds (leveraged). Then you’d have your US stocks, international stocks, and us bonds.
Everyone should consider risk-adjusted returns. But leverage is a four letter word here. There are tons of new funds with expense ratios <1% who are using futures to give you market exposure with leverage. One of the simplest and oldest is NTSX. For every $1 invested, you get $0.90 S&P 500, and $0.60 to treasuries. $1.50 of market exposure for a $1 investment and a 0.20% expense ratio.
Vanguard does allow NTSX/I/E and RSSB, but I think those are the only ones, and they are only leveraged on the bond side.
I’d like to see it compared to 90/60 NTSX.
Quit listening to people. If the masses were right, the market would already reflect that and they'd no longer be right. If you want to beat the market, you have to play the contrarian. If you aren't comfortable playing the contrarian, buy-and-hold total market indexes like SPY, VTI, GOVT, VGIT, NTSX, etc.
NTSX (1.5X HFEA ETF instead of 3X)
One needs leverage to unlock the truly interesting portfolio options and optimize risk/revenue following modern portfolio theory for example. Like 1.5x 60/40 equity/bonds ([NTSX](https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-asset-class-allocation?s=y&sl=7VCJPsknNjtPTLsCLPd4oZ)).
Futures, NTSX can replicate eveything I’ve outlined here.
I used to feel the same about bonds– it's slightly controversial among Redditors but one option (which is what I personally do) is to use modest leverage to add bonds without reducing stock investment. $NTSX for example is 90% bonds and 60% stocks, so you get better returns than 100% stocks with lower risk. I agree with you on stuff like semi-conductors and individual stocks, I wouldn't go that route.
AHTYX comes to mind for a mutual fund, although there are more than a few levers built into that fund. You could use NTSX (which uses treasury futures) paired with a managed futures or trend following strategy. That would only give you exposure to the US equity market though. All of this said, equally weighting risk doesn’t necessarily mean optimal.
I wish there were more alternatives to RPAR. A lot of new ETFs are great building blocks, but we need more fund of funds. I manage my own portfolio right now and it's roughly 60% stocks, 20% bonds, 20% trend following. If you want to see an illustration of how it performs, here's a similar portfolio: 67% NTSX, 33% DBMF https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/corey-hoffstein-on-return-stacking-and-managed-futures
If you want something as close to "guaranteed" as possible, just go with something like SHV for now, or maybe SGOV. A better option is probably something like NTSX, so you can capture some of the growth upside with a bit of downside protection from a treasury ladder.
Best long term single holding? Probably a low cost target date fund. Or just VTI. Or maybe something like NTSX.