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In this article, we provide our current portfolio, which we update at least once per year.
We also discuss past performance and reasoning for our selections.
If you're looking for other portfolios, see our portfolio pages.
Portfolio Update: January 3, 2026
We're starting 2026 with the portfolio shown below.
We discuss past results and reasoning below the table.
| Fund | Allocation [%] | Description | Comment |
|---|
| VTI | 23 | Total US stock market index | |
| VXUS | 26 | Ex-US stock market index | |
| VWO & DFEV | 10 | Emerging markets index | |
| AVUV | 7 | US small cap value stocks | |
| AVDV | 6 | ex-US small cap value stocks | |
| BND | 6 | US bond market | |
| BNDX | 7 | Ex-US bond market | |
| BTC | 3 | Bitcoin | May be volatile |
| GDX | 3 | Gold mining ETF | |
| GSG | 2 | Commodities | |
| Altcoins | 2 | Ether, Ada, Sol, ... | Potential high volatility |
| Stock Picks | 5 | | Potential high volatility |
Our 2025 portfolio yielded a total return of 25.8%, well above the 17.9% return of the S&P 500.
Both outperformed our expectations, once again.
Since we started this in 2020, we've exceeded the S&P 500 total return in 4 years (2020, 2022, 2023, 2025) but fell short in two years (2021, 2024).
Despite the annual win count, the total returns over this period (our portfolio versus the S&P 500) are essentially identical.
In 2025, our portfolio was boosted by ex-US equities (VXUS, VWO, and particularly AVDV) and
catapulted by gold mining stocks (GDX) which returned about 155%!
Crypto, which has provided outsized gains in the past, pulled us back this year with negative net returns.
As expected, bonds held the middle ground returning just over 5% in total.
Our reduced Bitcoin holdings, addition of gold mining stocks, and increased ex-US tilt at the start of 2025 all paid off.
Our portfolio shifts don’t always prove beneficial (e.g. tilting away from US large caps in 2024),
but we believe that they will pay off on average.
So what have we changed for 2026?
We decided to further increase our tilt away from US equity, moving a larger percent to emerging markets.
Emerging market businesses have shown real growth and yet remain at reasonable valuations.
Many US large caps, on the other hand, seem to be priced for perfection.
Perfection is rare and we don’t want to bet too much money on it.
We very slightly decreased our gold mining allocation for 2026 and increased our allocation for active stock picking to 5% of the portfolio.
The latter is being deployed primarily to smaller US businesses that we feel are under appreciated by the market.
Our 2025 and older portfolios can be found here.
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