Lazy portfolio

Golden Butterfly Portfolio

Tyler, Portfolio Charts (~2016)

A balanced-tilt extension of the Permanent Portfolio: 40% stocks (half total-market, half small-cap value), 40% Treasuries (half long-duration, half short-duration), 20% gold. Aims for similar drawdown protection while capturing more equity-side return.

Allocation

20%

20% · US Total Market
20% · Small-cap value (tilt)
20% · Long-term Treasuries
20% · Short-term Treasuries
20% · Gold

Weighted expense ratio

0.20%

Across the 5 of 5 slices we could price.

Weighted tax efficiency

/100, weighted by allocation. Lower in heavy-bond portfolios.

Slices

Number of holdings — also the number of lots you rebalance.

Implementation

Weight	Role	Ticker	Fund	ER	AUM	Score
20%	US Total Market	VTI	Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund ETF Shares	0.030%	$2.30T	92
20%	Small-cap value (tilt)	AVUV	Avantis US Small Cap Value ETF	0.25%	$29.06B	88
20%	Long-term Treasuries	TLT	iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF	0.15%	$41.10B	78
20%	Short-term Treasuries	SHY	iShares 1-3 Year Treasury Bond ETF	0.15%	$25.36B	84
20%	Gold	GLD	SPDR Gold Shares	0.40%	$130.05B	73

AVUV · alternates: DFSV, IJS · Avantis US Small Cap Value — the factor-tilt workhorse for this slice. DFSV (Dimensional) and IJS (S&P 600 Value) are reasonable alternates with similar exposure.

Editorial take

A reasonable middle ground for investors who like the Permanent's logic but find pure equal-weight too conservative. The small-cap value tilt is doing real work here — replacing it with another total-market fund collapses the strategy back into something closer to a 40/40/20.

Try the Golden Butterfly Portfolio in our tools

Tool · Placement

Split this portfolio across your accounts

Asset-location optimizer — fills tax-deferred with shelter-priority slices first, Roth with growth-priority next, taxable last. Estimated annual tax drag.

Tool · Backtester

Backtest this portfolio's last 5 years

Monthly total returns rebalanced monthly. Equity curve, CAGR, max drawdown.

Compare the slices

See holdings overlap and cost difference between any two of this portfolio's funds.

Open Golden Butterfly Portfolio holdings at a brokerage

All 5 slices in this portfolio trade commission-free at major brokerages.

Open at Fidelity

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Curated allocation. The funds listed are how this portfolio would be built using the catalog as it stands today; alternate tickers and notes are flagged inline.

PlainIndex publishes data and editorial commentary — nothing here is personalized investment advice. Read the methodology for how the scores referenced here are computed.