This page presents a graphic illustration of how Dynamic Investments work in comparison to how today's Modern Portfolio Theory portfolios work. You will see that DIs are capable of significantly higher returns than MPT portfolios - using the same investments!

Powered by Exchange Traded Funds

Dynamic Investments use Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) almost exclusively for their holdings. ETFs are essentially mutual funds that trade like stocks. Thus, they work perfectly in a DI's buy-and-sell strategy. Plus, their exists an ETF for virtually every asset, asset type, market and market segment in existence. And their expenses are far lower than most mutual funds that are the vehicle of choice for most MPT portfolios.

MPT Portfolio Construct, Management and Performance  

Now let's compare how MPT Portfolios work with how Dynamic Investments work. For this purpose I will use the two ETFs shown at right and described just below:

EDV - This ETF tracks a long-term Treasury Bond index

RZG - This ETF tracks an index for Small-Cap, Growth Stocks

Glance EDV.png
Glance RZG.png

The MPT Portfolio Management Process and Performance for the period from the start of 2008 to the end of 2017

As illustrated below, Modern Portfolio Theory uses these ETFs by placing both in the portfolio with varying allocations of money. For this example I will simply assign a 50% allocation to Stocks and a 50% allocation to Bonds. In the real world an advisor would go through a messy process of first trying to figure out the investor's risk profile and then assigning allocations to Stocks and Bonds in a manner that matches it. This is a very subjective process and open to error. Then the portfolio is meant to be simply bought and held for the long term with the allocations adjusted to their original values each year.

 
Glance MPT.png
 

Performance 2008 - 2017

Performance contains two elements as listed below. The Returns number shown is the average return for each of the 10 years in the period assuming all interest and dividends are reinvested when earned. The Sharpe Ratio is often used as a risk measure. It shows the amount of return received for each unit of risk taken.

  • Average Annual Return: + 10.3%

  • Sharpe Ratio: 0.79

You can see that the ETFs held and their allocations remained "static" throughout the period regardless of what the market was doing.

The Dynamic Investment Construct, Management and Performance 

The process diagram below shows that the DI automatically measured the price trend of each ETF on a quarterly basis and bought, or held if already owned, the ETF with the strongest price uptrend for the previous quarter (not that the review period is at the discretion of the DI designer.) Thus, the DIs is dynamic and market-sensitive. It detects major market trends and is capable of responding to them in order to both capture gains and avoid losses. And remember, changes to the DI holding is based on objective price trends observations, not on the risk prone judgments of human analysts or advisors. 

 
Glance DIT.png
 

Performance 2008 - 2017

  • Average Annual Return: + 26.7%

  • Sharpe Ratio: 1.10

You can see the obvious superiority of the DI management process as compared to that of the MPT portfolio. By being both "dynamic" and "smart" the DI, using the exact same ETFs, earned almost 3x the return of the MPT portfolio with far less risk.

Today's "experts" will say that returns like this are impossible. But they are locked in the MPT box. When the investment methodology breaks out of that box all manner of "impossible" results become not only possible but probable. This is the advantage of "Thinking Differently" !

But, But, But .......

Skeptics will say that the use of a buy and sell strategy is not practical because of capital gains taxes. The NAOI says "nonsense". The returns of the DI are so superior that even taking a bigger chunk out of them for taxes still leaves them far above the returns of the MPT portfolio. Plus, most investing by the public today is done in retirement accounts where taxes have no effect on the amount of gains retained.

How and Why?

The Amazing Future of Investing book that can be purchased in the NAOI Store explains in detail why Dynamic Investments are superior in virtually every way to MPT portfolios. Below are just a few bullet-point highlights.

  • DIs are market-sensitive, able to detect market trends and make changes to their holding to either capture gains or avoid losses. MPT portfolios are blind to market movements.
     
  • DIs are designed to hold ONLY winning investments - i.e. those that are trending up in price at time of purchase. MPT portfolios hold both winning and losing investments at all times.
     
  • DIs completely define the ongoing management process that results in automatic trade signals being generated. MPT says nothing about ongoing portfolio management other than to just buy and hold for the long term.
     
  • DIs eliminate the risk of subjective human judgments in the design and management process. All changes are made based on empirical data. The MPT design and management process are rife with human subjective judgments leaving the door wide open to bad data, flawed analysis, sales bias, churning and even fraud.
     
  • DIs are portfolio "products". Once created their design does not change but the ETF they hold does. This is an active investment with passive management. In DIs, the NAOI has found the Holy Grail of the financial world, i.e. The Productization of Investing. Like any other consumer products, DIs can be bought off-the-shelf from a variety of vendors and even sold via catalogs. This is a game-changer to say the least!

Reference new investing concepts page for more reasons why DIs are the superior product.

One Simple Example Only

The two-ETF Dynamic Investment shown in the above example is the simplest DI possible. Even greater returns can be achieved by designing the DI to be able to choose from more ETFs in its search for stronger uptrends at a Review period. DIs open a vast new world of new product development.

Summary

Just to summarize: Using the same two Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) the Dynamic Investment earned 3x the average annual returns of the MPT portfolio and with less risk and no human judgments required. The world of investing has just changed at a fundamental level!

For More Information

For a more detailed discussion of Dynamic Investment Theory and Dynamic Investments, click this link.

dynamic investment user in a simpler, more profitable era of investing

dynamic investment user in a simpler, more profitable era of investing