The February issue of Mutual Fund Observer is live. With so little to keep your attention this weekend, we thought we’d launch on a Friday evening!
I’m sometimes struck by our selective recall. Shakespeare’s Richard III opens with “Now is the winter of our discontent” (things suck, I nod), which everyone recalls. Somehow, the optimistic second line “made glorious summer by this sun of York” (better times are coming) gets missed.
We’re keeping that hopeful thought for us all.
Highlights of this month’s Observer include a short memorial to Doug Ramsey, CIO of the Leuthold Group, who passed away unexpectedly at the end of January. Individual pieces include:
Our colleague Lynn Bolin shares The One Uncorrelated Portfolio to Rule Them All by Slaying Inflation and Market Corrections, tackles the challenge of building a portfolio that can weather both inflation and market corrections by searching through hundreds of alternative funds for options that zig when others zag. His "Grins and Giggles Portfolio" minimizes correlation between holdings over the past six years, while his "Last Laugh Portfolio" achieves 8.3% annualized returns with a maximum drawdown of just -6.3% over ten years. The secret? Read on!
In Perpetual Motion Income Machine, Lynn pursues the question, can you build an income portfolio that generates steady distributions while beating inflation? Lynn believes you can, targeting 7% minimum returns to cover 4% withdrawals plus 3% capital appreciation. He divides nearly 100 income funds into four groups based on capital appreciation and yield, identifying funds with high risk-adjusted yields and consistent distributions. The key insight: balance funds that fluctuate with interest rate cycles against those tied to stock market cycles to reduce sequence-of-return risk.
Given our ongoing interest in “quality” investing, we offer Quality Worked in 2025, and failed spectacularly, which looks at what “quality” investors did, and didn’t accomplish in 2025, and how to think about them in the years ahead.
Our A Letter to Layla is directed to the young trainer who is trying to coax Chip and me into being fit. (I’m all about dead bugs.) Layla admitted that she would like to learn a bit about mutual fund investment so she can start moving in a healthy financial direction. This is my attempt to think about investing strategies for folks of Layla’s age – or my son Will’s – from the perspective of her work as a trainer.
The Indolent Portfolio, 2025, is the latest installation in my annual portfolio disclosure. It offers suggestions for how to build a low-maintenance portfolio and a three-fund alternative to my admittedly sprawling collections. (PS, the portfolio itself did just fine last year: stable, cash-rich, and up 14%.)
Our colleague The Shadow shares a wealth of industry news and foolishness, as ever, in Briefly Noted.
And, as ever, we share it all in the lovely magazine layout
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/issue/february-2026/ and the inexplicably popular long-scroll version
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2026/2/.
Comments
There isn't much literature available on portfolio withdrawals for retirees. So, it's good to see this study by Bolin.
Using different methods, I have also played around with a similar idea under the label SWRM, or SWR-modified, that is the safe inflation-adjusted withdrawal rate so that there is also inflation-adjusted residual principal available at the end. So, a new income program can be restarted, if desired, leading to a perpetual income effect. Several examples were provided in the MFO link below. Interestingly, there is a relationship between Bengen-type SWR and this SWRM, so one can use many existing examples without duplicating the effort.
SWRM = SWR*(CFI - 1)/CFI .
where, CFI = Final Balance (inflation-adjusted)/Initial Balance. It is available from PV run.
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/169522/#Comment_169522
This is the first I heard of the chant in nearby ( to me) Boston. “ We’re not cold, we’re not afraid. Minnesota taught us to be brave”.
While we do not want to rest on past laurels, only recently have I become aware of how tough Bostonians were during the Revolution. Blockaded by the British and almost staved out for a year.
What are we complaining about?
For free PV run for 10 years, 2/1/16-1/31/26,
SWR = 10.96% (high because it's over 10 years only & there is return of some principal)
CFI = 0.3869/1.3869 = 0.2790
SWRM = 10.96 x 0.2790 = 3.06%
So, the safe withdrawal rate that will also result in end balance that's the inflation-adjusted initial principal is only 3.06%. Typical withdrawal of 4% initial w/COLA will fail the perpetuality requirement over 10 years.
Subscription PV can be used for longer timeframes.
PV run https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio?s=y&sl=1eZOg9syIKpfCwrjSfBF8Y