2018 was a difficult year with most asset classes in negative territory.
My models suffered as I fear.
In many months returns were negative, but at the end I am not completely disappointed.
Actually, I am quite satisfied about the strength in one of the worse year in the last decade.
The defensive Model 1 (1 ETF a month) returned around 0%.
semidefensive Model 2 (1 ETF a month) returned a positive performance.
The more aggressive Models 3 (2 ETF a month) had a negative year, but were able to recover thanks to the exposure in gold and Treasury in the last part of the year.
The updated Model 3 versions (3.4 with 3 ETF a month) were able to finish in green, and I am quite happy about that.
The Model 3.5 (3 ETF but different timeframes) was the worst losing almost 4%.
Most Models 4 (€ and $ - up to 9 ETFs) had performance slightly negative, but everyone did bettere than benchmark (is composed by an equal-weighted portfolio of 9 asset classes).
In Summary, 2018 is not a year to remember for huge gains, but at least losses were manageable and less than many asset classes. As I wrote when I opened this blog:
investing is trying to maximize what the environment gives. As a farmer, some years are good, others are normal, others are very bad. With these models, with humility I try to have good returns in good years, minimizing the losses in bad times.
I think that 2018 was an year where the loss minimization target was reached
