The past few days in the markets have brought forth the fundamental question of portfolio construction and asset allocation: in periods of stress and volatility, how can one keep a portfolio resilient? Anyone can throw money at the stock market and look like a genius when it is on a bull tear. But what does one do to stay invested and perhaps even invest more when there is a massive selloff like we just witnessed? Of course, there will be some losses when markets turn with the speed and intensity that we saw in the first week of April. But can asset allocation and diversification help reduce the losses at the total portfolio level? We ask therefore: How did different assets stack up between April 1, 2025 (the day before “liberation day”) and April 7, the Monday after a restless weekend for all?
Here are the results (all data taken from Bloomberg close for relatively simple, low-cost ETFs, ETNs and funds, all of which are investable, though I make no recommendations here for any particular investment. For most of these assets (the ETFs), one can also get the holdings in real-time to get full transparency and maybe even replicate it on their own!
ARKK: -11.54% , EEM: -10.88% , QQQ: -10.36% , ACWI: -10.12% , SPY: -10.08% , AQRIX: -8.71% , IBIT: -8.35% , AQMIX: -4.82% , GLD: -4.82% , BKLN: -2.94% , LQD: -1.84% , TLT: -1.57 , AGG: -0.77% , BIL: +0.07% , VXX: +45%
The full note on this important topic can be downloaded at this link:LTA Thinking – Reliability Matters Tariff Tumult Market Scorecard So Far