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April 7th, 2025. Weekly Review of the 🐿️'s BUSHY™ Multi Asset ETF Portfolio and live Acorn trade ideas. 2025, Week 14.

Last Sunday, I said it could be a tough week. That is looking like an understatement for the ages! I am on the road this week. Next podcast will drop on April 14th.

In case you missed it, I sent out a new short idea out on Thursday 👇:

Cutting Take Outs!

So, to markets. If you are reading this, you already know what happened. This weekend is one of those weekends when people that skip the finance pages of their newspaper finally start to search their email inbox to try and find the login credentials for their Fidelity account and check in on their 401(k) balance.

While the penguin memes have been fun, the market implications of the ‘Liberation Day’ trade policy announcements are less amusing and are still far from fully priced. The fact that the reciprocal tariff schedule appears to have been compiled with the assistance of an AI chat bot does not inspire confidence that the Trump administration has a clear plan for the global trade war that it has just kicked off.

Risks of further escalation also remains underpriced.

There is a narrative circulating that the equity correction is part of a genius Trumpian master plan to lower bond yields and the dollar. The 🐿️ has been reluctant to believe that Trump no longer views the Dow Jones Industrial Index as a form of presidential opinion poll. We shall see. I am certainly not liking the look of the weekend social media traffic. Buckle up!

The BUSHY™ Portfolio - Week 14

Plenty going on this week besides the usual BUSHY™ update. Portfolio hedges have helped to cushion the blows of the past week, but we need to lay out a plan for weathering what could be several months of heightened volatility in risk assets. We consider options in the Acorn review.

Following last week, the BUSHY™ portfolio is now down by 0.85% on the year. The fact that our target date benchmark is down 5.42% over the same period is a small comfort but sadly relative performance does not put food on the table.

I keep an eye on some of the other diversified multi-asset ETFs because I am a competitive rodent for comparison purposes.

BUSHY™’s performance is comparing favorably with most of the products looking to serve a similar (diversified multi-asset / all weather) role.

Remember the popular narrative that the S&P 500 - with its holdings of ‘one decision stocks’ with their international earnings was all the diversification a portfolio needed? So does the 🐿️!

I was curious to understand how the RPAR 0.00%↑ (Risk Parity ETF) had held up so well and took a look ‘under the hood’ this weekend.

RPAR is very defensively positioned with over 60% in bonds or cash.

Equities obviously did the bulk of the damage to the BUSHY™ portfolio last week, but it was another tough week for the trend-followers and Friday’s ‘everything goes’ risk asset puke (and dollar spike) extended the pain even to our trusty EM local currency fixed income and gold holdings.