Portfolio 3 — ETF Macro | Weekly Update
Think of P3 as a Team - Our MACRO TEAM
TonyR Commentary — Think of P3 as a Team
A good portfolio isn’t a collection of “best ideas.” It’s a team. And a team needs every kind of player on the field — not eleven strikers, and not eleven defenders either. Each position in P3 is on the roster for a specific reason, and each one plays a specific role in every type of market we run into.
This week we introduced a new way to look at each position — the role it plays on the team:
Team Goalie — BIL (27%). The goalie never scores. The goalie keeps us in the game. BIL is short-duration Treasury bills earning a safe yield while we wait for setups. Cash with a paycheck. When the whole field breaks down, this is the position that stops the bleeding.
Team Defenders — TLT (3%) and UUP (10%). Defenders don’t win games, they prevent you from losing them. TLT (long-duration Treasuries) gives us upside if the rate cycle turns. UUP (long dollar) protects us when risk assets wobble and capital flees to the dollar. Both tend to go up when equities come under real stress — that’s what a defender is supposed to do.
Team Midfielders — AQWA, LIT, CPER, PALL, SLV (combined 16%). Midfielders connect everything. They’re the positions that can play offense or defense depending on the regime. Our metals and industrial sleeve (copper, palladium, silver, lithium, clean water) moves with global growth but also with monetary debasement themes. Some weeks they score. Some weeks they hold the line. This week they scored big.
Team Attackers — SPY (30%), XOP (3%), EEM (4%), GLD (7%). Attackers win games. SPY is our core growth engine. EEM gets us exposure to emerging markets catching up. XOP captures the energy upside when the macro tape turns risk-on. GLD is the unusual attacker that scores when everyone else is failing — up when equities get scared. When the portfolio goes forward, these are the ones running downfield.
The beauty of running a team is that you don’t need every player to score every week. This week the midfielders carried us. Two weeks ago the attackers (SPY, EEM) came back from red to green. In stressed weeks the goalie and defenders hold the line. The portfolio works because the roles complement each other — not because one position is doing all the work.
Portfolio Performance
