In early 2002, we launched the model portfolios as a way to apply our MAXfunds rating system to an actual portfolio. Our goal was to offer portfolios with varying levels of risk (at the time, we had five core portfolios and two special-purpose portfolios) for different types of investors, including those with only a few thousand dollars to invest.  Now that the Powerfund Portfolios are in their tenth year (we created them in March 2002), we think it's a good time to take a look back at our long-term performance. 

Baby Boomers are following the age-old advice to shift from stocks to bonds as they grow older, despite the fact that this general recommendation might not apply in a world in which bonds yield less than stocks. But two 50%+ haircuts in the stock market since 2000 (with a "flash crash" thrown in for good measure) certainly aren't inspiring confidence in the stock market. Fear of another global catastrophe is keeping some money in seemingly low-risk places, but that doesn’t explain the shift within stock funds.

We’ve noted the hard times facing lower-risk tolerance investors – times that just got a little bit harder now that the 10-year Treasury bond yield has sunk back below 1.50%. Today, any funds with low interest rate risk (the risk of losing money if rates go up) and low default risk (the risk of borrowers not paying you back) is yielding less than 2%, often much less. Between retiring baby boomers and disappointment in a market that seems to slide 50% every few years, there are more lower-risk investors now than ever. But what about the poor multi-trillion dollar mutual fund industrial complex?

There 's good deal of concern in the markets that Europe's slow collapse will turn into something a little more 2008-ish. Remember 2008? The year Lehman, along with most of the financial services industrial complex, imploded? At least until governments near and far propped up the poor pinstriped saps and halted the panic. Free markets until markets free fall. The worry this time around centers on the governments themselves – governments that have increased spending to support weakening  economies while simultaneously moving the debts of a global real estate bubble to their own tattered balance sheet The buck has to stop somewhere.