In this episode we answer emails from Matt, Michael, Stephen and Al. We discuss expanding the spending muscle in retirement, the generosity of our listeners, more on the Four Quadrant model and its permutations, and how we stay connected to listeners without inhabiting the conference circuit.

And THEN we our go through our weekly portfolio reviews of the eight sample portfolios you can find at Portfolios | Risk Parity Radio.

Additional Links:

Fairfax CASA Donation Page: Donate - Fairfax CASA

Cool Number Nerd Video: Fibonacci Numbers hidden in the Mandelbrot Set - Numberphile

MiB Podcast Episode: Masters in Business: Jean-Philippe Bouchaud - Bloomberg

The Dude's Link re Quadrants and Assets: Structural Diversification for All Seasons - ReSolve Asset Management (investresolve.com)

Hedgeye Asset Chart: Hedgeye Four Quadrant Model Best and Worst Assets.pdf - Google Drive

Bloomberg Inflation Presentation: Bloomberg Investing in Inflationary Regimes Presentation.pdf - Google Drive

Listener Essay on Four Quadrant Model: 15 Uncorrelated Assets | SSiS

Claudia Moise Paper with US Treasuries Correlation Data: Flights to Safety, Volatility Risk, and Monetary Policy by Claudia E. Moise :: SSRN

Breathless Unedited AI-Bot Summary:

Hoarding can look a lot like “being responsible,” especially right before retirement when every headline makes the future feel fragile. We take a listener’s detailed numbers and use them to talk about a problem we see all the time: spending that never catches up with the life you actually want. If your future expenses are likely to decline in real terms, your personal inflation rate may be lower than CPI, and a fixed rule can quietly push you into over-saving instead of living. We share a simple, practical idea for breaking that pattern: create a visible spending bucket, spend intentionally, then review what brought real value and what didn’t.

Then we shift into a deep question from a data-driven listener who tried to test Bridgewater’s four quadrant model using growth and inflation data. We explain why these relationships are probabilistic, why short time frames can look like a noisy blob, and where to look for research that connects macro regimes to asset returns. Along the way we revisit the roles different diversifiers can play in a risk parity portfolio: Treasury bonds as recession insurance, managed futures and commodities for ugly inflation shocks, and gold as a strange but useful diversifier when the world gets weird.

We wrap with our weekly portfolio review and a quick read on what’s been working lately across stocks, small cap value, bonds, gold, REITs, commodities and managed futures, including results from our sample portfolios and a few leveraged experiments. If you like practical asset allocation, retirement withdrawal strategy, and plainspoken investing conversations with some humor mixed in, hit play, then subscribe, share the show, and leave a review so more do-it-yourself investors can find it.

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