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Aggressive Portfolio from Vanguard PA Services

beebee
edited July 2021 in Fund Discussions
I recently inquired about Vanguard's Personal Advisor Services. I ran their suggested "aggressively allocated" portfolio through PV and then using it as a benchmark I compared their portfolio performance to a few of my present portfolio AA funds.

I compared their portfolio to stand alone asset allocation funds (PRWCX, VWELX, and VWINX). Two of the three funds (PRWCX & VWELX) out performed with less risk. You can substitute your choices. Here's the link

PV Link

Comments

  • msf
    edited July 2021
    In making these comparisons there are a few factors to keep in mind, for good or for bad ...

    I believe Vanguard's portfolios are age dependent. That is, they follow glide paths. So depending on age, one person's "aggressive" portfolio could be another person's "moderate" portfolio, even if both are at Vanguard.

    The model portfolio you provided is about 65/35 (okay, technically 64/36) according to M*'s instant X-ray. PRWCX is closer to 70% equity, counting 62½% domestic, 1½% foreign and 4½% misc. equity. Similarly, VWELX is nominally 70/30.

    Vanguard likes to base allocations on market cap. In the domestic/foreign mix it does admit to a home town bias, shooting for a 60/40 mix (vs. the real world 55/45) if I recall correctly. The actual model portfolio is 67/33. Still, that is is a far cry from PRWCX's 97/3 and somewhat more foreign than VWELX's 88/12.

    VWELX and Vanguard's portfolio have virtually identical standard deviations and VWELX had a worse max monthly drawdown ( 14.09% vs. 13.24%), though its worst calendar year wasn't as bad as Vanguard's (down 3.42% vs 4.65%).

    PRWCX had a worse standard deviation than Vanguard's portfolio and a worse max drawdown, though it did have a significantly better worst calendar year than Vanguard did, up 0.62% vs down 4.65%.

    I didn't mention Sharpe and Sortino ratios because these are measures of risk adjusted performance, not of risk alone. Based on the risk metrics (volatility, drawdown, worst year), I'm not inclined to say that PRWCX and VWELX showed less risk. But what one considers risk and how one measures it is largely personal.
  • 70/30 is not "aggressive"
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