Some jerk at Yahoo is messing with the charts again

Buy and Hold: Why bother with Bridgewater's All Weather or with a simple global market portfolio?

Meb Faber compares the returns from behemoth Bridgewater's All Weather portfolio to a simple global market portfolio (GAA) here, acknowledging that the leveraged version of the latter which beats All Weather is probably too expensive for individuals to implement:

All Weather, 1996-2014: 6.34% net of inflation

GAA (unleveraged), 1996-2014: 5.23% net of inflation.

I say, why bother?

You can invest very cheaply in a low-cost S&P500 index fund and do very nearly just as well on the stock side: The average annual return from the S&P500 net of inflation, 11/'95-11/'14, has been 6.23%.

And for the bond portion of your portfolio an investment in a low-cost long term bond index fund like VBLTX has yielded 7.89% since 1994. Net of inflation at about 2.31% this must come in in the neighborhood of 5.4% per annum.

Which begs the question, Why not just pick a decent low-cost balanced fund?

Actively managed Wellesley Income, VWINX, has yielded 10.09% per annum since 1970, with inflation annualizing at about 4.17%. And the traditional Balanced Index, VBINX, has yielded 8.38% since 1992, with inflation annualizing at about 2.38%. Either fund puts you in the vicinity of 5.9% to 6% per annum net of inflation. Expense ratios for these funds are less than a quarter point.

Just sayin'.