7Twelve: A Diversified Investment Portfolio with a Plan

“Craig Israelsen has an interesting idea: Let's leave 1950 behind. The associate professor at Brigham Young University<http://topics.dallasnews.com/topic/Brigham_Young_University> in Utah<http://topics.dallasnews.com/topic/Utah> thinks it's time to include the world outside the United States, among other things, in our investments rather than just talk about it . . . . This is accomplished with what Israelsen dubs the ‘7Twelve Balanced Fund.’ Rather than just domestic stocks and bonds, the new benchmark has seven asset classes. Those asset classes, in turn, are subdivided into a dozen subsets, all held in equal amounts. The payoff is huge. Over the last 10 years, his better balanced index provided a return of 7.52 percent annualized. The Vanguard Balanced Index fund did better than nearly 60 percent of its managed competitors but returned only 2.64 percent over the same period. That 7.52 percent return would have ranked Israelsen's passive index in the top 2 percent of all moderate allocation funds. Indeed, it would have ranked in the top 30 percent of all world allocation funds - funds that do invest in a broader menu of assets . . . . This is no guarantee of investment nirvana, but it's a good start for a new millennium.”—Scott Burns, Syndicated Columnist, Dallas Morning News (March 27, 2010)