The 60/40 SPY + Trend Blend, Explained
How our model portfolio is actually built: a 60% S&P 500 core, a 40% trend sleeve across ~15 ETFs, risk-weighted and rebalanced monthly — plus the risk brake we're validating.
The recipe, start to finish
Our model portfolio is deliberately simple enough to explain in a paragraph — because a strategy you can't understand is a strategy you'll abandon.
60% core: SPY — (the S&P 500). This is the engine. Most of the time, most of the portfolio is just the U.S. stock market.
40% trend sleeve: — a basket of ~15 liquid ETFs spanning U.S. and international equity, Treasuries and credit, gold and silver, broad commodities and oil, real estate, and the dollar. The sleeve only holds the ones in an uptrend, and it weights the calmer ones more heavily (inverse-volatility).
Rebalanced monthly. — Once a month we re-read the trends and reset the weights. No day-trading, no reacting to every headline.
That's it. A stock-market core, plus an adaptive diversifier sleeve, reset on a schedule.
Why monthly, and why rules
Trend signals are noisy day to day and clear month to month. Checking once a month keeps turnover (and costs) low and keeps you from whipsawing on every wiggle. And because every decision is a rule — "is this ETF above its trend? is it calm or jumpy?" — there's no discretion to second-guess and no story to talk yourself into. The rules run the same way in a scary market as in a calm one, which is exactly when discipline matters most.
The long-run frame
In a multi-decade backtest, this kind of blend has compounded in the high-single-digits annually with a *materially* smaller worst drawdown than an all-equity portfolio — the smoother ride we're after. Those are hypothetical, backtested figures and not a forecast; the live record we publish is paper-traded and still young. We show it anyway, lagging months and all, because transparency is the product.
The risk brake we're validating
Markets give one reasonably durable "stress is coming" tell: the VIX term structure. When near-term expected volatility jumps above longer-term (the curve inverts) and stays there, it has historically preceded the worst stretches. We backtested a rule that trims the equity core when that happens and restores it when things normalize.
In testing it improved the risk-adjusted return and cut the worst drawdown by several points, at the cost of a fraction of a percent of annual return — cheap insurance. It is not live yet; we're soaking it on fresh data first, and we'll tell you the exact month we turn it on. That's how every change here works: validate, disclose, then ship.
What you get, by tier
Track (free): — the model, the live paper record, and the asset-class mix.
Follow: — the exact per-ETF weights and the monthly trade list — the actual "here's what to hold" you can act on.
Connect: — one-tap rebalancing inside your own linked brokerage.
👉 [See the current allocation](/strategy) · [Compare plans](/pricing)
*Backtested results are hypothetical and do not reflect live trading. Uptogain is a financial publisher, not an adviser.*