What is a Lazy Portfolio?

A Lazy Portfolio is a collection of investments that requires very little maintenance.

It’s the typical passive investing strategy, for long-term investors, with time horizons of more than 10 years.

It’s called lazy because you don’t actively manage your portfolio. It’s the so called buy and hold investing strategy, designed to achieve a long-term financial independence. That means no active trading, no checking your stocks every day, and no paying some hedge fund manager (who won’t beat the market anyway) to handle your money.

Lazy Portfolios, in fact, can be built with passively managed exchange-traded funds (ETF).

Lazy Portfolios generally have:

  1. Fewer fees. Many mutual funds cost more because they’re handled by money managers. ETFs or Index Funds do not, because you’re just investing in the whole market, without human stock picking.
  2. Less risk. Since ETFs and Index Funds invest in the entire market, they’re much less volatile.

Examples

1. One Fund Portfolio

It’s the lazy portfolio which invest, with only one ETF, in the whole US Stocks Market.

  • 100% Stocks US

With this very simple lazy portfolio, you’ll get exposure to the US Market. For details, check the US Stocks Portfolio performance. 1000$, invested in January 1972, became more than 105000$ in September 2018.

2. Two Fund Portfolio

It’s a very common lazy portfolio. One ETF with stocks, and another one with bonds:

  • 60% Stocks US
  • 40% Bonds US

With this simple lazy portfolio, you’ll get exposure to a broad quality number of stocks and bonds. For details, check the Stocks/Bonds 60/40 Portfolio performance. 1000$, invested in January 1987, became more than 14000$ in January 2019.