Subject: Re: Beating the market
Ummmm....odd question.

Well, I did say it was perverse!

As far as I can see the underpinning of "balanced" ports is psychological, rather than financial. The ostensibly benefits of diversification and rebalancing give the impression that there's some kind of free lunch involved, but if there is, it's not much of meal in most cases.

The real target audience are people who, for whatever reason, perceive volatility as risk, and can't get past it. They are surely better off accepting below-market returns, if the alternative is not to invest at all.

The Bogleheads.org site maintains a spreadsheet of data from several dozen asset classes, which allows back-testing (annual data only) to the nineteenth century in some cases:

http://bit.ly/3xOGxsi

Anyone who's interested in constructing a diversified, fixed-allocation LTBH portfolio will find it interesting.

Baltassar