Subject: Re: Investment Advice to a Trustee
A few of random thoughts.

Yes, I'm predictable, cap weight is a bad idea. Based on the best research available, almost any other weighting scheme you might find is going to be better. Equal weight, fundamental weight, whatever.

If you like the total world as a fund, there are equal weight versions of that too, I think. Maybe only the ones listed in Europe though.

I am a big fan of QQQE. Lower concentration than the S&P 500, so much lower single company risk. Equally weighted. But mainly, the value based on old fashioned earnings has gone up WAY faster than for the S&P 500 set of firms. This gap may not remain in future, but it is really immense. And QQQE isn't nearly as high above its average valuation level as the S&P 500 is above its own average level. In round numbers, I would guess that QQQE was close to its long run average valuation level at the lows two weeks ago, not something you could say about the S&P. The disadvantage is that it includes a few companies I would not feel comfortable investing in, but that's a problem with every fund. The fees are high, but that is more than made up for by the earnings growth, which has been on trend around inflation + 8%/year for ages. Even if that dropped a lot, the S&P's equivalent rate of trend real earnings growth is less than half that.

I would rate attractiveness of QQQE better than RSP, and RSP better than SPY.

I have in the past made positive noises about an "estate" portfolio of big chunks of BRK and QQQE. My thinking has changed recently as a result of deciding to reduce to a minimum my economic exposure to the US, but that probably doesn't affect other folks.

For a "know nothing" portfolio that is more work, not what you were asking for, there is much to be said for the dartboard. Buy equal dollar amounts of all the stocks in any major index. S&PP 500, Russell 1000, MSCI World large cap, Nasdaq 100, whatever. Every year or two (but not near end June), reconstitute. Sell anything no longer in the index, buy things that are newly added, and rebalance all the positions to roughly equal weight. (many brokerage interfaces have a one-button rebalance feature). Too much typing? Buy any random subset of 40-100 companies in the index, reconstitute every year or two with new random picks. The key secret: do NOT try to pick a subset based on what you know about any companies, use dice. Based on academic studies and some of my own tests, your chances of beating the S&P 500 over time are in the vicinity of 90-99%.

Jim