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Swedroe Larry Portfolio

Larry Swedroe 'Larry Portfolio' (30% small-value stocks / 70% intermediate Treasuries)

Larry Swedroe (Buckingham Strategic Wealth); popularized under the name 'Larry Portfolio' by a New York Times column (December 2011); laid out in the book by Swedroe and Kevin Grogan · December 2011 (press column); 2014 (book 'Reducing the Risk of Black Swans', Swedroe and Grogan; updated 2018)

Live account on this site. This portfolio is also tracked here with a virtual $100,000 since 21.10.2026. Live account on this site →

Where it stands today

Data through 2026-09. Updated every month.

Since January+0.8 %
Last 12 months+2.5 %
Last 5 years, per year+0.9 %
Now below the peak−4.4 %
Place by 12 months58 / 60

Our calculation, 1926-07 – 2026-09

Per year7.6 %
Real (after inflation)4.4 %
Volatility8.3 %
Worst drop−34.6 %
Worst year−14.9 % (2022)
Best year36.8 %
Worst 12 months−22.0 %
Positive years86 %

10 % of this history is calculated with stand-ins for asset classes that did not exist yet (see “How we model it” and the page about data). Without stand-ins the history starts in 1990.

Growth of $10,000

$4,147$35,740$308,016$2,654,584$22,878,060$197,170,5081930194019501960197019801990200020102020
Swedroe Larry Portfolio: $14,871,444S&P 500: $196,488,890

Where it came from

Larry Swedroe is a financial author and long-time research director at Buckingham Strategic Wealth (BAM Alliance). He wrote a series of books arguing for passive, factor-based investing, starting with 'The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You'll Ever Need' (first edition 1998; revised later) and including 'Think, Act, and Invest Like Warren Buffett'. Those books mostly give general asset-allocation principles and sample risk-graded mixes; we could not find a single fixed set of weights from them that is quoted reliably in open sources, so the model used here is the better-documented 'Larry Portfolio'.

The 'Larry Portfolio' name came from a New York Times column dated 24 December 2011 titled 'Taking a Chance on the Larry Portfolio' (the byline is reported by secondary sources as Ron Lieber; not verified here). It described an unorthodox strategy: hold only a modest share in stocks, but make the stock part entirely small-cap value, and hold the rest in safe Treasury bonds. A blog summary of the column says a portfolio of about one-third small-value stocks and two-thirds Treasuries would have given returns close to the S&P 500 over 1970-2010 with much lower risk, based on a Buckingham chart.

Swedroe himself has said in a podcast that the NYT coined the name and that 'Larry Portfolio' referred only to the equity part (U.S. small value, international small value and emerging-market value), and that articles quoting the portfolio often get it wrong. He earlier called the idea the 'Eliminate Fat Tails Portfolio' (reported on a Bogleheads forum, unverified).

The strategy was written up in 'Reducing the Risk of Black Swans' (2014, Swedroe and Kevin Grogan; updated edition 2018). The idea: because small-value stocks have both higher expected return and higher volatility than the market, a small stock share in them can match the expected return of a conventional 60/40 mix while the larger bond share lowers the exposure to equity crashes. The usual open-source version is 15% U.S. small value, 7.5% developed ex-US small value, 7.5% emerging-market value, and 70% intermediate Treasuries.

It is aimed at risk-averse investors with strong conviction in the size and value premiums, and it needs the patience to live with long stretches of lagging the S&P 500 (the 2010s were weak for size and value).

What is in it

U.S. small-cap value stocks15%Portfolio Charts rounds this to 15 percent.
Developed ex-US small-cap value stocks7.5%Portfolio Charts rounds this to 8 percent.
Emerging-markets value / small-value stocks7.5%Swedroe is said to favour emerging-markets value; Portfolio Charts uses a plain emerging-markets index at 7 percent.
Intermediate-term U.S. Treasury bonds70%some sources say five-year or short-term Treasuries

Source of the shares: Larry Swedroe Portfolio Review (Optimized Portfolio) - secondary source naming the Swedroe and Grogan 2014 book as the origin — www.optimizedportfolio.com. The page lists 15% US small value, 7.5% ex-US developed small value, 7.5% emerging-markets small value, 70% intermediate Treasuries and attributes the portfolio to 'Reducing the Risk of Black Swans' (2014, updated 2018). A second site (Listen Money Matters) gives the same split. We did not see the book itself. No primary text was reachable: the book is only available as a lending copy and the New York Times column is blocked. The weights are corroborated by a second independent site, Portfolio Charts, which lists 15 percent US small value, 8 percent developed ex-US small value, 7 percent emerging markets (large-cap blend as a stand-in for emerging-markets value, which it lacks data for) and 70 percent US intermediate Treasuries, and says it rounded the original design. A Financial Analysts Journal review (13 July 2018) confirms a revised edition of the 2014 book but does not list the weights.

How we model it

Intermediate government bonds (10 y)70%
US small value stocks15%
Developed markets outside the US7.5%
Emerging markets7.5%

We have no international small-value series, so developed ex-US small value is mapped to intl_dev (plain developed-market stocks) and emerging-markets small value to em. This removes the size/value tilt abroad and makes the proxy less aggressive than the original. Intermediate Treasuries map to bond_mid (7-10 year) in our data; if the book meant five-year notes the duration is slightly longer here. The 'Larry Portfolio' is a press label for an idea. The 2011 newspaper version was about one-third small value and two-thirds Treasuries of unstated maturity, and the book is said to use five-year Treasuries, so our bond_mid (7-10 years) is slightly longer than the book's bonds; our bond_short (1-3 years) would be slightly shorter.

For a euro investor

The same portfolio bought with euros, without currency hedging: monthly returns converted at the end-of-month rate (German mark before 1999), inflation of the euro area. History in euros from 1953-10 to 2026-09.

Per year in euros6.8 %
After euro inflation4.0 %
Worst drop in euros−36.3 %
Worst year in euros−20.6 % (1987)
Safe withdrawal, 30 years, dollars4.20 % (1946-06)
Safe withdrawal, 30 years, euros3.10 % (1968-12)

The largest first-year withdrawal, then growing with inflation, that lasted 30 years from every monthly start. Test withdrawals for this portfolio →

How to build it with European funds

Examples of UCITS funds sold in the EU for each part of the portfolio. They track similar markets, not exactly the indices of our calculation.

PartShareExample funds (ISIN)
Intermediate government bonds (10 y)70%iShares USD Treasury Bond 7-10yr UCITS ETF (Dist) IE00B1FZS798
US small value stocks15%SPDR MSCI USA Small Cap Value Weighted UCITS ETF IE00BSPLC413
Developed markets outside the US (closest match)7.5%iShares Core MSCI Europe UCITS ETF EUR (Acc) IE00B4K48X80
iShares Core MSCI Japan IMI UCITS ETF IE00B4L5YX21
Emerging markets7.5%iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets IMI UCITS ETF (Acc) IE00BKM4GZ66

These are examples, not recommendations. Check the fund's key information document, costs and taxes with your broker before buying. Names and ISINs checked on justETF on 4 November 2026; Udak receives nothing from these funds.

The idea

Use a small stock allocation concentrated in the factors with the highest historical premiums (size and value) to get equity-like return with much lower overall risk and shallower crashes, and put the remainder in the safest bonds.

How people buy it

Dimensional or Avantis funds are typical: for example Avantis US Small Cap Value (AVUV), Avantis International Small Cap Value (AVDV), Avantis Emerging Markets Value (AVES) and Vanguard Intermediate-Term Treasury (VGIT), per the Optimized Portfolio page. Swedroe also mentions Bridgeway small-cap value (per a commenter on the same page).

Rebalancing as published

Not specified in the sources we could open; the usual practice for such fixed mixes is annual rebalancing. Swedroe's published advice elsewhere stresses staying disciplined and avoiding abandoning the strategy when it lags (tracking-error regret).

Variants

Criticism

Through the eras

EraDatesTotalPer yearWorst dropS&P 500
Roaring Twenties boom1926-07 – 1929-08+41.2 %+11.5 %−2.4 %+153.7 %
Wall Street crash and Great Contraction1929-09 – 1932-07−27.0 %−10.2 %−34.6 %−78.2 %
New Deal recovery1932-08 – 1937-02+107.8 %+17.3 %−17.0 %+268.7 %
Recession within the Depression1937-03 – 1938-03−18.1 %−16.9 %−18.7 %−49.5 %
Rearmament and World War II1938-04 – 1945-09+94.8 %+9.3 %−8.4 %+205.8 %
Postwar expansion1945-10 – 1965-12+260.2 %+6.5 %−9.0 %+1212.9 %
Golden age of the 1950s1950-01 – 1959-12+97.1 %+7.0 %−5.6 %+438.8 %
Go-go years and nifty-fifty1966-01 – 1968-12+25.6 %+7.9 %−7.4 %+34.0 %
The Great Inflation (stagflation)1969-01 – 1982-07+133.3 %+6.4 %−13.0 %+84.6 %
1973-74 oil shock and bear market1973-01 – 1974-12−8.7 %−4.4 %−12.6 %−41.7 %
Second oil shock and the Volcker disinflation1979-01 – 1982-08+42.1 %+10.0 %−12.1 %+59.2 %
Great bull market in stocks and bonds1982-08 – 1999-12+770.1 %+13.2 %−10.7 %+2060.4 %
Black Monday1987-08 – 1987-12−7.2 %—−10.1 %−21.8 %
Savings-and-loan crisis and 1990 recession1990-07 – 1991-03+6.9 %—−7.4 %+7.4 %
1994 bond market massacre1994-02 – 1994-12−7.1 %—−7.7 %−3.2 %
Asian and Russian financial crises1997-07 – 1998-10+13.3 %+9.8 %−3.5 %+22.4 %
Dot-com bubble and crash2000-03 – 2002-10+21.7 %+7.6 %−3.6 %−37.2 %
Recovery and housing boom2002-11 – 2007-09+63.4 %+10.5 %−5.6 %+97.0 %
Global financial crisis2007-10 – 2009-03−1.7 %−1.1 %−10.7 %−44.7 %
The decade after the crisis2009-04 – 2019-12+97.8 %+6.6 %−5.1 %+411.2 %
Fourth-quarter 2018 sell-off2018-09 – 2018-12−3.5 %—−4.6 %−14.4 %
Covid crash and stimulus boom2020-02 – 2021-12+14.0 %+7.1 %−2.3 %+53.6 %
Inflation shock and rate hikes2022-01 – 2022-12−14.9 %−14.9 %−17.9 %−19.9 %

Calendar years

-15%37%1927: +12.7%1928: +13.1%1929: -3.7%1930: -8.8%19301931: -13.8%1932: +4.5%1933: +31.4%1934: +6.2%1935: +18.0%1936: +19.1%1937: -10.2%1938: +11.0%1939: +2.0%1940: +0.5%19401941: -3.3%1942: +9.4%1943: +21.0%1944: +12.8%1945: +19.0%1946: -0.9%1947: +1.9%1948: +2.2%1949: +7.9%1950: +12.5%19501951: +5.9%1952: +4.3%1953: +2.6%1954: +19.5%1955: +6.7%1956: +0.7%1957: +1.0%1958: +15.8%1959: +3.0%1960: +7.4%19601961: +10.2%1962: +1.3%1963: +8.5%1964: +8.5%1965: +9.0%1966: +1.1%1967: +12.3%1968: +10.6%1969: -9.2%1970: +13.9%19701971: +12.3%1972: +5.2%1973: -4.7%1974: -4.2%1975: +18.4%1976: +23.8%1977: +3.3%1978: +4.1%1979: +10.6%1980: +7.5%19801981: +5.8%1982: +36.8%1983: +12.2%1984: +12.1%1985: +30.5%1986: +19.6%1987: -2.5%1988: +12.0%1989: +20.8%1990: +0.4%19901991: +22.8%1992: +9.6%1993: +21.9%1994: -4.9%1995: +23.1%1996: +4.9%1997: +13.1%1998: +9.3%1999: +3.5%2000: +12.0%20002001: +5.5%2002: +8.0%2003: +17.2%2004: +9.8%2005: +7.5%2006: +9.2%2007: +9.2%2008: +2.0%2009: +6.3%2010: +12.0%20102011: +7.8%2012: +7.9%2013: +2.2%2014: +7.6%2015: -1.5%2016: +6.6%2017: +8.0%2018: -3.8%2019: +11.6%2020: +10.1%20202021: +4.6%2022: -14.8%2023: +6.7%2024: +1.0%2025: +11.7%

Any N-year period

Any N-year periodWorst10 % worse thanMedian10 % better thanBest
1 y (1192)−22.0 %−2.5 %+7.7 %+18.3 %+64.8 %
3 y (1168)−12.1 %+1.5 %+7.4 %+13.9 %+24.9 %
5 y (1144)−3.8 %+2.8 %+7.4 %+12.8 %+24.3 %
10 y (1084)+1.9 %+5.1 %+7.1 %+13.1 %+16.5 %
15 y (1024)+3.9 %+5.4 %+7.3 %+12.5 %+14.6 %
20 y (964)+4.8 %+5.9 %+7.3 %+12.3 %+13.3 %
30 y (844)+5.9 %+6.4 %+8.2 %+11.2 %+12.0 %

How it behaved in history

Published results (by others)

What we could not verify

Sources

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Calculated on historical data. Past results do not predict the future. Models before the 1990s use stand-ins for classes that had no index yet; fees, taxes and fund costs are not included. This is mathematics, not an investment recommendation.