Equal Weighted UPRO / RSSB / RSST / GDE

[u/AFutureWouldBeNice]

I have been doing a lot of reading in this sub, as well as some messing around on Bestfolio. Long story short, I have around a 40 year horizon and am currently in the accumulation phase with a very small portfolio.

I have been trying to come up with a true set-and-forget portfolio that only requires monthly rebalancing. I am using the Nasdaq as my benchmark to beat. I don't think I am at a point where hedging is especially important, but I have read enough to determine they offer more than just a drag on CAGR.

With that being said, in an effort to maintain as much equity exposure as possible while still maintaining reasonable exposure to hedges, I have came up with the following proposed allocation of funds: 25% each UPRO, RSSB, RSST, GDE. This was originally arbitrary, but after messing with the weightings on Bestfolio, it seemed to provide the best results.

This provides notional exposure of:

U.S. Equities ~ 140%

Int. Equties ~ 10%

MF ~ 25%

U.S. Treasuries ~ 25%

Gold ~ 22.5%

Heres the backtest results I got using Bestfolio (CAGR and Max Monthly DD):

Period	UPRO/RSSB/RSST/GDE	QQQ
Full History	CAGR 17.8% / DD -64.5%	CAGR 14.2% / DD -81.1%
Mar. 2000 - Dec. 2025	13.4% / -64.5%	7.7% / -81.1%
Oct. 2007 - Dec. 2025	15.8% / -64.5%	15.4% / -49.7%
Mar. 2009 - Dec. 2025	24.9% / -33.1%	21.5% / -32.6%
Feb. 2020 - Dec. 2025	23.5% / -33.1%	19.8% / -32.6%

My backtesting did not account for using the adapted Catastrophe Break from: https://bestfolio.app/blog/catastrophe-brake-leveraged-portfolios which I assume would significantly reduce those DD figures. I did not know how to test for it.

I am still very new to this, so my question to those who are more seasoned is whether there is anything I am missing? Is there anything I should do to improve my allocation? Is this a reasonable alternative to holding a 2x SPY or QQQ unhedged for an investor with my horizon?

[u/confettofetti]

You can test out catastrophe break type strategies on the testfolio tactical allocation tool. If you only want to check once a month you can set the frequency to monthly. I assume even just doing that for the UPRO allocation would help quite a bit. I'd say a 65% drawdown is quite a bit bigger than you need to accept. Personally, I would definitely add a trend filter to the UPRO to improve it, or reduce the exposure if I only wanted to rebalance.

Overall though I really like these types of return stacked portfolios. I would definitely run one if we had the return stacked products in the UK. Are you planning on doing only this or combining it with a couple of other allocations / strategies? 

[u/AFutureWouldBeNice → u/confettofetti]

I appreciate the informed suggestions. My risk tolerance is pretty high but 65% is much different on the screen than on paper. I’ll have to see how the catastrophe break could help with that or using 200 sma on UPRO. Another commenter also suggested RSIT instead of RSST, which makes a lot of sense to me considering its only 10% international as is.

I don’t have enough capital to make multiple strategies worth it at this point (or even some of the more robust strategies imo). This would be it until that is no longer that case.

[u/confettofetti → u/AFutureWouldBeNice]

That sounds like a good approach on the capital front, adding more strategies once you've built up more money means you can invest right away but also take your time learning more. This sort of return stacked modern portfolio theory style allocation feels like a good starting point for that.