Lazy portfolio
Talmudic Portfolio
Tractate Bava Metzia, ~200 CE
The oldest documented asset-allocation rule: "let every man divide his money into three parts, and invest a third in land, a third in business, and let him keep a third in reserve." Modernized as one-third real estate, one-third equity, one-third bonds.
Allocation
- 33.4% · US Total Market (business)
- 33.3% · Real Estate (land)
- 33.3% · US Aggregate Bond (reserve)
Weighted expense ratio
0.063%
Across the 3 of 3 slices we could price.
Weighted tax efficiency
65
/100, weighted by allocation. Lower in heavy-bond portfolios.
Slices
3
Number of holdings — also the number of lots you rebalance.
Implementation
Editorial take
More a parable about diversification than a serious portfolio recommendation. The one-third REIT weight is high enough to dominate the portfolio's tax profile in a taxable account — most modern implementations use closer to 5–10% real estate.
Try the Talmudic Portfolio in our tools
Tool · Look-through
See what the Talmudic Portfolio actually holds
Every underlying position summed across the slices — true top holdings, country and sector tilt, bond sleeve.
Tool · Placement
Split this portfolio across your accounts
Asset-location optimizer — fills tax-deferred with shelter-priority slices first, Roth with growth-priority next, taxable last. Estimated annual tax drag.
Tool · Backtester
Backtest this portfolio's last 5 years
Monthly total returns rebalanced monthly. Equity curve, CAGR, max drawdown.
Compare the slices
See holdings overlap and cost difference between any two of this portfolio's funds.
Open Talmudic Portfolio holdings at a brokerage
All 3 slices in this portfolio trade commission-free at major brokerages.
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Curated allocation. The funds listed are how this portfolio would be built using the catalog as it stands today; alternate tickers and notes are flagged inline.
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