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%

33.3%

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

/100, weighted by allocation. Lower in heavy-bond portfolios.

Slices

Number of holdings — also the number of lots you rebalance.

Implementation

Weight	Role	Ticker	Fund	ER	AUM	Score
33.4%	US Total Market (business)	VTI	Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund ETF Shares	0.030%	$2.30T	92
33.3%	Real Estate (land)	VNQ	Vanguard Real Estate Index Fund ETF Shares	0.13%	$71.35B	76
33.3%	US Aggregate Bond (reserve)	BND	Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund	0.030%	$397.86B	89

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 · 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.

Open at Fidelity

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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.

PlainIndex publishes data and editorial commentary — nothing here is personalized investment advice. Read the methodology for how the scores referenced here are computed.