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Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 22, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I've been seriously looking at my index funds and trying to find a way to avoid taking a bath in the next crash. It's going to be incredibly ugly.

I use something called the Golden Butterfly portfolio which is a prosperity-tilted allocation of the Permanent Portfolio. I chose this because I have no idea what I’m doing.

If you really want to avoid one specific company, short-sell it in proportion to the index fund. For example, if you have 100,000 in an index fund, and Door Dash is 5% of the index, short Door Dash for 5000. This sets up a hedge which effectively strips out Door Dash from the rest of the index. You don't gain when Door Dash goes up, but you also don't lose money when Door Dash goes down.

DoorDash constitutes less than 0.1 percent of Vanguard's "Total [US] Stock Market Index Fund", and is not even large enough to appear in its "[S&P] 500 Index Fund". So it isn't worth worrying about in the end.

The struggle between not wanting to miss out on the rally, but not wanting to be left holding the bag.