I think that the first thing is you should have a strategic asset allocation mix that assumes that you don't know what the future is going to hold.
Ray Dalio
The concept of the barbell portfolio was devised by bond traders. The strategy entails holding extremely safe short-term bonds on one side of the barbell and risky long dated bonds on the opposite side of the barbell. Taleb popularized the concept to a wider audience and took it out of the bond market context.
Building a barbell portfolio, you slap on weights of extremely safe investments on one end and extremely risky ones on the other end. The safe investments carry with them virtually no risk of ruin. They are robust. Even in the face of Black Swans. The aggressive risk-seeking side of the portfolio opens it up to unlimited or sheer unlimited upside. Through this barbell approach, it is…
