The Time Freedom Podcast

Crash-Proof Your Portfolio (And Still Grow Your Money)

Episode Summary

In part two of the fast follow series, Brian and Kirby move from the problem to the solution. Brian breaks fast follow investing down into one simple idea: own what’s going up, and step out of it when it starts to go down, without ever having to predict the market. He walks through the three ideas behind the framework, shares what five years of using it has taught him, and is upfront about what it takes to do it yourself and what it costs to have him do it for you.

Episode Notes

➡️ Try the TIME FREEDOM CALCULATOR: https://timefreedomcalculator.com
➡️ Buy TIME FREEDOM, the Book: https://timefreedom.life/book
➡️ Read the FAST FOLLOW INVESTING bonus chapter: https://timefreedom.life/fastfollow

In this episode... Buy-and-hold investors are taught that timing the market is a mistake, so isn’t fast follow just market timing? Brian explains why it isn’t. Fast follow works more like a smoke alarm than a crystal ball: it doesn’t predict a fire, but it won’t let you sleep through one. He shows how a wider menu of investments, including stocks, bonds, gold, commodities, real estate, and cash, means something is usually working. That’s why the model held as much as 35% in gold during 2024 and 2025, even when analysts couldn’t explain why gold kept rising.

Brian shares backtested results going back nearly 40 years. Compared with the S&P 500, the fast follow model had a smaller worst-case decline (20.3% vs. 50.8%) and a shorter longest stretch underwater (25 months vs. 74). He also lives it: he watched that 25-month recovery play out in his own portfolio from 2021 to 2023. Then he gets practical about the trade-off. Fast follow means checking the model and trading three times a month, every month. You can do it yourself with a tool like Allocate Smartly, or have Brian manage it for 0.5%, half the typical advisory fee.

Top 5 Takeaways:

  1. You don’t have to predict anything. Fast follow uses math to spot what’s trending up and what’s trending down. You don’t need to know why gold is rising, only that it is.
  2. It’s a smoke alarm, not market timing. Market timing means guessing what happens next. Fast follow sets your line in the sand in advance and tells you when to get out and when to get back in.
  3. A bigger menu means something is usually working. Stocks do well in expansions, commodities in inflation, and cash protects you when everything is falling. Having access to all of them lets the model follow what’s working.
  4. Second place, again and again, wins over time. Fast follow always gets in a little late, so it rarely wins any single year. But a string of steady second-place finishes beats the one-year winners over the long run. It’s the tortoise, not the hare.
  5. Smaller drops mean faster recoveries. Limiting losses to about 20% means you’re back to even in about two years instead of six, which matters most when you’re living off your money.

Chapters

00:00 Fast follow investing: a framework for mitigating losses
04:45 The core rule: own what’s rising, step out when it falls
08:54 Rotating across asset classes
12:22 Why a steady second-place strategy adds up
14:37 Five years of real results and the 40-year backtest
20:31 The work involved and how to combine models
24:47 DIY vs. professional help, fees, and time freedom