Is That It?

This morning on Squawk Box they had what could have been a very interesting interview with Michael Cuggino who runs the Permanent Portfolio (PRPFX). I wrote about this fund once before.

As a quick refresher the allocation is
35% us bonds
25% gold
15% us and foreign REITs and resource stocks
15% other US stocks
10% Swiss govt bonds

What intrigues me about this fund is the unique approach to navigating capital markets. This is kind of a bomb shelter fund.

What was disappointing was the interview itself. Whether this fund is any good or not, clearly the process is very unique. They spent very little time on the unique aspects of the fund and got right to the stock picks which only make 15% of the fund. It almost doesn't matter what the stocks do they are such a small weight.

The John Hussman interview was similar in that they did not discuss what makes that fund different. In my ongoing quest to learn about process I find CNBC often comes up short. That may be a function of time more than anything else. They usually devote two minutes to a guest. This is a big reason why I like CNBC Asia and Europe so much more. They give guests at least four minutes, even a small fish like me.