A simple 60/40 blend: 60% U.S. stocks for growth (VTI) and 40% very short-term Treasuries for stability (SHV). Easy, low-cost, and conservative-to-moderate. No automatic rebalancing, so weights can drift over time.

It puts 60% into VTI (a fund owning almost the entire U.S. stock market) and 40% into SHV (very short-term U.S. Treasury bonds that behave like cash). Then it holds. There’s no automatic rebalancing, so the mix can drift; you’d manually reset to 60/40 if desired.

Out-of-sample edge: Sharpe ~1.08 vs SPY ~0.95, max drawdown 11.65% vs 18.76%, beta ~0.59. About 12.1% annualized return with a steadier, less volatile ride than the S&P 500’s 17.5%.