the way to make money in the first half of 2023 was to declare your independence from wall street at the start of the year the top forecasters were predicting the sp 500 would have a bad first half as the us would slide into recession and they said the index would end 2023 at around 4000 in reality it’s already nearly 4500 higher than all but one of 17 forecasters expected for the full year as for the recession we are still waiting back in january the street’s top money managers said the us stock market would be a terrible place to be for 2023 and way worse than europe japan or best of all emerging markets in reality so far this year the sp 500 has beaten europe japan and emerging markets and emerging markets the big money managers’ top pick so far this year has been the worst region gaining just 5 at the start of the year the world’s biggest money managers also said that you would be much better off in cash and treasury bills commodities and hedge funds than you would in stocks quick name three assets that have been a much much worse investment so far in 2023 than stocks cash and treasury bills have earned you less than 3 interest commodities are actually down 8 as for hedge funds the hfri hedge fund index says that through the end of may the average hedge fund investor had so far earned 03 this year no that decimal point is not in the wrong place nor does it end there among the few sectors on the us stock market that the bigmoney crowd actually liked back in january were energy and banks energy stocks are down around 5 so far this year worse than almost every other sector apart from you guessed it banks the spdr sp 500 bank etf has managed to blow 19 of your money in 6 months thanks in part to the risk management departments of silicon valley bank – among others it’s yet another reminder that you won’t get rich following the crowd or as the late hollywood screenwriter william goldman said of tinseltown “nobody knows anything” i wrote about this recently our simple 8fund portfolio is crushing the market and the ‘smart’ money—again just to update the results through the end of the first half the assets that top money managers liked the most ended up losing you on average 06 during the first six months of the year that’s based on an equally weighted portfolio of 8 etfs tracking their 8 favorite tradable assets during that same period a typical portfolio of 60 us stocks and 40 us bonds as for example tracked by the vanguard balanced index fund gained you 104 meanwhile the assets these smart guys liked the least would have earned you 178 that’s based on another portfolio of 8 etfs tracking their leastfavorite tradable assets the portfolio we call with tongue somewhat in cheek “pariah capital” what will the next half hold stay tuned