Checking In: A Permanent Place In Your Portfolio? (PERM, SIVR, VEU)

"Permanent" is strong word in life and in investing. Even Warren Buffett, who has famously said multiple times that his favorite holding period for a stock is "forever," does sell some equity positions from time-to-time. Maybe nothing is forever, but it is possible for investors to own an ETF designed to help endure multiple market settings and that fund is the newly minted Global X Permanent ETF PERM, which debuted on February 8. The Global X Permanent ETF is off to a fine start, at least terms of attracting assets. PERM has over $9.9 million in AUM as investors have appeared intrigued by the fund's composition, which offers exposure to various asserts class designed to position PERM to weather market volatility. When PERM debuted, it had target allocations of 25% to equity stocks, 25% to short term bonds, 20% to gold and 5% to silver, and 25% to long term bonds. PERM does not try to beat an index but rather maintains target allocations through passive indexing, according to a statement issued by Global X. Today, more than 24% of PERM's weight is allocated to the ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares SGOL and the ETFS Physical Silver Shares SIVR and the bond allocations are approximately true to the desired 25% to short-term and 25% to long-term desired weights. The rest of the ETF's holdings are spread among U.S. large-caps, real estate stocks, materials names, global stocks and U.S. small-caps. PERM's next largest positions include a 3.23% allocation to the Vanguard Small-Cap ETF VB and a 3.21% weight to the Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF VEU. In terms of individual stocks, PERM's 10 largest positions are all REITs, led by Prologis PLD. The ETF does offer exposure to plenty of major energy and materials names such as Chevron CVX, Potash POT and BHP Billiton BHP, but on a percentage basis, energy and materials account for just over 5% of the fund's weight. Technology and financial services names are also littered throughout PERM's equity positions. Apple AAPL, Bank of America BAC, Google GOOG, Goldman Sachs GS, Qualcomm QCOM and J.P. Morgan Chase JPM are among the familiar, large-cap names found in PERM's lineup. PERM has been lagging the broader market since its debut, but it's not unfair to pin the reason for that slack performance on gold in silver. In the past month, PERM is down 2%, but SGOL is down more than 4% and SIVR has plunged 8% over the same time. And that anecdote may indicate that even though it's a new fund with a small data sample to draw from, PERM may already be living up to its billing as a way of helping investors with longer time horizons cope with near-term market volatility.