How common, actually, is common knowledge?

An old friend observed that Zoltan Pozar’s recent claim that “60/40 won’t cut it anymore and should be 20/40/20/20 instead” is spurious.

Nobody believes in 60/40 anymore, he said.

I wondered: while the idea that investors should balance their portfolios 60% equities and 40% bonds certainly took a beating in 2022—”is the 60/40 dead? Goldman asked—is it true that “nobody believes” in 60/40?

I decided to Google and asked “how many people use 60/40 for equities to bonds?”

Google wouldn’t tell me how common the strategy is, BUT search results suggest that “everyone” (at least Morgan Stanley, Barrons and BlackRock) agrees that 60/40 is “classic,” “traditional,” or “foundational.” 

The Goldman report observes unhelpfully, “although most investors typically don’t hold such a simplistic portfolio, we see shades of the classic 60/40 present in many portfolios due to an overconcentration in the most familiar asset classes.” Shades present in many portfolios… thanks Goldman!

So who knows how many investors use the strategy?  (Googling “how many investors weight their portfolios 60/40 equities to bonds?” doesn’t yield any more concrete or specific answers.)

So we really don’t have any idea how common this common strategy actually is.