Articles

Rebuilding your portfolio in the new normal. Lessons from top investors.

It’s 2025, and the market can’t sit still. Inflation may be cooling, but everything else is heating up: tariffs, elections, geopolitical flashpoints. One day it’s AI-driven optimism, the next it’s fiscal panic. Sentiment flips on a dime, and investors, from Wall Street boardrooms to Telegram trading groups, are left asking the same question:

What do you do when markets are swinging but not going anywhere? We went looking for answers. From Janet Yellen and Ray Dalio to Arthur Hayes and Hester Peirce, even Sam Bankman-Fried from a prison cell – everyone has an opinion. But instead of clarity, we found contradiction. Some say “stack cash.” Others shout “double down.” It’s a blur of advice, with few points of agreement.

But underneath the noise, one theme kept resurfacing: cashflow. Not hype. Not price predictions. Just the simple, powerful idea of building a portfolio that gets paid, even when markets don’t move.

Markets Are a Mess. What Now?

There’s a reason so many experts are hedging their bets: the market is volatile not just in price, but in narrative.

“This isn’t typical volatility,” said JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon in his Q1 2025 earnings call. “It’s a fundamental repricing of risk across asset classes.”

Mohamed El-Erian called it a “volatility regime change” (Financial Times Opinion Piece, March 2025). Michael Burry warned we’re still unwinding years of easy money (Bloomberg Markets Interview, April 2025). Meanwhile, Vitalik Buterin pointed out that crypto’s own volatility is being amplified by institutional correlation and retail feedback loops (Ethereum Foundation Blog, March 2025).

It’s not just investors reacting to economic signals, it’s the market reacting to itself. And in this reflexive environment, even the most seasoned players are pulling back from risk.

Too Many Experts, Too Few Answers?

We parsed through over a dozen public recommendations, and what stood out wasn’t just the range of advice. It was how contradictory it often was.

Arthur Hayes suggested keeping 50% in stablecoins earning DeFi yield, and warned that “choppy markets require strategies that pay daily.”
Jamie Dimon recommended boosting cash reserves to 15–20% of your portfolio, explicitly to be ready for dislocations.
Liz Ann Sonders at Charles Schwab pointed to dividend payers with low debt as the sweet spot for traditional investors.
Ryan Selkis, Meltem Demirors, and Pompliano all leaned heavily into BTC, ETH, and yield-generating DeFi assets.
Even Ray Dalio and Janet Yellen tilted their hypothetical portfolios toward capital preservation and risk-managed equity.

The underlying sentiment was clear: this isn’t the moment for hero plays. It’s a time for resilience, cashflow, and control.

One Framework, Three Buckets

To make sense of the noise, we turned to the classic family office model, a portfolio framework built on three blocks: Preservation, Balance, and Growth.

Mapping the expert allocations into this framework revealed a striking trend.

In traditional finance, portfolios skew heavily toward safety. The average breakdown from figures like Dalio, Yellen, and Marks? Around 47% in preservation assets, 47% in balanced exposures, and just 6% in growth plays. Think bonds, dividend stocks, and short-term treasuries, with a dash of private credit or high-quality equity.

Meanwhile in crypto, portfolios are bolder, but not recklessly so. The average allocations among leading voices like Hayes, Selkis, and Peirce? Roughly 22% in preservation, 62% in balance, and 16% in growth. That balance bucket is where most of the action is: BTC, ETH, restaking strategies, and DeFi blue chips. Preservation comes from stablecoins with 8–12% yield. Growth is reserved for emerging narratives: AI, privacy tokens, and infrastructure L2s.

The asset-level breakdown reveals how capital is positioned across categories:

So while their vocabulary may differ, “dividends” vs. “staking rewards,” “bond laddering” vs. “liquidity provisioning”, their objectives are more aligned than you might think: capital protection, steady cashflow, selective upside.

What the Smart Money Is Actually Doing.

All this points to one unmissable shift: cashflow-first portfolios are back.

And it’s not just a defensive move. In an environment where momentum trades fade fast and liquidity dries up without warning, cashflow is both a cushion and a weapon.

Arthur Hayes, in his April commentary, pointed to stablecoin strategies with consistent yield as a way to stay in the market during sideways action and be ready when conviction returns (Crypto Trader Digest, April 2025).

Charles Schwab’s Kathy Jones has suggested maintaining 6–8 months of reserves to navigate volatility without being forced into reactive decisions (Schwab Center for Financial Research, April 2025)

And Jamie Dimon has consistently emphasized the power of liquidity in seizing opportunities during market dislocations, a theme he’s echoed throughout JPMorgan’s shareholder letters.

So while Twitter debates the next bull run and Telegram channels chase the next microcap, smart capital is doing something less dramatic, and far more effective: earning yield and waiting.

The Average Portfolio for This Market

If we distill all the expert strategies, cross-referenced against both traditional and crypto allocations, one consensus emerges giving us an average portfolio structure for 2025 volatility:

Preservation: 30–40% – cash, short-term bonds, stablecoins with yield
Balance: 40–50% – dividend stocks, BTC/ETH, restaking, DeFi liquidity provision
Growth: 10–20% – AI, DeFi, L2s, early-stage high-upside bets

This structure isn’t about trying to beat the market in a single trade, it’s about positioning to survive uncertainty, stay liquid, and move fast when opportunity strikes.

The Common Strategy: Earn Now, Act Later

Across all the data, these four principles kept coming up, whether from Wall Street or Web3:

Focus on cashflow.
Whether through dividends, staking rewards, or LP fees, income is the only consistent source of return in sideways markets.
Buy the dip, but only if you have liquidity.
Cash isn’t a wasted asset right now. It’s a competitive advantage.
Hold 6–8 months of reserves.
If markets surprise you (and they will), don’t let it be the reason you sell at a loss.
Be patient. Don’t go all in.
This is a game of longevity, not bravado.
Maintain you balance in the portfolio

Make sure you keep the balance in your portfolio between assets that protect you, generate cash, and capture growth opportunities.

While headlines scream about AI pumps and ETF approvals, seasoned investors are whispering a different message: build portfolios that pay you to wait.

Because the volatility we’re seeing isn’t a phase. It’s the new backdrop. And the question isn’t whether things will go up or down. The real question is:

Will your portfolio be alive and liquid when it happens?

_________________

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.