"Uncle Haowai, I finished reading your QQQ article. The 11.12% annual return is impressive, but the -82.96% drawdown during the 2000 tech bubble is terrifying. I'm 42 years old with $1 million to invest. If it drops to $170,000, I definitely can't handle it. Is there a strategy that maintains returns while significantly reducing drawdowns?"

This message from a reader last week represents the dilemma facing most middle-aged investors: wanting high returns without enduring massive drawdowns.

Today, I'll provide the answer using 25.4 years of real backtest data (2000-2025): The Three-Asset Portfolio.

Through scientific asset allocation verified by 9 optimization algorithms, this portfolio achieved:

• Annual return: 11.06% (virtually matching QQQ's 11.12%, only 0.06% difference)
• Maximum drawdown: -49.35% (33.61% lower than QQQ, a 40.5% reduction)
• Excess annual return vs SPY: 2.75%
• Sharpe ratio: 0.5051 (1.68x QQQ's 0.3009)

What are these three asset classes? How is the allocation determined? Why is this ratio mathematically optimal? How did it perform during three major crises over 25 years?

The answers are in this article.

I'm Uncle Haowai, a practitioner with years of experience in quantitative trading and financial education. Today, I'm not discussing theory—I'm letting the data speak.

I. The -82.96% Drawdown: The Long Agony from $1 Million to $170,000

1.1 This Isn't Hypothetical—It Actually Happened

March 10, 2000: The Nasdaq 100 Index peaked at 4,704 points.