Barbell Strategy

The barbell strategy is a way of building a portfolio with weight at both ends and little in between, like the plates on a weightlifter's bar. In its original form in bond investing, it means holding a mix of very short-term and very long-term bonds while avoiding medium maturities. The term was popularized more broadly by the writer Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who suggested placing most money, perhaps 85 to 90 per cent, in extremely safe assets and the rest in highly speculative bets, so that losses are capped while large gains remain possible, an idea linked to his concept of antifragility. In crypto, mostly cash or government bonds plus a small slice of tokens is sometimes called a barbell. The approach is a form of asset allocation, and the risky portion can still be lost entirely.