Wanted to get the board's opinion on the role of contrarian or negatively correlated assets in the context of managing a large investment portfolio. Current investment allocations are equities, bonds and a smattering of real estate investments. Additionally, there has always been a smallish brokerage account which held mining stocks and some swiss franc currency trust shares. In previous market downturns/volatilty, this particular portfolio has risen and mitigated broader portfolio losses. I am mulling over the longer term necessity, investment objectives and the potential composition of such a contrarian portfolio in today's investment climate. Seems like this type of thinking is from my parents/ grandparents time but may not be as relevant today.