EXT fills the role of a "total U.S. market" fund in that it is a broad-based domestic fund, so it can be the core U.S.-based fund for a portfolio. The back-test on it covers almost five years, and in that time it beat the Russell 3000 by an average annualized 1.93%. The reason for that outperformance is that EXT, an earnings-based fund, does not tilt as heavily to value as the dividend funds.

Small-cap value over extremely long periods of time has been the best-performing "style box," which is why I chose a value fund for my lazy portfolio rather than something broader. RZV is very thinly traded, but its results stand up very well and any individual investor wanting a small-cap value product should take a look at this one.

I am not a fan of EAFE-based products; they are heavy in Western Europe and Japan. As I wrote last month, these regions didn't provide much diversification during the last bear market and I don't expect them to do so in the future. Australia, on the other hand, by virtue of its commodity-based economy, does offer the potential for good bear-market diversification from the U.S. DNH is 88% Australia and offers a yield better than 4%.

For emerging-market exposure, the Claymore BRIC ETF is compelling. It has dramatically outperformed the better-known iShares MSCI Emerging Market Fund (EEM - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr - Rating) since EEB's listing last fall. The nature of the BRIC -- that's Brazil, Russia, India and China -- economies is such that EEB has less technology exposure and more materials exposure, which I believe will mean EEB continues to outperform.

The presence of the iShares Global Energy Fund is not to make a bet on energy per se. But without that fund, the portfolio would be severely underweight energy, and that's a sector I want modestly overweighted as a longer-term theme.

PHO, the water portfolio ETF, is a narrower bet on a specific outcome: that drinkable water is becoming more difficult for certain regions to access. It's definitely longer-term in nature, and should provide some slow, modest upside as this thesis gradually takes hold.

Most lazy portfolios I have seen include exposure to real estate. I chose international exposure here because the U.S. market seems more mature and staid -- and lately, volatile, which is the opposite of what you want in a lazy portfolio. Foreign exposure offers less yield, but I believe it offers more longer-term growth potential and an asset class that should not correlate to the U.S. market. By the way, this is a change of thought from when I wrote about this space last September.

The portfolio includes gold exposure with DGL, as does every portfolio I manage. I own it in the belief that it will go up when bad things happen. It is a small but potentially volatile position whose primary role, the way I view it, is as a counter-strategy to equity holdings.