Sunday Musings: Still Not Getting It

Ulli Sell Stops Contact

Recently, the WSJ (subscription required) featured a piece with the title “Unstable Condition.” Let’s look at a few highlights:

Q: Are there ways an investor can protect against a rise in the market’s volatility—or even profit from it?

A: Investors have endured a bumpy few years. The market tumbled in 2008, then rose sharply in the subsequent two years, leaving some investors with virtual whiplash.

Now, with markets uncertain and growing fears of a new economic slowdown, some investors are searching for ways to protect their portfolios from a new bout of volatility. And some are even looking for ways to profit from renewed turmoil.

The traditional advice for those seeking shelter is to create a diversified portfolio featuring companies in stable businesses such as tobacco, utilities and consumer staples, or to shift into bonds and dividend-paying stocks. But the market downturn in 2008 hurt all kinds of companies and corporate bonds, including those that seemed safe. Indeed, there’s evidence that markets around the world are more in sync than ever, making it harder to escape downturns.

Read More

ETF Leaders And Laggards – For The Week Ending 6/24/2011

Ulli ETF Leaders & Laggards Contact

Here is a quick review of the past week’s winners and losers from my High Volume ETF Master list:

Despite rallies and sell offs, there will always be some investment arenas that will resist the general trend of the market and head higher no matter what.

Unfortunately, as we’ve seen in the past, this usually is a temporary phenomenon with potentially opposite results next week. The five top listing on the plus side did well, but their weak M-Index numbers indicate that they too have been affected negatively by downside momentum.

Disclosure: No holdings

A Dubious 3-Year Anniversary

Ulli Trend Tracking Contact

Last Thursday, June 23, 2011, marked the 3-year anniversary of the effective date of our last domestic Sell signal.

If you were a reader of this blog back then, you may recall that our Domestic TTI (Trend Tracking Index) had crossed its long-term trend line to the downside into bear market territory on 6/22/2008, thereby triggering a “Sell” the following trading day. Here’s what the moment of truth looked like:

This domestic sell signal had actually been preceded by the International TTI having moved below its respective long-term trend line effective 11/13/2007, some seven months prior. Take a look at the chart of the International TTI:

Read More

06-24-2011

Ulli Newsletter Archives Contact

ETF/No Load Fund Tracker StatSheet

————————————————————-

THE LINK TO OUR CURRENT ETF/MUTUAL FUND STATSHEET IS:

https://theetfbully.com/2011/06/weekly-statsheet-for-the-etfno-load-fund-tracker-updated-through-6232011/

————————————————————

Market Commentary

Friday, June 24, 2011

ETFs HAULING SOUTH

Yesterday’s late rebound, following an early morning sharp selloff, gave the bulls some hope that the bad news out of Greece, as well as economic worries, was a bit overblown.

Today, the opposite happened, as an early morning rally succumbed with the major indexes closing near their lows for the day. It seemed that with so much global uncertainly, traders did not want to hold on to any long positions over the weekend.

That is probably not a bad idea considering that a new elephant of Italian descent suddenly showed up in the room. While debt troubles with Greece are well documented daily, the fact that the Italian banks stepped on the on-deck circle was a surprise and created a bit of market anxiety. At issue is the financial health of several major players with Moody’s threatening to downgrade 13 of them.

Domestically, adding to the sour mood were tech heavyweights Oracle and Micron, which were a drag as a result of reduced sales (Oracle) and lower than expected profits (Micron). On the slightly positive side were an upward revised 1st quarter GDP number of 1.9% and growth in durable goods orders in May after a decline in April.

While the market drop from last Friday’s close was only minor, we have now reached and closed right at the S&P 500’s 200-day moving average. Several times this week, that level has served as support and propelled the markets higher.

However, repeated testing of support levels tends not to end well. With turbulent news from the far corners of the world becoming a daily occurrence, it will not take much downward momentum to not only break but also close below this level. With many technicians considering this point the dividing line between bullish and bearish territory, more selling is virtually a guarantee once that level gives.

Our Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs) have followed the ups and downs during this past week and are now positioned as follows:

Domestic TTTI: +2.02% (last week +1.87%)
International TTI: -2.04% (last week -1.69%)

Of course, it is entirely possible that the S&P’s 200-day moving average will shine again by attracting enough buyers next week to push the indexes back into orbit, but I doubt that this would be a lasting situation. From my view, there are simply too many headwinds to support the bullish case for any length of time.

Have a great week.

Ulli…

————————————————————-

READER Q & A FOR THE WEEK

All Reader Q & A’s are listed at our web site!
Check it out at:

http://www.successful-investment.com/q&a.php

A note from reader Ron:

Q: Ulli: Starting to use your model portfolios! Do I assume that those positions you show as holds are still currently buys?

Thanks and have a great day!

A: Ron: The positions shown as “hold” are referring to the sell stops not to the portfolios themselves. Personally, I have been holding back deploying new money due to the recent sell off. I am looking to ease into PRPFX but have no plans, given current momentum numbers, to add any of the ETFs listed.

———————————————————-

WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE YOUR INVESTMENTS PROFESSIONALLY MANAGED?

Do you have the time to follow our investment plans yourself? If you are a busy professional who would like to have his portfolio managed using our methodology, please contact me directly or get more details at:

https://theetfbully.com/personal-investment-management/

———————————————————

Back issues of the ETF/No Load Fund Tracker are available on the web at:

https://theetfbully.com/newsletter-archives/

ETF/No Load Fund Tracker For Friday, June 24, 2011

Ulli ETF Tracker Contact

ETF/No Load Fund Tracker StatSheet

————————————————————-

THE LINK TO OUR CURRENT ETF/MUTUAL FUND STATSHEET IS:

https://theetfbully.com/2011/06/weekly-statsheet-for-the-etfno-load-fund-tracker-updated-through-6232011/

————————————————————

Market Commentary

Friday, June 24, 2011

ETFs HAULING SOUTH

Yesterday’s late rebound, following an early morning sharp selloff, gave the bulls some hope that the bad news out of Greece, as well as economic worries, was a bit overblown.

Today, the opposite happened, as an early morning rally succumbed with the major indexes closing near their lows for the day. It seemed that with so much global uncertainly, traders did not want to hold on to any long positions over the weekend.

That is probably not a bad idea considering that a new elephant of Italian descent suddenly showed up in the room.

Read More

Weekly StatSheet For The ETF/No Load Fund Tracker – Updated Through 6/23/2011

Ulli ETF Tracker Contact

ETF/Mutual Fund Data updated through Thursday, June 23, 2011

If you are not familiar with some of the terminology used, please see the Glossary of Terms.

1. DOMESTIC EQUITY MUTUAL FUNDS/ETFs: BUY— since 6/3/2009

As announced via a blog post, on 6/2/2009, the TTI triggered a buy signal with an effective date of 6/3/2009. We will use the 7% trailing stop loss of our positions as an exit point or the crossing of the trend line to the downside, whichever occurs first.

As of today, our Trend Tracking Index (TTI—green line in above chart) has broken above its long term trend line (red) by +2.52%.

Read More