ETF Leaders And Laggards – For The Week Ending 8/5/2011

Ulli ETF Leaders & Laggards Contact

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

Some of last week’s contenders remained in the top spots, as a flight to safety continued to be the name of the game during the market drubbing of the past 5 trading days.

We have now knifed through major support levels, and it is wide open as to which market direction offers the path of least resistance. Should more negative news regarding debt issues and concerns come out of Europe, this current bull will die a fast death by slicing through the trend line of the domestic TTI, which means, just like in the international arena, we will have re-entered bear market territory.

Be sure to tune into tomorrow’s post, when I will discuss my hedging strategy for the PRPFX fund, should the bearish scenario turn out to be the dominant one.

Disclosure: Holdings in GLD, TLT, FXF

08-05-2011

Ulli Newsletter Archives Contact

ETF/No Load Fund Tracker For Friday, August 5, 2011

ETF/No Load Fund Tracker StatSheet

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

https://theetfbully.com/2011/08/weekly-statsheet-for-the-etfno-load-fund-tracker-updated-through-842011/

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Market Commentary

Friday, August 5, 2011

SELL-OFF TSUNAMI

Volatility continued today as the Dow see-sawed from a plus 171 points to a minus 245 points, but ended up settling at +61.

The other major market ETFs followed a similar pattern and, after it was all said and done, the most widely tracked barometer, the S&P 500, had lost -7.2% for the week and is now down -4.6% YTD. For comparison, our core holding, PRPFX, gave back a more modest -2.48% but is up +5.61% YTD.

There was virtually no place to hide as the Dow had its worst week since March 2009, and many investors are certainly glad that these past 5 trading days are over.

The jobs report was better than feared, which helped the markets in the early going. However, it was certainly not a stunner, quite the contrary, and not strong enough to overcome general uneasiness about the state of the economy and the European crisis.

Our Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs) moved lower and remain in the following positions relative to their respective long-term trend lines:

Domestic TTI: -0.06% (last week +3.04%)
International TTI: -8.20% (last week -1.17%)

As you can see, the international TTI has really accelerated into bear market territory since last Friday, while its domestic cousin just slightly dipped into it by a meager -0.06% after the close today. This drop below the line is not enough to declare the current bull market in domestic equities from being over. I like to see a clear piercing to the downside before declaring this bull dead.

Next week, more economic data are on the menu, which might give some guidance as to the worsening or improving of the current economic status. I will watch the domestic TTI closely and will post any important developments to the blog.

I sure hope that you heeded my constant reminders to execute your trailing sell stops when they get triggered. These are the times you need to be disciplined, especially when world markets are panicking. Hence my constant reminder for you to always prepare your exit strategy ahead of time, during calmness in the market, so you don’t stress when the heat is on.

Have a great week.

Ulli…

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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 Dick:

Q: Ulli: Thanks for posting your ETF approach to PRPFX. Have you ever considered the following?

PRPFX is a modified version of Harry Browne’s “Permanent Portfolio.”

People who follow Harry’s approach hang out at:

http://www.gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/index.php

They advocate 4 ETF’s, 25% each:

IAU, VTI, TLT, SHY or a Treasury $ MKT account

Rather than a stop loss, they use a rebalancing approach based on a band (usually + or – 10%, to take from one that’s grown and add to rebalance with one that’s down.)

If you have thought of Harry’s original approach, I would appreciate any comments you might have.
A: Dick: Yes, I read Harry’s book some time ago and agree with the composition he proposes. I don’t agree that PRPFX can always be held. Sometimes you just have to get out of it, or hedge it; a good example would have been 2008. I will talk about the hedging part in a post this coming Sunday.

I have tried the 4 ETF combinations, and they have not worked very well, which is why I came up with my own version. Sometimes the copy is better than the original, at least for this moment in time.

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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/

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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 Newsletter For Friday, August 5, 2011

Ulli ETF Tracker Contact

ETF/No Load Fund Tracker StatSheet

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

https://theetfbully.com/2011/08/weekly-statsheet-for-the-etfno-load-fund-tracker-updated-through-842011/

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Market Commentary

Friday, August 5, 2011

SELL-OFF TSUNAMI

Volatility continued today as the Dow see-sawed from a plus 171 points to a minus 245 points, but ended up settling at +61.

The other major market ETFs followed a similar pattern and, after it was all said and done, the most widely tracked barometer, the S&P 500, had lost -7.2% for the week and is now down -4.6% YTD. For comparison, our core holding, PRPFX, gave back a more modest -2.48% but is up +5.61% YTD.

There was virtually no place to hide as the Dow had its worst week since March 2009, and many investors are certainly glad that these past 5 trading days are over.

The jobs report was better than feared, which helped the markets in the early going. However, it was certainly not a stunner, quite the contrary, and not strong enough to overcome general uneasiness about the state of the economy and the European crisis.

Our Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs) moved lower and remain in the following positions relative to their respective long-term trend lines:

Read More

Weekly StatSheet For The ETF/No Load Fund Tracker – Updated Through 8/4/2011

Ulli ETF StatSheet Contact

ETF/Mutual Fund Data updated through Thursday, August 4, 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 +0.57%.

Read More

Weekly StatSheet Publication Delayed

Ulli Market Commentary Contact

Due to my data provider’s inability to have mutual fund closing prices available by 6 pm PST, I will delay the post and publish the StatSheet tomorrow morning. With the severe market selloff today, I’d rather wait, but have today’s prices included in the report.

Look for it to be published by around 10:30 am PST on Friday.

Equity ETFs Get Spanked – Domestic Trend Tracking Index (TTI) Remains Above Its Trend Line

Ulli Market Commentary Contact

If you were still fully invested in equity ETFs this morning, after the markets opened, this was indeed a very long day for you.

The indexes slipped right out of the starting blocks and never looked back, as relentless selling pushed the major market ETFs to their worst one-day loss since December 2008.

Worries persisted that the U.S. economy will slide back into a recession which, to my way of thinking, is pretty much a sure thing. Concerns that the Fed will not engage in Quantitative Easing to boost the economy again, helped the bearish cause. Adding more uncertainty was the worsening European debt crisis, which seems to spread despite the various rescue attempts.

All this added up to a perfect storm for the bearish crowd.

While the markets have now entered officially correction mode (more than 10% off the top made on April 29, 2011), our Domestic TTI (Trend Tracking Index), has remained above its trend line, but barely.

Here are today’s numbers:

Read More