6 ETF Model Portfolios You Can Use – Updated through 6/7/2011

Ulli Model ETF Portfolios Contact

The markets sold off sharply since last week’s portfolio update and, as a result, our trailing sell stop for VB was triggered Monday, and the position was liquidated yesterday. Portfolios #1 and #4 were affected by this sale.

There was a shift in YTD performance as the aggressive portfolio (#3) edged out #5 for the top spot. More importantly is the comparison of all portfolios to the benchmark index S&P 500, which took a beating and is now only up by +2.17% for the year, as opposed to the #3 portfolio, which still sports a gain of +5.48%.

This clearly demonstrates that diversification is important as it has added an element of stability during this market selloff.

To be clear, the idea is not to be invested in the top performer but a portfolio that represents ‘your’ personal risk tolerance – and not someone else’s.

Take a look at this week’s numbers:

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Major Market ETFs Plunge During Last Hour

Ulli Market Commentary Contact

The markets did their best cliff dive imitation during the last hour of trading and surrendered all gains of what appeared to be a nice rebound.

Causing the sudden change in sentiment were comments from Fed chairman Bernanke, during which he saw the recovery as uneven and also warned against a “sudden fiscal contraction” if spending would not be brought under control.

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Mutual Funds On The Cutline – Updated as of 6/6/2011

Ulli Mutual Funds On The Cutline Contact

With the sell off continuing, the cutline suddenly became very crowded by equity mutual funds, which dropped in from a level above the highest +20 reading.

As a regular reader, you know that lately most of the funds, hovering slightly above and below their long-term trend line, were bond funds. That’s changed dramatically this week, as further market weakness pulled equities off their lofty levels.

From last week’s report, only Scudder International (SUIAX) remained on the list, but it retreated from +19 to its current -8 position.

The momentum numbers worsened considerably, including the all important DrawDown figures in the DD% column. If this pullback turns out to be temporary in nature, which is far from being certain, any moves back above the cutline will offer new potential buying opportunities, provided most negative numbers turn into positive ones.

However, right all major indexes are slipping, so be sure to look at the latest update for our Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs), at the end of this week’s cutline report:

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The Biggest Losing ETF Has Finally Made A Bottom

Ulli ETF News Contact

On several occasions, I have posted about the United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG) as having been the biggest losing ETF of the past few years.

It recently broke its long-term trend line to the upside by +3.48%, while its momentum numbers have improved and are showing the following results:

4-wk: +8.45%

8-wk: +12.76%

12-wk: +14.71%

YTD: -0.42%

Performance for current Buy cycle from 6/3/09: -58.29%

DD% (DrawDown): -62.44%

The 5-year chart above, courtesy of YahooFinance, confirms the turnaround. Is this finally the time to buy UNG?

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ETFs On The Cutline – Updated through 6/3/2011

Ulli ETFs on the Cutline Contact

With the market bulls getting the sledgehammer treatment last week, there obviously was more weakness than strength in the most current ETF Cutline report.

As I mentioned before, when domestic markets succumb to bearish forces, at times selected county ETFs buck the trend and move higher, or at least hold their ground. That was the case last week as the Hong Kong index (EWH) rallied from a +11 position above the trend line to +16, while Emerging Latin America (GML) stayed pretty firm by slipping only from +13 to +10.

Dropping in from a level above +20 was the S&P China index (GXC), which settled at +15.

Weakness was apparent with ILF (Latin America), which sank from +7 to -12. A lesser drop happened to EEB (Diversified Emerging Markets), which slipped from -7 to -13.

Again, it’s important for me to point out that, as I posted in “How do I use the ETF Cutline Table to make a Buy decision,” just because an ETF rallies above its trend line, does not mean it’s a buy. If you missed it, take a look at the link for details on what to look for before making a decision.

Here’s this week’s report:

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Last Week’s Lessons: ETF News And Blog Posts

Ulli ETF News Contact

In case you missed it, here’s a summary of the topics that I posted to my blog during week ending on 6/3/2011.

The markets took a beating with the major indexes ending up closing the week at their lows, which could signal more weakness ahead.

My published Cutline tables and Model ETF Portfolios can give you an assist by indentifying weakness and strength in various market segments so that you can make better investment decisions by avoiding exposure in those areas that are trending down.

This week, we covered the following:

“ETFs Are Moving Into The 401k Arena”

“ETF Leaders And Laggards – For The Week Ending 6/3/2011”

“Reader Q & A: Which ETF Model Portfolio Is Right For Me?”

“ETF/No Load Fund Tracker For Friday, June 3, 2011”

“Weekly StatSheet For The ETF/No Load Fund Tracker – Updated Through 6/2/2011”

“High Volume ETFs On The Cutline – Updated Through 6/1/2011”

“6 ETF Model Portfolios You Can Use – Updated through 5/31/2011”

“Mutual Funds On The Cutline – Updated as of 5/27/2011”

“New Russell 2000 High Beta ETF (SHBT) Started Trading”

“ETFs On The Cutline – Updated through 5/27/2011”