ETF Leaders And Laggards – For The Week Ending 7/29/2011

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:

As the markets got clobbered last week, the flight to safety was an obvious choice for those who buy and hold and/or have no exit strategy.

Consequently, in the ‘Leader’ section, the Swiss Franc (FXF) ruled, followed by long-term Treasuries (TLT) and Gold (GLD), which has proven to be a good defensive holding against global uncertainty for quite some time.

On the losing side of the equation, gold miners suffered steep losses along with SmallCap equity ETFs

Overall, the domestic equity markets are reaching a critical point. Here are some of the major indexes and their positions relative to their long-term trend lines, which I recalculated after Friday’s close:

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07-29-2011

Ulli Newsletter Archives Contact

ETF/No Load Fund Tracker StatSheet

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

https://theetfbully.com/2011/07/weekly-statsheet-for-the-etfno-load-fund-tracker-updated-through-7282011/

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Market Commentary

Friday, July 29, 2011

HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?

The major market ETFs took it on the chin this week, as continued indecision and confusion about the debt ceiling debacle put traders in a selling mood.

It was straight downhill for five days in a row, which brings up the question as to where support might kick in to stop the bleeding. As far as the S&P 500 is concerned, we have broken through the 50-day moving average by -1.47% and are honing in on the index’s 200-day moving average, which stands at 1,281. Actually, we came close to that level today, and it acted as springboard.

Whether this number will hold is wide open and will depend on further economic news along with a solution to the debt ceiling issue. Obviously, this has been the most talked about topic, and questions abound as to what will happen if the government actually defaults.

While there are more questions than answers, you might want to review one man’s opinion in Not Raising the Debt Ceiling Would be a Blessing, by Mish of Global Economic Trends.

Today’s dismal close came on the heels of the latest economic uppercut, as it was reported that the U.S. economy barely grew and past GDP estimates were severely reduced.

As a reader of this blog, that announcement should not have come as a surprise, as I have been harping on the fact for almost 2 years that there was no economic recovery; it was all a stimulus induced mirage. In the end, nothing was accomplished other than that we owe a few trillion dollars more, but who is counting…

For the week, the S&P 500 gave back 3.9%, while the Dow dropped 4.2% and Nasdaq surrendered 3.58%. For the month, the S&P lost 2.2%.

I have been talking about these times of uncertainty for a couple of year now, and how portfolio adjustments, along with a disciplined exit strategy, are necessary for survival. For example, I have been a loud proponent of investing in the Permanent Portfolio fund (PRPFX) as a core holding, which has turned out to be the right decision so far.

For the past week, PRPFX lost a modest 0.5% while, for the month, it actually gained 2.88%, giving us the portfolio stability I was looking for. That is a big difference to the S&P’s 2.2% loss.

Our Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs) continue to offer a mixed picture, as the domestic TTI remains in bullish territory, while its international cousin has sunk a little further below its trend line into the bearish camp. Here are today’s closing numbers:

Domestic TTI: +3.04% (last week +4.70%)
International TTI: -1.17% (last week +0.91%)

Next week, more earnings and economic reports will take a back seat to the continued debt ceiling circus. Any resolution is bound to cause a euphoric reaction on Wall Street. On the other hand, if negative sentiment prevails and a solution is not found, we may very well test and break through the psychologically important 200-day moving average on the S&P 500.

My suggestion is the same as always: Be prepared for either scenario, watch your sell stops and execute them when necessary.

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 Al:

Q: Ulli: I hope all goes well for you, and I continue to enjoy your newsletter and good perspective and advice.

You may have already seen the latest assessment of the debt/credit mess in Europe, and by necessity…the US; I hope it doesn’t spoil your lunch.

I hope to be a bit wiser with fund allocation, should things go from bad to worse…or worser?

A: Al: There is no reason to worry about things you can’t control. Just make sure you have an exit strategy in place, and your investing life will be much easier.

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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 For Friday, July 29, 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/2011/07/weekly-statsheet-for-the-etfno-load-fund-tracker-updated-through-7282011/

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Market Commentary

Friday, July 29, 2011

HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?

The major market ETFs took it on the chin this week, as continued indecision and confusion about the debt ceiling debacle put traders in a selling mood.

It was straight downhill for five days in a row, which brings up the question as to where support might kick in to stop the bleeding. As far as the S&P 500 is concerned, we have broken through the 50-day moving average by -1.47% and are honing in on the index’s 200-day moving average, which stands at 1,281. Actually, we came close to that level today, and it acted as springboard.

Whether this number will hold is wide open and will depend on further economic news along with a solution to the debt ceiling issue. Obviously, this has been the most talked about topic, and questions abound as to what will happen if the government actually defaults.

Read More

Weekly StatSheet For The ETF/No Load Fund Tracker – Updated Through 7/28/2011

Ulli ETF StatSheet Contact

ETF/Mutual Fund Data updated through Thursday, July 28, 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 +3.03%.

The link below shows the top 100 domestic funds (out of 674) and the sorting order is by M-Index ranking. Prices in all linked tables are updated through 7/28/2011, unless otherwise noted. Price data not yet available at publication is indicated with 00.00% or -100.00%.

During this Buy signal, you can use the tables in the links below to make your selections:

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Market Commentary – High Volume ETFs On The Cutline – Updated Through 7/27/2011

Ulli ETFs on the Cutline Contact

Continued uncertainty from the lack of progress in the debt ceiling talks pressured the markets, and the major indexes lost for the 3rd day in a row.

Not helping were a worse than expected durable goods orders report indicating that an economic slowdown may be indeed a possibility. That’s no surprise to me as I have been elaborating for some time on the theme that a stimulus induced ‘recovery’ simply does not have legs.

Yesterday’s drop did some technical damage in that the S&P 500 broke again below its 50-day moving average by -0.50%, but remains above its more important long-term 200-day average by +1.85%.

As I mentioned last Friday, our international Trend Tracking Index (TTI) had been doing the trend line dance by moving above and below it without clear direction. As of yesterday, the international TTI again closed below its trend line by -0.97%, which is in tune with our current position of not being invested in that market.

The expanded High Volume ETF Cutline report now includes all ETFs above and below the cutline (trend line). To clarify, High Volume (HV) ETFs are defined as those with an average daily volume of $10 million or higher.

These ETFs are generated from my selected list of some 90 that I use in my advisor practice. It cuts out the “noise,” which simply means it eliminates those ETFs that I would never buy because of their volume limitations.

Currently, there are 54 ETFs hovering above this dividing line between bullish and bearish territory (shown in yellow), while 34 of them are positioned below it.

Go ahead and review this expanded ETF table:

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6 ETF Model Portfolios You Can Use – Updated through 7/26/2011

Ulli Model ETF Portfolios, Uncategorized Contact

Worries about the debt ceiling battle in Washington kept the market subdued over the past 5 trading days, despite breakout attempts to the upside, which were supported by decent earnings reports. However, lack of follow through kept a glass ceiling on further advances.

The S&P 500 is up 5 points since last Wednesday’s ETF Portfolio report.

Our ETF Model Portfolios headed higher again but to varying degrees. Leading the pack on a YTD basis is the #1 Trend Tracking Portfolio with a gain of +7.04%, followed by the Aggressive Portfolio #3, which sports +6.90%.

Here are the changes for the past week:

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