One Man’s Opinion: Will Growth In The Second Half Be Stronger?

Ulli Market Review Contact

92835431The latest jobs report is positive as it shows the economy continues to heal though there is a lot of work that needs to be done, said Alan Krueger, a professor at the Princeton University and former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

There are longstanding problems that even predate the recession that need to be addressed. But the latest data shows the expansion is continuing and may be even gathering a little bit of steam. It’s been a steady recovery, and it looks like it’s going to keep going, he added.

Asked if the recovery will gather steam or simply continue to notch up incremental gains, Alan said the economy needs to build on the progress that it has achieved so far and incremental gains is probably the best thing people can hope for given the nature of the crisis. The economy continues to experience some weaknesses given how much wealth was destroyed and how much overbuilding took place in construction.

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New ETFs On The Block: Powershares Multi-Strategy Alternative Portfolio (LALT)

Ulli Currency ETFs, Equity ETFs Contact

Money Market analysis, calculator, cashInvesco PowerShares, the Illinois-based fourth-largest US provider of exchange-traded funds, has launched a multi-strategy, alternative portfolio in partnership with Morgan Stanley that focuses on enhanced risk-adjusted returns while lowering volatility.

The PowerShares Multi-Strategy Alternative Portfolio (LALT) is likely to find favor with traditional stock/bond investors who wish to better manage volatility as interest rates begin to normalize in the US. The liquid alternatives and the multi-alternative segments are fairly crowded with 125 funds currently on offer (per Morningstar) although there are only four ETFs in the category. Invesco Advisors will sub-advise LALT.

The new fund tracks the Morgan Stanley Multi-Strategy Alternative Index, a proprietary benchmark that combines multiple rules-based, quantitative strategies and has a low correlation to traditional asset classes. However, since LALT is an actively managed fund, it doesn’t aim to fully replicate the index; instead it looks to generate returns in excess of the returns from the index by investing in a combination of equities, financial futures, currency forwards and other securities.

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06-06-2014

Ulli Newsletter Archives Contact

ETF/No Load Fund Tracker Newsletter For June 6, 2014

ETF/No Load Fund Tracker StatSheet

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

https://theetfbully.com/2014/06/weekly-statsheet-for-the-etfno-load-fund-tracker-newsletter-updated-through-06052014/

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Market Commentary

Friday, June 6, 2014

STOCKS RIDE HIGH INTO FIRST WEEK OF SUMMER

Fri pic

[Chart courtesy of MarketWatch.com]

1. Moving The Markets

Stocks ended the week on a high note, a record high note for that matter, with the overall markets gaining more than 1%. Equities have continued to trend upwards over the past couple of weeks, and this week was especially solid as markets were given a lift by decent global economic readings that suggest a continued improvement in the economy, monetary stimulus from the European Central Bank (ECB) to counter low inflation, and a positive U.S. jobs report.

Friday’s closely watched monthly payrolls report helped close out the week on a strong note. The Labor Department announced that employers had added 217,000 jobs in May, a healthy gain. Total U.S. payrolls have now surpassed the previous high reached in early 2008, prior to the financial crisis.

In the tech world, a big piece of M&A news came in today. Sprint (S) and T-Mobile (TMUS) have agreed to a merger that entails Sprint paying approximately $40/share, which implies a valuation of $32bil for T-mobile. With Sprint and T-mobile being the lower cost competitors in the market, it should be interesting to see how the merger will impact consumers. If the deal goes through and is approved by regulators, the Sprint-T-Mobile entity would have a share of about 30% of the U.S. wireless market.

Our 10 ETFs in the Spotlight joined the bulls and headed north; 8 of them made new highs today while all of them are now on the plus side YTD with the laggard, XLY, finally showing a green number.

2. ETFs in the Spotlight

In case you missed the announcement and description of this section, you can read it here again.

It features 10 broadly diversified ETFs from my HighVolume list as posted every Monday. Furthermore, they are screened for the lowest MaxDD% number meaning they have been showing better resistance to temporary sell offs than all others over the past year.

In other words, none of them ever triggered their 7.5% sell stop level during this time period, which included a variety of severe market pullbacks but no move into outright bear market territory.

Here are the 10 candidates:

MaxDD

All of them are in “buy” mode, meaning their prices are above their respective long term trend lines by the percentage indicated (%M/A).

Year to date, here’s how the above candidates have fared so far:

YTD

To be clear, the first table above shows the position of the various ETFs in relation to their respective long term trend lines (%M/A), while the second one tracks their trailing sell stops in the “Off High” column. The “Action” column will signal a “Sell” once the -7.5% point is taken out in the “Off High” column.

3. Domestic Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs)

Our Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs) both headed higher and deeper into bullish territory:

Domestic TTI: +3.55% (last Friday +3.15%)

International TTI: +4.85% (last Friday +4.21%)

Have a great weekend.

Ulli…

Disclosure: I am obliged to inform you that I, as well as advisory clients of mine, own some of these listed ETFs. Furthermore, they do not represent a specific investment recommendation for you, they merely show which ETFs from the universe I track are falling within the guidelines specified.

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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 Jason:

Q: Ulli: Could you please clarify the difference between your M-Index and the momentum numbers as posted in your Monday Cutline reports? I find this information very valuable.

A: Jason: The M-Index is the ranking based on all momentum numbers and shows how funds/ETFs rank comparatively. The Cutline position numbers are simply showing the positions a fund/ETF has relative to its cutline or trend line.

For example, the first one above the yellow cutline has the position +1, the next one above it +2 and so on. The same applies below the cutline. As time goes on, you can quickly determine which funds are bouncing around the cutline and which ones are developing upside momentum by steadily climbing higher and developing positive momentum numbers.

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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 June 6, 2014

Ulli ETF Tracker Contact

ETF/No Load Fund Tracker StatSheet

————————————————————-

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

https://theetfbully.com/2014/06/weekly-statsheet-for-the-etfno-load-fund-tracker-newsletter-updated-through-06052014/

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Market Commentary

Friday, June 6, 2014

STOCKS RIDE HIGH INTO FIRST WEEK OF SUMMER

Fri pic

[Chart courtesy of MarketWatch.com]

1. Moving The Markets

Stocks ended the week on a high note, a record high note for that matter, with the overall markets gaining more than 1%. Equities have continued to trend upwards over the past couple of weeks, and this week was especially solid as markets were given a lift by decent global economic readings that suggest a continued improvement in the economy, monetary stimulus from the European Central Bank (ECB) to counter low inflation, and a positive U.S. jobs report.

Friday’s closely watched monthly payrolls report helped close out the week on a strong note. The Labor Department announced that employers had added 217,000 jobs in May, a healthy gain. Total U.S. payrolls have now surpassed the previous high reached in early 2008, prior to the financial crisis.

In the tech world, a big piece of M&A news came in today. Sprint (S) and T-Mobile (TMUS) have agreed to a merger that entails Sprint paying approximately $40/share, which implies a valuation of $32bil for T-mobile. With Sprint and T-mobile being the lower cost competitors in the market, it should be interesting to see how the merger will impact consumers. If the deal goes through and is approved by regulators, the Sprint-T-Mobile entity would have a share of about 30% of the U.S. wireless market.

Our 10 ETFs in the Spotlight joined the bulls and headed north; 8 of them made new highs today while all of them are now on the plus side YTD with the laggard, XLY, finally showing a green number.

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Weekly StatSheet For The ETF/No Load Fund Tracker Newsletter – Updated Through 06/05/2014

Ulli ETF StatSheet Contact

ETF/Mutual Fund Data updated through Thursday, June 5, 2014

Table of Content082312

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 10/25/2011

TTI

Our main directional indicator, the Domestic Trend Tracking Index (TTI), broke through its long-term trend line generating a Sell for this area effective 8/9/2011. Over the recent past, we’ve seen the TTI hovering slightly below and above this dividing line between bullish and bearish territory. The clear break to the upside occurred on 10/24/11 and, effective 10/25/11, a new Buy signal for domestic equities went into effect.

As of today, our TTI (green line in above chart) is positioned above its long term trend line (red) by +3.57%.

To avoid a potential whip-saw, a Sell signal to move out of all domestic equity positions will be generated once we have clearly pierced the red line to the downside. Be sure to tune in for the latest updates.

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ECB Cuts Rates To -0.10%; Amazon Has Something Stirring

Ulli Market Commentary Contact

Thur pic

[Chart courtesy of MarketWatch.com]

1. Moving The Markets

Up, up and away the markets continued to climb today reaching record higher ground. The S&P 500 gained 0.63% with the Dow not far behind posting 0.59% gains, but, of course, the Nasdaq stole the show gaining 1.04% on the day. The day’s gains were broad, with all ten S&P 500 sectors ending higher, led by the industrials sector.

Over the past three weeks, I have noted off and on that investors are anticipating that the European Central Bank will cut interest rates. Well, today it finally happened. The ECB dropped rates to record lows (-0.10%) in an effort to fight the risk of deflation of the Euro currency. The ECB also launched a series of monetary expansion type measures to pump money into the sluggish euro zone economy. This was not full-fledged quantitative easing, although President Mario Draghi said they will take more action if necessary.

In the tech world, Amazon.com (AMZN) saw a sharp jump in its stock today of 5.5% after it released a mysterious Youtube and website mini teaser about a potential upcoming “launch event” in Seattle that will be hosted by the CEO Jeff Bezos. There have been rumors speculating what the new product will be, most hinting at a smart phone. If that is the case, it will be Amazon’s first endeavor into the smart phone competitive landscape.

Our 10 ETFs in the Spotlight jumped with the indexes; 9 of them made new highs today and remain on the plus side YTD.

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