Today I’d like to wrap up this series on using economic indicators to time the market. In this final post I’ll look at using the unemployment-200day SMA indicator I’ve used in the first 3 parts of the series (link to part 3) but this time apply it to individual stock Read more…
Time for the part 3 of the series on using economic indicators to time the market. In this post I’ll add a simple extension to the models analyzed in Part 2. If you haven’t read the first two posts you won’t understand this one. I’m just extending the model to Read more…
Here is the tactical asset allocation update for June 2016. Below is the snapshot for the AGG3, AGG6, and GTAA13 portfolios. The source data can be found here. The sheet contains the IVY5, GTAA5, and the Permanent Portfolio as well. These signals are valid after every trading day. So, while I’ll maintain these Read more…
In my last post I looked at using the change in trend of the unemployment rate as a market timing indicator. The results were impressive to say the least – almost a doubling of risk adjusted returns over buy and hold. In this post I want to make the analysis Read more…
If you pay attention to the financial market news you may have noticed a lot of attention being focused on the slowing US/Global economy and the implications it has for financial markets. Just do a search on ‘slowing global PMI’ and watch the hours waste away. Basically, the US/Global economy Read more…
Here is the tactical asset allocation update for May 2016. Before I get into the updates for the month I want to share a must read post from Antonacci. In the post he lists some questions he often gets asked about markets and investing. Here they are; Question: How much Read more…
Value, momentum, size, quality, volatility, etc as factors in investing are quite popular. They’ve produced significant outsized returns relative to benchmarks. Now, we even have Smart Beta funds and ETFs popping up all over to make taking advantage of factors super easy. That brings up the critical question every investor Read more…
Factor based investing has become quite popular these days. Factors are characteristics of a group of stocks, the most famous being value and small cap, that are used to sort the overall universe of stocks. For quite some time certain factors have been shown to outperform the overall market over Read more…
Today I wanted to revisit the topic of spending in retirement. Having a retirement spending plan and monitoring that plan is just as important to retirement success as asset allocation or deciding on safe withdrawal rates (SWRs). Yet, it’s not discussed nearly as much as the other retirement topics. And Read more…
Here are the Q1 2016 total return and max drawdown numbers for the various quant strategies I track. For explanations of the various quant strategies see the portfolios page. All equity portfolios consist of 25 stocks and were formed at the end of 2015. No changes in the holdings since that time. Read more…
March was good month for risk assets. Let’s see if it continues in April. Here is the tactical asset allocation update for April 2016. Below are the updates for the AGG3, AGG6, and GTAA13 portfolios. The source data can be found here. These signals are valid after every trading day. So, Read more…