Blog

Portfolio Builder: How to create a Portfolio of Portfolios

We’ve received a couple of request in the last weeks whether it is possible to create a “Portfolio of Portfolios” in our Portfolio Builder. For example, to create a portfolio holding several of our Core Portfolios plus a custom portfolio in a fixed-weight or custom blend. Or to combine a one of the portfolios in the Portfolio Library with a single strategy or ETF. Cases for this include: You like two of our preset portfolios … Read more

Invest in VIX volatility using ZIV

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Update January 2017: The recent performance of investing in volatility can be seen here. You are probably wondering how we could achieve yearly performances of more than 50% with some of our rotation strategies. The reason is that the Maximum Yield Rotation Strategy and the Global Market Rotation Enhanced Strategy are investing in inverse volatility. Invest in inverse Volatility So, here are now some facts to show you why I like inverse volatility so much. … Read more

A Global Market Rotation Strategy with an annual performance of 41.4% since 2003

GMRSchart BRSchart adaptive AGG Bond Bond Rotation Strategy Bond strategy CWB EDV EEM EPP

The following ETF strategy is one of my favorite rotation strategies, which many of my friends, customers and I use now for some years. The Global Market ETF Rotation Strategy (GMR) The GMR Strategy switches between 6 different ETF on a monthly basis. The back tested return of this strategy since 2003 is quite impressive. Annual performance (CAGR) = 41.4% (S&P500=8.4%) Total performance since 2003 = 3740% (S&P500=134%) 69% of trades have positive return versus … Read more

Harvesting Contango: How To Build An ETF Rotation Strategy With More Than 50% Annualized Returns

BlogotationstrategyMaximumYieldRotationStrategyMDY

In this paper I want to explain the readers how the Maximum Yield Rotation Strategy of www.logical-invest.com is built. This strategy harvests the so called Contango. Harvesting Contango by investing in inverse volatility This Strategy harvests contango and achieves very high returns investing in inverse volatility. From 2011 to today the annual performance was more than 70% per year. Year to date the performance is 40.9%. The Sharpe Ratio (Return/Risk) of 2.12 is a “DREAM VALUE” … Read more

Volatility Premium – Why we invest in ZIV and not in XIV

BlogETFrotationstrategyFEZGlobalMarketRotationEnhanced

Several times I have been asked why we invest in ZIV (inverse mid-term volatility) and not in XIV (inverse front month volatility) in our Maximum Yield Rotation Strategy and in the “Global Market Rotation Enhanced Strategy” to harvest the volatility premium. Harvest Volatility Premium smartly After all, front month VIX Future contango is about 2-3x bigger then medium term contango. At the moment XIV profits from nearly 9% monthly VIX Futures contango. ZIV profits from about 3% … Read more

Risk Management using Timed Hedging – Avoid DrawDowns

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As you perhaps know I have invested all my money in my own strategies, and I and my family (the best wife of all and 4 nice children) are living from the return of these investments. So, I just cannot afford to lose much money in market corrections. Therefore I always try to improve the strategies to lower the risk of major losses through hedging. Timed Hedging The new “Timed hedging” is a major improvement … Read more

What is a hedge and why does it makes sense to do it?

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A hedge is always an investment which is negatively correlated to the main investment. When the main investment goes down, the hedge should go up and if the main investment goes up, then the hedge normally goes down. It is clear, that we like the first, which is to reduce the draw downs with a hedge, but not to reduce the gains. If you have a stock portfolio, then the main hedge possibilities are: A … Read more

Market DrawDown: TMV ETF hedging and timing

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The TMV ETF should stay in place for quite some long time, and it´s a great investment to harvest time decay and avoid drawdown. The big tapering drawdowns of 2013 are past history. You don’t need to look daily at the TMV short hedge. Just keep it. The ETF TMV is a loser and if you stay short it will be a long term winner. It should return about 10-15% per year. How to minimize … Read more

Hedging Portfolio: Comparison of TMV, TMF or EDV

BlogBlogETFrotationstrategyFEZGlobalMarketRotationEnhanced

TMF is by far not so good as TMV short for hedging portfolio. Here is the 12 month comparison. While all treasuries had quite big losses of about -7%, a shortTMV position was flat over the year. I think for IRA accounts the better and saver way of hedging would be a part of the investment in the Bond rotation. This one should make 10-15% per year and is also good for hedging portfolio. Hedging … Read more

Short Volatility: A short analysis of the actual ZIV performance after the July 2014 stock market selloff

BlogBlogSHYTLHTLTTMVVIXVIXFuturesVIXIndexVolatility

This monthly premium of being short volatility is the only thing which makes the ZIV price go up. Unfortunately there is a second quite strong influence on the ZIV price. This is the market volatility (VIX). In the chart below you see the green VIX chart. Every spike corresponds to a fear spike of the investors. During such spikes we also have smaller market corrections. During these market corrections ZIV is going down, because the … Read more