ETF Strategy Research and Strategy Blog: Rotation Strategies

Easy Investing in a multi-strategy Markowitz optimized Portfolio

Design and Execute your Custom Markowitz optimized ETF Portfolio

In our recent post we´ve shared some powerful options to design a well-balanced portfolio of several Logical Invest strategies to achieve a preset portfolio objective using Modern portfolio theory (MPT) techniques developed by Nobel Prize laureate Harry Markowitz. Here, we review the steps to achieving an optimized portfolio with our tools and summarize some portfolio options to illustrate use of our updated tool set: (picture for mobile use) These options might serve as a starting point to design your … Read more

The Logical-Invest monthly newsletter for September 2016

Special topic this month: Passive Investments Logical Invest Investment Outlook September 2016 Our top year-to-date strategies: The Leveraged Universal strategy with 39.09% return. The Maximum Yield strategy with 34.04% return. The World Top 4 with 20.51% return. SPY, the S&P500 ETF, returned 7.73%, year-to-date. New tools: The Online Custom Portfolio Builder The Consolidated Signals tool. Market comment: The summer market showed strength compared to its seasonal bias. The old saying “Sell in May and go away” did not hold up this year as SPY … Read more

The Logical-Invest monthly newsletter for October 2016

Special topic: Passive Investment Logical Invest Investment Outlook October 2016 Our top year-to-date strategies: The Leveraged Universal strategy with 36.47% return. The Maximum Yield strategy with 36.37% return. The World Top 4 with 19.82% return. SPY, the S&P500 ETF, returned 7.74%, year-to-date. News: Introducing Richard´s Corner, a new Logical Invest User Community, moderated by Richard Manley. Richard is a long time user and critical commenter of our services. Subjects range from making the best of your 401K , using Fidelity or Vanguard funds to using … Read more

QuantTrader – The Swiss army tool now also for individual investors

Dear Subscribers, We are happy to announce that the full QuantTrader version is now available to individual investors for $150 a month or $1500 per year. We will cross-subsidize a bit with the high interest we´ve received from institutional investors like RIA and hedge-fund managers so far. Fair play requires that subscribers who manage their own or other people’s assets above $1m subscribe to the institutional offering. QuantTrader is a fine piece of art mixed with a … Read more

The Logical-Invest monthly newsletter for November 2016

Special Topic: IRA Investments using QuantTrader, our Backtest Software Logical Invest Investment Outlook November 2016 Our top year-to-date strategies: The Maximum Yield strategy with 32.61% return. The Leveraged Universal strategy with 21.42% return. The World Top 4 with 17.66% return. SPY, the S&P500 ETF, returned 5.87%, year-to-date. Market comment: Recent surveys show that fund managers have increased cash positions1 while outflows from equity funds are at historically high levels2. From a contrarian point of view this could be considered market positive. There … Read more

The Logical-Invest monthly newsletter for December 2016

Special Topic: IRA investment using QuantTrader Logical Invest Investment Outlook December 2016 Our top year-to-date strategies: The Maximum Yield strategy with 30.27% return. The Leveraged Universal strategy with 17.73% return. The NASDAQ 100 strategy with 15.19% return. SPY, the S&P500 ETF, returned 9.77%, year-to-date. NEWS: Enhancement of the Treasury hedge in our strategies (link). Market comment: Presidents change, markets change and so do we. As our subscribers know well, Treasuries have been a cornerstone of our strategies. For the last few months many investors … Read more

Enhancement of the Treasury hedge in our strategies

For many years, most of our strategies used long term Treasuries (TLT, TMF) as a hedge against market corrections. These Treasuries have been a safe haven asset with negative correlation to the stock market and have been used successfully to reduce the risk/volatility of our strategies. With rising rates and inflation, long term treasuries lose a part of their value as a safe haven asset. Their hedging value depends mainly on the speed interest rates … Read more

Logical-Invest monthly update January 2017 – Topic 401k Investments

Special topic this month: 401k Investments Logical Invest Investment Outlook January 2017 Our top 2016 strategies: The Maximum Yield strategy with 29.92% return. The Leveraged Universal strategy with 22.33% return. The NASDAQ 100 strategy with 21.54% return. SPY, the S&P500 ETF, returned 12.00%. Market comment: To put 2016 in perspective, we must go back to 2015 and remind ourselves how the rising dollar environment affected diversified investors. Most asset classes suffered through 2015. The S&P 500 stayed flat, long term Treasuries lost 2%, gold lost … Read more

Portfolio Builder Update January 2017

My Portfolio Builder Analyzer harry markowitz modern portfolio theory mpt

Happy new year –and let´s start it set-up for success with some Markowitz Modern Portfolio Theory! As previously announced, we´re updating our Portfolio Builder Optimization periodically, both in the Online and Offline Version. Updated Portfolio Builder Optimization for 2017 employing Markowitz Modern Portfolio Theory Why that? Recall the Portfolio Builder is using a Markowitz Modern Portfolio Theory approach, that is, we´re using past returns, volatilities and co-variances to determine an optimum fixed-weight allocation among our different … Read more

One Approach to Rational Retirement Plan Investment Allocations

Fidelity freedom funds target date funds ffffdx 2020 retirement

We analyse one of the Fidelity Freedom Target Date Funds (FFFDX) versus a portfolio of ETF rotation strategies – The findings will surprise you! This is a guest post by Richard Manley Defined contribution retirement plan using target date funds There’s no shortage of challenges facing working people in these days. In addition to job outsourcing and the offshoring whole operations, inflation/deflation and zero interest rates on savings, most workers who have a retirement plan … Read more