ETF Strategy Research and Strategy Blog: Rotation Strategies

How to create a hedge strategy in times of market troubles

In this article I would like to explain how to create a hedge strategy for an equity position, so that draw-downs, like the current one (December 2018), are minimized. During this 10-year bull market, many investors have forgotten that investing only in equities can be quite risky. It has been simple to buy the SPY S&P 500 ETF and profit from rising valuations. This year-end 20% correction makes many investors reconsider safe haven assets like … Read more

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

The Logical-Invest newsletter for January 2019

Must reads: Frank Grossmann’s article “How to Hedge in Times of Market Trouble” (Seeking Alpha, LI Blog) 2019 strategy updates (LI Blog) Protecting your money After almost 10 years of a continuous bull market and 2 years of exceptional growth (2016-2017), 2018 was the first year that the SP500 turned negative. Apart from the dollar index, most asset classes also fell. To make things worse, the S&P500 dropped -20% from the September highs during what is … Read more

Strategies For Trading Inverse Volatility

trading investing in inverse volatility ziv vix ziv vxx futures

Update: You can see the most recent performance our our inverse volatility strategy here. Consult vixcentral for the daily VIC term curve. In this paper, I present five different strategies you can use to trade inverse volatility. Why trade inverse volatility you ask? Because since 2011, trading inverse volatility was probably the most rewarding investment an investor could make in the markets. Annual returns of between 40% – 100% have been possible which crushes any other … Read more

New Maximum Yield Rotation Strategy backtest charts

MYRSchartmarketrotationstrategyMaximumYieldRotationStrategyMDY

Here are two backtests charts of the new MYRS strategy with adaptive allocation, now also suitable for your retirement account. The annual return of the old and the new strategy is more or less the same. During low volatility markets, the return of the new strategy is probably slightly lower, however during difficult volatile years like 2014, the return of the new strategy is significantly higher and the drawdowns and the risk is reduced nearly by a … Read more

A new enhanced Global Market Rotation Strategy with adaptive ETF investment allocation

Update: See the current performance of this ETF investment strategy here. A new enhanced Global Market Rotation Strategy with adaptive ETF investment allocation The GMR strategy performed well during the last 10 years. Especially during years with a strong trend in one of the 5 world markets, this strategy was able to switch early to the best ETF and stay invested until another market ETF took the lead. A known problem for such monthly rotation strategies … Read more

401k investment: Sleep Well Bond Rotation Strategy – Annual performance of 15%

chart.pngtable.pngadaptiveAGGBondBondRotationStrategyBondstrategyCWBEDVEEMEPP

You can employ this strategy perfectly in your 401k investment, because it outperforms the stock market by more than double and this with one third of the volatility or risk. This means that since 2008, the return to risk ratio is about six times higher than an investment in the SPY ETF which tracks the S&P 500. Even this year, when many investors are selling bonds due to increasing yields through FED tapering, the bond rotation strategy … Read more

Invest in VIX volatility using ZIV

fdbaedca.pngVIXVIXFuturesVIXIndexVolatilityVXXVXZXIVZIV

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

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

Risk Management using Timed Hedging – Avoid DrawDowns

ebfaeadde.pngTMVVIXVIXFuturesVIXIndexVolatilityVXXVXZXIVZIV

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