Rotation

Logical Invest Investment Outlook August 2017 Our top 2017 investment strategies, year-to-date: The Maximum Yield strategy with 46.05% return. The Leveraged Universal strategy with 27.11% return.   The NASDAQ 100 strategy with 19.29% return. SPY, the S&P500 ETF, returned 11.42%. News: Our professional portfolio software QuantTrader has reached version 5.0 with improvements including being able to load your custom set of strategies and a new consolidated signals screen. You can now allocate your funds in multiple strategies and have QuantTrader calculate the number of shares of each stock/ETF you need to buy.   QuantTrader Consolidated Signals   Market comment: Just as we mentioned in our last June newsletter, we continue to observe low volatility and a weakening dollar. The VIX index hit a record low on July 26th, falling temporarily to 8.84, a level last seen back in 1993. Moreover the index stayed under the 10 level for 10 consecutive days showing persistence.  The U.S. dollar fell to a 13-month low against a basket of currencies. The Euro has broken to the upside, reaching 1.18 against the dollar, a level last seen before December 2014. The Euro is 11% up year-to-date. Certain commodities that have had terrible returns for the past years are this month's top performers: Sugar, Gasoline, U.S. diesel Heating oil, Nickel, Coffee and U.S. oil (USO) ETFs all gave more than 10% returns for the month. Of course if you look at a graph you will see this is just a tiny reaction to multi-year bear markets. Taking advantage of the extended low volatility environment, out top strategy, the Maximum Yield strategy, added another +5.93% to reach +46.79% return for the year.  The Universal Investment 3x strategy added 2.54% for a +27.11% YTD return. All our other strategies were positive in July. The exception was the Nasdaq 100 strategy that corrected -3.1% causing this month's allocations to change significantly. As [...]

Logical Invest Investment Outlook July 2017 Our top 2017 investment strategies, year-to-date: The Maximum Yield strategy with 38.54% return. The Leveraged Universal strategy with 23.91% return.   The NASDAQ 100 strategy with 23.07% return. SPY, the S&P500 ETF, returned 9.17%. News: Our professional portfolio software QuantTrader continues to evolve and can now download data from 3 different providers: Tiingo, Yahoo and Google. Tiingo is an inexpensive solution for DYI investors that need good quality dividend-adjusted end of day data. Market comment: The U.S. Federal Reserve raised its benchmark federal-funds rate on June 15th by a quarter percentage point and hinted to further hikes. Individual investors remain skeptical of the bull market as the AAII survey shows 43.4% being neutral (historical average is at 38%). Mainstream market analysts keep a positive outlook quoting decreased risks and equity strength in Europe, global strength in developed and emerging markets, low unemployment in the U.S. and a sense that the Fed's tightening is predictable. We continue to see a low volatility environment and a weakness in U.S. dollar for 2017 which benefits non-U.S. stocks, bonds as well as gold. The European market returned 17% YTD while India and China achieved 20%+ returns for the year. UUP ETF (U.S. Dollar Index)   Out top strategy, the Maximum Yield strategy, added another +6.85% to reach +38.5% return for the year.  The Universal Investment 3x strategy had a correction in the last few days of July but came out positive adding +1.66% for a +23.9% YTD return. Both the Nasdaq 100 and the U.S. Sector strategies had corrections: -1.98% and -2.47% to achieve +23% and +5% YTD  respectively. All other strategies remained flat with gains/losses below 1%. A final note: We do keep a watchful eye on recent developments in the crypto-currency markets as Bitcoin and Ethereum are attempting to make their way into the mainstream. It may be [...]

Logical Invest Investment Outlook June 2017 Our top 2017 investment strategies, year-to-date: The Maximum Yield strategy with 29.66% return. The Leveraged Universal strategy with 21.89% return.   The NASDAQ 100 strategy with 21.80% return. SPY, the S&P500 ETF, returned 8.48%. News: Our brand new U.S. Sector Rotation made its live debut with a +2.53% return for the month. You can subscribe for free. Market comment: Both the U.S. equity and the U.S. bond markets were positive for May. SPY (S&P 500 ETF) added +1.41% and TLT (30-Year Treasury ETF) added +1.89%. Even though SPY is reaching new all-time heights, it under-performed many of our strategies and in particular the ones with foreign exposure, such as the World-Top 4, Global Market and Global Sector Rotation strategies. This shows that the U.S equity market is slowing down compared to foreign and emerging markets. On the other hand, Brazil, with a, -18% drop on May 18th reminds us that these markets suffer from local political risk and need to be properly hedged and diversified. Our top 3 strategies continue to be the biggest gainers for May. Our 3x UIS strategy added another +4.3%, the MYRS added +3.11% and the Nasdaq 100 added +2.99%. On the 4th and 5th spot are the Global Market rotation(+11.23% YTD) and Global Sector Rotation (+11.75% YTD) strategies. Summer is often volatile. Our slow and steady risers cam limit your risk: BRS (+6.81 YTD%) and the BUG (+6.29% YTD) bond-based strategies. We wish you a healthy and prosperous 2017. Logical Invest, June 1, 2017   Logical Invest strategy performances May 2017 Strategy performance overview: Visit our site for daily updated performance tables. Symbols: BRS - Bond Rotation Strategy BUGST - A conservative Permanent Portfolio Strategy BUGLEV - A leveraged Permanent Portfolio Strategy GMRS - Global Market Rotation Strategy GMRSE - Global Market Rotation Strategy Enhanced GSRLV - Global Sector Rotation low volatility NASDAQ100 - Nasdaq 100 strategy WORLD-TOP4 - The Top 4 World Country Strategy UIS - Universal [...]

Logical Invest Investment Outlook May 2017 Our top 2017 investment strategies, year-to-date: The Maximum Yield strategy with 25.75% return. The  NASDAQ 100 strategy with 18.26% return.   The Leveraged Universal strategy with 16.86% return. SPY, the S&P500 ETF, returned 6.97%. News: Our new U.S. Sector Rotation strategy is live (and for a limited time, free!). Unlike what you may have seen before, this strategy consists of 5 sub-strategies tracking sector momentum, mean reversion and relative under-performance to create a variable-beta play on the U.S. market. And yet it is very simple to implement. Give it a try. Thank you for your support of our QUANTtrader forum were you can share and discuss your own custom strategies.   Market comment: As we are heading into early summer, most assets classes are performing well partly due to a weakening U.S. dollar. Domestic equity continues to reach new highs, foreign and emerging equity markets are up while junk bonds and foreign bonds have now recovered from past corrections. Commodity performance is mixed but commodities do present a longer term opportunity for portfolio unclusion, as inflation resistant assets. Treasuries remain flat. The story in the media is that we are entering a more mature business cycle in the U.S. while foreign markets (China, India, Brazil and partly Europe) are also in growth and recovery mode. The sentiment is positive, at least as far as the major management companies go while individual investors are cautious, expecting a possible U.S. equity correction. The year long expectation of higher volatility due to tighter policy still is discussed but we have not seen this in the actual market. Far from it, we are seeing extremely low volatility levels compared to historical norms as well as perceived political risk in the U.S. and Europe. Our strategies performed as expected. Maximum Yield strategy added another 3.42% in April, keeping it in our top spot at +25.75 for the [...]

Logical Invest Investment Outlook April 2017 Our top 2017 investment strategies, year-to-date: The Maximum Yield strategy with 21.58% return. The  NASDAQ 100 strategy with 15.00% return.   The Leveraged Universal strategy with 13.02% return. SPY, the S&P500 ETF, returned 5.92%. News: Try our QUANTtrader software with our 30-day free trial. There is no better way to understand how our strategies work. Join our new QUANTtrader forum were users dare adjust the strategies and share new ones! Check our new European section.  Our in-depth 2-hour QUANTtrader webinar, with Frank Grossmann. Get a behind-the-scenes look at our strategies. We updated our web-site home page and menu.   Market comment: For the second time in three months, the Federal Reserve increased its benchmark interest rate a quarter point taking the overnight funds rate to a target range of 0.75 percent to 1 percent. Treasuries had small comeback since then signalling that the market had already priced in the Fed move and was bracing for a much more hawkish tone. Treasuries are once again negatively correlated to the equity market which is a positive for our strategies. The market is expecting two more hikes, in June and December. Volatility continues to be extremely at low levels, sending the ZIV etf (medium term inverse VIX etf) and our Maximum Yield strategy to new highs. Just like last month, what is interesting is the unnaturally low expectation of future volatility, with 8-month out VIX futures being below the 17 price level. Last month's VIX Futures term structure:   VIX term structure February 28th 2017 This month's VIX Futures term structure:   VIX term Structure March 31st 2017 This continuing "flattening" of the curve is unusual. In plain terms, future expected volatility levels seem to be low even though we are looking at upcoming French elections, Brexit negotiations as well as U.S. policy uncertainties. Investors seem fearless as the U.S. market is still at the top of the price chart. Investors may want [...]