Since the start of our newsletter we have been using a relative strength table that looked at Fidelity Select Sector Funds to show what industry groups are leading and which groups are lagging.  The relative strength calculation is similar to the style used by Bill Oneil and IBD but is slightly shorter term in nature. We used the Fido Funds due the their price history and breadth of different groups.  Now that there are not only enough different industry group ETF’s, but also the needed price history we have revamped the model to use ETF’s instead.

We publish one list for United States industry groups and one that is focused on global ETF’s with several country and a few sector specific ETF’s.  These tables are valuable in a few ways.  One is that we have developed a trading model based upon them that uses the rankings along with buy, sell, and money management rules.  Over time this model has beaten the market with far less risk.  The other way that these tables are useful is that they show you what is strong and what is weak.

While this concept is not rocket science we are consistently surprised how little attention it is given by other traders.  By using relative strength we can see what is really working and where investors are going.  Many times the supposed “hot sector” is not really that hot.  By looking at the tables we can see what is really working and what is not.  For instance looking at the Global RS Ranking table below you can see the leaders and the laggards.  While it is no surprise that Brazil is at the top when was the last time you saw someone on CNBC telling you to buy Indonesia or Turkey?  Yeah we missed that segment as well. (click on table twice to enlarge)

Global RS Rankings

Right now this table is confirming to us that for the most part developed nations are weak and should be sold and that emerging markets are strong and should be bought.  No, this is not the first or the only tool that told us this same thing but it is one way in which we can systematically be long the best areas of the world and short the worst areas of the world.  It also gives us a road map of where investors are putting their money and where they are withdrawing it.

Another point worth noting is that while we are starting to run this as a “standalone system,” the system represents only a part of our portfolio.  In our trading and our newsletter model portfolio we use several different methods in order to build a less correlated portfolio trading across asset classes.

Happy Trading,

Dave@TheMacroTrader.com

Disclaimer-We are long EWZ-Brazil, EWT-Taiwan, and EWM-Malaysia

If you’re getting value out of our posts, you can do us a favor by linking to us and mentioning The Macro Trader to friends and co-workers. Here’s the link information for this article:
Title: Macro Trading Using Relative Stength
URL: http://www.themacrotrader.com/2009/11/10/macro-trading-relative-strength/

Gimme fuel, gimme fire, gimme that which I desire,

Can’t fight the need for speed,

I’m loose, I’m clean, I’m burning lean and mean, and mean.

Ignite the open trail,

Excite, exhale, comin on, hot from hell, yeah hot from hell.

-Metallica “Fuel for Fire”

Where has all of the money gone? We know that the world should be running out of green ink any day now due to the Treasury printing money 24/7, but with all of this money coming into the economy we would have expected runaway inflation.  Up to now we have seen, for the first time in decades, steady deflation.  In fact as you can see in the chart below, since 3/1/09 YoY CPI has been negative. (click on chart to enlarge)

CPI 12-Month % Change

One reason why we have not seen any inflation is due to the personal savings rate going up and private sector leverage going down.  For baby boomers and really anyone who has been investing for the last 15 years, things are looking bad.  From 1995 to now, investors using a 70/30 stock bond mix, rebalanced monthly and adjusted for inflation, have seen a CAGR of only 3.89%.  Add to that the debt loads that most people have, and it makes sense that the personal savings rate has shot higher and from all estimates looks to be going higher still. (click on chart to enlarge)

Personal Savings Rate

So the question remains where has all the money gone?  Looking at the  WSBASE which defined by the St Louis Fed as the sum of currency in circulation, reserve balances with the Federal Reserve Banks, and service-related adjustments to compensate for float-it is obvious that overall money supply has absolutely exploded to the upside. (click on chart to enlarge)

WSBASE

So where has all of this money gone if not into the general economy? In a relationship first pointed out by Andy Kessler, the WSBASE has tracked tradeable assets like the SP500 and corporate bonds since the March bottom.  If you look at the two charts below you can see that movement in the WSBASE has led the SP500 and Dow Jones Corporate Bond Index by about a month. (click on charts to enlarge)

SP500 and WSBASE

DJCB and WSBASE

When no one else wanted to own assets the Fed stepped in and became the buyer of corporate assets and has been the fuel that has driven this market higher.  In a vacuum this is not a bad thing, but we are not in a vacuum.  With the government putting all of the money into tradeable assets and not into the real economy, we end up with a market that could go down in flames at any moment.  What happens if the Fed backs away and stops buying?  If they stop buying, we run the risk of everything falling again and taking us right back to where we were.

The Fed in their infinite wisdom and bubble loving culture, continues to trade one bubble for another.  This time however, it appears as thought the bubble has not only been engineered by the Fed, but they have been the driving force behind it all.  As opposed to the housing bubble–where the Fed lowered rates and left them low but allowed people to build the bubble with their stupid home buying–this time the Fed lowered the rates, borrowed the money, and is spending the money.  Unfortunately for us when the bubble pops “the money” is really our money, and we come out on the losing end….again.

Happy Trading,

Dave@TheMacroTrader.com

Disclaimer-In our weekly newsletter The Macro Trader we are long SPY, LQD, HYG, DBV, and UDN

If you’re getting value out of our posts, you can do us a favor by linking to us and mentioning The Macro Trader to friends and co-workers. Here’s the link information for this article:
Title: Give Me Fuel Give Me Fire
URL: http://www.themacrotrader.com/2009/10/01/macro-give-me-fuel-give-me-fire/

One of our current positions is EWY the South Korean ETF. We went long a few weeks ago in our model portfolio based on the trend, valuation, and economic characteristics of South Korean stocks.

EWY-South Korea ETF

Another factor that got us into EWY was the increasing number of Asian countries that have been coming up in our global stock model.  Our global stock model looks at technical, economic, fundamental, and sentiment indicators to help find foreign stock indexes that meet our risk to reward criteria.

Apparently we are not the only ones to have found an opportunity in South Korea as the Oracle himself WarrenB apparently is getting long some South Korean stocks as well.

In order to catch our trades in foreign stocks as well as other asset classes like US stocks, bonds, currencies, and  commodities then sign up for a quarterly or annual subscription to The Macro Trader weekly newsletter with frequent intra-week updates.

Happy Trading,

Dave@TheMacroTrader.com

This week we had the first uptick in the equity risk index in a month. The primary reason that it moved up was due to some sentiment indicators such as the Investors Intelligence Bull Bear Ratio hitting levels that historically have provided good buying opportunities.

Of course if you look at the chart you can tell that it is still very low. A low level in the risk index signifies a market that is very unattractive, whereas a very high level is bullish. Right now there is a ton of bad data out there and only a few things that are bullish. While we have not ruled it out we do not feel like this is the second coming. Eventually US Equities will start to look attractive again and we will allocate accordingly. We gauge risk first and then look at return.

Happy Trading,
The Macro Trader

Our stock market risk index did not change this week and remains at 25%. In simple terms the lower the reading the more bearish we are and the higher the reading the more bullish we are. As you can see in the chart we have been fairly bearish for most of the year.

Most of the economic indicators we follow are very bearish, the trend is down, breadth is poor, and money flows are negative.  On the bullish side sentiment is at extreme lows and valuations continue to improve.  We expect a rally here in the next few days but long term are still fairly bearish.

Happy Trading,

The Macro Trader

P.S. If you want to ensure that you receive every update make sure and subscribe by RSS or E-mail by clicking on the RSS button on the right hand side of the page.

P.S.S. This is usually posted by Monday of each week but due to travel delays it was late this week.

Active Beta? What’s that? It is our term for a systematic and relatively passive way to enhance returns by capturing risk premia but at the same time manage risk and provide a real long term edge over standard buy and hold.

Having read countless books and papers preaching the long term upward drift in stock and bond prices we realize that risk premia is a good thing. Of course after having come through the 2000-2003 bear market we also know that if risk premia is good then risk management is even better. After reading Jim Leitners’ interview in the book Inside the House of Money we started to look at different ways we could gain more exposure and safely earn risk premia by using systematic strategies that have us involved in different asset classes.

Currently we have models built to capture risk premia in equities and fixed income. We are still working on ways to capture it in currencies and precious metals/commodities. We have built, bought, and researched several timing models over the years that are based off of technicals, valuations, sentiment, monetary inputs, and any mix of the above. Over time several of these timing models have proven to have a substantial edge over buy and hold especially when it comes to risk control. We have experimented with several different ways to use these models but so far have found that simpler is better and for each bullish model we enter X%. Currently for both fixed income and equities we enter 10% of our position for each model that is bullish using up to 50% of the model portfolio.

Right now we are working on a currency model that takes advantage of the carry trade, but with a risk management filter. We had been struggling to do it in a systematic risk controlled manner but thanks to a post by Macro Man we may have found a solution. If the testing works out we will post an update. As for the Precious Metals/Commodities model portfolio we are working on a CTA technical trend following model. We questioned calling this an Active Beta strategy but after re-reading some research by Bridgewater we decided that with the relative ease (No, it’s not actually easy. But once you have it up and running you shouldn’t have to tweak it much to keep it running.) to maintain it we would include it as Active Beta. Expect more posts on these models in the future as we get further in our research.

Happy Trading,

The Macro Trader

P.S. If you liked this post please add us to your RSS reader. if you have any questions, comments, praises, or criticisms feel free to e-mail us at Editor@TheMacroTrader.com

For further reading on Active Beta and systematic capturing of risk premia, here are some links to go to.
Inside the House of Money Excellent book filled with interviews with leading Global Macro Traders.
Pioneering Portfolio Management Must read book by David Swensen, portfolio manager of the Yale Endowment Fund.
Formula Research Nelson Freeburg builds some of the best systems out there.
World Beta blog Mebane Faber has done a lot of work on systematic methods of reducing risk.
Macro Man blog Macro Man has lots of witty takes on the markets and does quite a bit of solid research.

If you would like to receive our new FREE course “Macro Trading 101″ put your e-mail in the box below.

Here at The Macro Trader we run five different model portfolios: US equities, fixed income, precious metals, foreign equities, and currencies. We use ETF’s and the occasional Closed End Fund as our trading vehicles.

The starting value of each portfolio was $100,000.00. We typically risk from .5% to 2% (usually 1%) on each position, with each position taking up no more than 25% of the model portfolio’s equity. So for example, with a $100,000.00 portfolio, we would risk no more than $1000.00 from entry to stop on one position, and that one position initially could not take up more than $25,000.00 in equity.

We track each model portfolio against two different benchmarks: The 0-line and the standard benchmarks in their asset class. We use two benchmarks for two reasons: First we believe in absolute returns. Our newsletter is patterned after a Global Macro Hedge Fund, so we pay strict heed to risk controls and positive returns. Who cares if you beat the SP500 because it lost 25% that year, and you “only” lost 20%? Sure, you may have won in Morningstar’s eyes, but you and your investors lost real money. In addition as long as you have positive returns, you could potentially lever up your portfolio to juice up your returns if your trading is sufficiently risk-adverse.

That said, we also track our relative benchmarks because people are used to them and doing so helps us gauge the effectiveness of some of our risk-taking. For instance, if we are taking on a lot of risk and are lagging our relative benchmark, then we need to scale back. If on the other hand we are beating the benchmark while taking far less risk, it may be appropriate to take on a bit more risk. As we will discuss later in this post, the latter situation has been our problem as of late.

US Equities

When we started the letter we had been bearish on US equities for some time. That said, we remained in cash until our 2/1/08 issue when we went short the XLF-Financials ETF. So far we have had three closed out trades. Of the three trades, two were profitable and one was closed at a loss. Our return has thus far been 1.57%. In the same time the SP500 has returned -3.28%. So on an absolute basis we are positive with a 1.57% return and on a relative basis we are beating the SP500 by 4.85%.

Fixed Income

In fixed income our first trade came in the 12/28/07 issue and was a buy of the TIP-TIP’s ETF. Since then we have had six closed out trades and currently have one open position. Of the seven trades all but one has been profitable. Our total return has been 1.9%. In the same time our primary benchmark the TLT-20 Year Treasuries has returned -4.1%. So on an absolute basis we are positive with a 1.9% return, and we are beating our benchmark by 6%. (By the way, as the universe of fixed income ETF’s expands we may change our benchmark to the Lehman Aggregate Index AGG-ETF)

Precious Metals

The first trade we had in precious metals came in the 12/7/07 issue. We went long GLD-Gold ETF. Since that time we have had three total trades in the metals portfolio and all of them have been profitable. Our performance has been good with a 5.23% return which beats the XAU Philly Gold/Silver index by 5.24% and the price of gold by .89%. We were able to achieve this while never being more than 54% invested.

Global Equities

Our first trade was a short in the EWW-Mexico ETF in the 12/1/07 issue. Since then we have had a total of six positions. Four of them have been closed out, and we currently have two open positions. Of our closed trades, three were losses and one was profitable. Currently our two open positions are profitable. Our P/L for this portfolio is -1.33%. That of course comes out to a -$1,326.48 loss. On an absolute basis we are obviously down. Depending on the benchmark used, we are either a bit ahead of a bit behind. Using the EFA-ETF which returned -6.64% we are ahead by 5.31%. Using the EEM-ETF which returned -.09% we are behind by 1.24%.

Currencies

We didn’t have our first currency trade until the 2/22/08 issue. Since then we have had four trades: Three winners and one loser. We are up 3.12%. As of now we are using the DBV-Currency Harvest ETF as our benchmark. Since there is no real benchmark for currencies, we decided to use the carry trading DBV-ETF as a benchmark. The DBV is down -3.71%, so we have beat our benchmark by 6.83%.

Overall the model portfolios are up 2.1% as of today’s close (5/7/08). Of our 20 closed out trades 14 have been winners and six have been losers. Our winners have made $13,894.01 and our losers have lost $3,675.88 for a total gain of $10,218.13. We currently have three open positions, all three are profitable, adding an additional $278.70.

While evaluating our performance, we have realized that we need to take on more risk. With a 70% accuracy rate and a 3.78 profit factor we should probably either be bigger in our positions, have more open positions, or a combination of both. Going forward this will definitely be an area that we will be working on.

Happy Trading,

The Macro Trader

As mentioned in previous posts we run a variety of automatic as well as discretionary trading systems. Running them alongside each other helps us to spot market trends that we might not otherwise see. Well here are a few macro themes that we have found and currently are tracking for good entry points with relatively low risk.

Energy and Raw Materials-Yes, we know that this isn’t exactly a novel idea. But the fact remains that if the world is to continue expanding we are going to need more energy. If more people in third and second world countries are buying cars guess what they need? Yeah you guessed right. They need gasoline and the car companies need steel. If the BRIC’s and friends are to continue growing at their current pace or even half of the current rate then they need raw materials and energy to build. So we are for the most part energy and hard asset (commodity) bulls. While an index probably isn’t a bad way to go we feel that we can get better risk adjusted returns by looking for our own trades and scaling in and out of different securities. So we track a lot of different individual stocks, ETF’s, and commodities.

Housing-We are housing bears. While we don’t see this trend continuing forever or even for ten years we do see it going for at least another year. Does that mean we are shorting everything in housing? No, in fact we currently only have one short position in housing (HOV). But it is a theme we will continue to monitor.

Healthcare-Ultimately the outcome of the health-care industry is probably going to end up with politicians deciding if it is allowed to win or not. For the next 40 years we see several reasons to be long healthcare. Unfortunately we see a reason to be very hesitant. Because of the aging populations in the western world the bulk of the voting population will probably favor government controls on the health system. That being said we still see many potential opportunities in healthcare and bio-tech.

Global Telecom-This is a theme that has been good to us off and on for some time now. We have found that in a lot areas of the world some of the best stocks have been in the telecom industry. Off and on we have been long VIP, MBT, AMX, CHL, SKM, and TKC. In fact last week we re entered TKC. Basically telecom is one of our favorite emerging market industries and whenever a country meets our other criteria it is usually one of the first areas we look at.

These are some of our major trading themes right now. We have other themes we monitor but these should give you an idea as to where we are looking and what we look for. Basically we look for areas that should have long lasting trends and real fundamentals. We then look for entries that present a good risk to reward scenario. We aren’t in the business of risking a dollar to try and make a dollar. We are looking to risk a dollar to make three or four and sometimes even ten.

If you have any questions feel free to contact us here. And if you like what you have read you will want to add us to your RSS reader and consider subscribing to our newsletter.

Happy Trading,
The Macro Trader

If you would like to receive our new FREE course “Macro Trading 101″ put your e-mail in the box below.

As we have previously mentioned we run a Global Stock Model that essentially tries to be in the best countries. While we often trade ADR’s and have traded open ended mutual funds for the most part we trade the ETF’s. Occasionally that is not possible so if we can find a Closed End Fund that is correlated to the country index we will use that instead.

We keep a watch list of countries meeting our Stock and Interest Rate criteria and if they reach our entry prices we will buy them. We typically will only enter the top 5 on our list but depending on the geographic location of the countries, the macro-environment, valuation, and several other criteria we will buy other ones instead of or as well as the top 5. For a better idea of what goes into individual country criteria read this post on Singapore EWS.

We will go over our actual entries in greater depth in later posts. But essentially we look to buy in solid up-trends using breakouts and pullbacks. We are also addicted to risk management. If we can’t find a low risk entry we will wait. In our Newsletter we provide specific entries, exits, and stops for all of our positions. We don’t adhere to any profit target method but instead move our stops up as a position moves in our favor. We find this allows us to ride trends past where we “think” they should end while still using good risk management. As noted earlier we will cover a lot of this in later posts and cover it all in our Newsletter.

Back to the subject title here in order of geographic regions is our Long Global ETF/Closed End Fund watch list.

EWU-Great Britain ETF

EWQ- France ETF

EWG-Germany ETF

EWP-Spain ETF

EWL-Switzerland ETF

EWN-Netherlands ETF

VGK-Europe ETF

EWC-Canada ETF

EWH-Hong Kong ETF

EWS-Singapore ETF

INP-India ETF

RSX-Russia ETF

TKF-Turkey Closed End Fund

EWZ-Brazil ETF

If you have any questions, comments, ideas, etc. Feel free to contact us here.

Happy Trading,
The Macro Trader

Here at TheMacroTrader.com we use several different strategies across several asset classes. Why do we do this? For several reasons not the least of which is so that we can find and exploit as many of the best risk to reward situations as possible. If you tie yourself to one strategy or one asset class you are limiting your potential opportunites.

In this article we will focus on using systems. As we have already mentioned we use several systems. Some are purely automatic. If they say buy we will go and buy if they say to sell we will sell. We also have several systems that leave us a lot of discretion as to what we do. We look at many different variables depending on the asset class and time horizon. For instance in some of our short term systems we only use prices of the actual instrument to determine buys and sells. On some of our longer term systems we use economic data such as interest rates, market valuations, technical studies, inflation, competing yields, etc.

Right now we have several systems for domestic and foreign equities, domestic bonds (treasuries, corporates, and junk), precious metals, currencies, commodities, volatility trading, and asset allocation. All of the systems we use have historically beaten their benchmarks with less risk. So over time we can expect to outperform.

As noted earlier we also have systems that leave us with varying amounts of discretion. Some of the systems are only used to alert us of a potential trade. We then go in and look to see if we feel it is worth doing. For instance one of our systems is designed to highlight potential option trades across several different indexes. Its main variable is volatility. While we could possibly use it as a stand alone system at this point in time we think it is better used to highlight potential opportunities.

So how do we use it? We update it every week and most weeks it will show us a few different areas worth looking at. We than go in and research those potential trades to assess the situation. If the right conditions are present and we can see a catalyst we will then go in and put on the trade. If not we will continue monitoring the situation in case it changes. While we only put on about a third of the trades that it presents us we feel it is an invaluable tool because it highlights many situations that we would otherwise miss. To sum it up in one sentence it highlights promising situations. That is but one example of using a systematic process in our trading.

In summary using systematic processes in trading allow us to cover more asset classes and more countries. It allows us to spot more opportunities and to more consistently achieve above average and less correlated returns.

Happy Trading,

The Macro Trader