Tactical Allocations

Long overdue performance update. Markets have been going strong based mostly on Government stimulus.  While this makes me very nervous, my model says things look good and so it has been adding risk  Performance Charts: Cumulative Returns show the Enhanced portfolio made some strong gains in November and is close to matching the TA portfolio in the long run. Recent returns have strongly favored the Enhanced portfolio as all of its picks have outperformed over the past 3 months.

In Q1 2020, COVID 19 hit the world and the markets. The lack of small cap stocks was very beneficial in the TA and Enhanced portfolio's.  The portfolio's have lower risk in them than the equal weighted portfolio and this was demonstrated in this quarters returns.  During the quarter, the four asset class returns were  VONE -20.50%, VTWO -30.75%, JNK -13.08%, AGG 3.04%. Over the past 12 months returns were  VONE -9.73%, VTWO -25.03%, JNK -7.19%, AGG 8.82% Small cap stocks ( VTWO ) tend to do poorly at the end of the market cycle and during a crash. After we move through the bottom of this cycle we will begin adding them back into our portfolio as they are usually the stars during a rebound.  We added high yield ( JNK ) this month as the yields are very beneficial when equity markets are low and they tend to rebound very quickly when the market begins to heal. Performance as of March 31, 2020 was: Blog Basics: In this ...

Peer Relative Performance  in the second quarter was solid. Markets continued to rebound and my tactical portfolio's were relatively aggressive. The one year numbers are particularly good and have been steadily above 80th percentile. The following is a review of all of the  Morningstar  monitored tactical asset allocation funds relative to my three funds. Return percentiles as of June 30, 2019. The % tells where the fund ranks during that period (100% would be the top performing fund, 0% would be the bottom)              3 Mo              1 Yr             3 Yrs      5 Yrs     Equal              67%              83%           -na-      -na-      TA              88%    ...

Historic Track Record Report Card: A record of all of the completed positions I have taken in the TA and Enhanced portfolios. One year performance at month end for each month in the Second Quarter (Q2): April:  VONE (13.2%) ,   JNK (7.0%) ,   AGG(5.4%),  VTWO (4.5%)   May:  AGG(6.7%),  JNK (5.2%) ,   VONE (3.3%) ,  VTWO (-9.2%)   June:  VONE (9.9%) ,   JNK (8.4%) ,   AGG(7.7%),  VTWO (-3.6%)   TA:   Position taken one year ago: April:  VONE     Rank:   1st May: VONE     Rank:   3rd June: VONE       Rank: 1st History 1st 2nd 3rd 4th Number of Bets:    4  7   3  0  % of Bets:   29%  50%   21%  0 % Enhanced:  Position taken one year ago: April: KXI (2.3%)      Rank:   - Negative May:   VONE (3.3%) Rank: = Neutral June:   IEMG (0.7%) Rank: ...

Historic Track Record Report Card: A record of all of the completed positions I have taken in the TA and Enhanced portfolios. One year performance as of January 31st (in order):   AGG(2.2%),  JNK (1.9%) ,   VONE (-2.3%) ,  VTWO (-3.5%)   . TA:   Position taken one year ago:  VONE Rank:   3rd History 1st 2nd 3rd 4th Number of Bets:   2  5  2  0  % of Bets:   22%  56%   22%  0 % Enhanced:  Position taken one year ago:  DBCMX (-7.9%) Rank : - Negative History     +   =   - Number of Bets:     3   1   5 % of Bets:   33%  11%  56% PORTFOLIO UPDATE (as of 2/15/2019): Current Performance: The ETF's and other funds that make up the portfolio's MTD Returns: Ticker 2/15/19 VONE 8.4% VTWO 11.5% JNK 5.2% AGG 0.9% DBCMX 5.3% IEMG 9.6% KXI 5.6% JXI GOVT 5.1% 1.0% Co lor significance: ...

Historic Track Record Report Card: A record of all of the completed positions I have taken in the TA and Enhanced portfolios. One year performance as of December 31st (in order):   AGG(0.1%),  JNK (-3.3%) ,   VONE (-4.8%) ,  VTWO (-11.1%)   . TA:   Position taken one year ago:  VONE Rank:   3rd History 1st 2nd 3rd 4th Number of Bets:   2  5  1  0  % of Bets:   25%  63%   12%  0 % Enhanced:  Position taken one year ago:  JXI (2.3%) Rank :  +  Positive History     +   =   - Number of Bets:     3   1   4 % of Bets:   38%  12%  50% PORTFOLIO UPDATE (as of 1/25/2019): Current Performance: The ETF's and other funds that make up the portfolio's MTD Returns: Ticker 1/25/19 VONE 6.5% VTWO 10.2% JNK 4.3% AGG 0.2% DBCMX 4.5% IEMG 7.5% KXI 2.5% JXI GOVT 2.9% 0.5% Co lor sig...

Peer Relative Performance  in the fourth quarter was not great. Markets fell and my tactical portfolio's were relatively aggressive. The following is a review of all of the  Morningstar  monitored tactical asset allocation funds relative to my three funds. Return percentiles as of December 31, 2019. The % tells where the fund ranks during that period (100% would be the top performing fund, 0% would be the bottom)             3 Mo             1 Yr             3 Yrs     5 Yrs     Equal              39%              82%           -na-      -na-      TA              14%              82 %           -na-      -na- ...

Performance in December was poor for all risky investments. Trade wars, Brexit, Government shutdown, and many other negative news items held the focus of investors and hurt market sentiment.  What was not broadly discussed was the strong retail sales of this holiday season. Most economic leading indicators remain positive.  While the TA portfolio suffered the most in December, its inception to date return is still by far the strongest. The enhanced fund has been more conservatively invested and that is showing in the last three months worth of returns, however missing out on the strong returns early in this year and last year is what is driving its poor inception to date performance.  Cumulative returns of each of the strategies as though you had invested $100,000 in them at the beginning of the blog. DISCLAIMER: Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance.  This strategy is presented for informational purposes only and ...

QUESTION:  What is the track record of realized investments? One year performance as of November 30th (in order):   VONE (5.8%) ,  VTWO (0.6%) ,   JNK (-0.6%) ,   AGG(-1.4%) . TA:   Position taken one year ago:  VONE Rank:   1st History 1st 2nd 3rd 4th Number of Bets:   2  5  0  0  % of Bets:   29%  71%   0%  0 % Enhanced:  Position taken one year ago:  DSEEX (5.9%) Rank :  +  Positive History     +   =   - Number of Bets:     2   1   4 % of Bets:   29%  14%  57% ANSWER:  The one year look back in November is perfect. The TA fund picked the best asset class over the last year and the Enhanced fund picked an even better active alternative. 

Sorry for the huge delay in posting November Performance. I feel that I have been overwhelming people with data so I am going to change it up a bit.  Most months I am just going to share the long term performance of the product and talk a little about what is or is not working. At quarter end I will continue to give a full detailed report, like I have been doing on a monthly basis to this point. So Performance as of November 30th was:          1 Mo         3 Mo        1 Yr     3 Yrs     ITD Equal           0.62%        -4.83%      1.25%      -na-     5.24% TA           1.63%        -4.67 %       5.72%      -na-    11.74% Enhanced           0.99%        -3.48%  ...