GWM Model Portfolios are Currently Positioned Defensively

With all the market's gyrations, it has essentially gone sideways since Aug 2011. The market has been range bound and trendless for most of the year.

The S&P 500 is currently trapped below its 200 Day declining Moving Average (DMA). Breakouts have generally met with failure. This is why I can't get too excited about yesterdays big move up.

Clearly the best performing sectors this year have been the defensive stocks, which include Consumer Staples, Utilities and Healthcare.

GWM Model Portfolio Equity Holdings

Yields highlighted in yellow.

Krogers, Altria, Consolidated Edison, Pepsi, Southern Co,

McDonalds, Merck, Procter and Gable, Bristol Myers, Coca-Cola, Etc.

The GWM Flexible Income folio is also positioned very conservatively. Volatility in the various bond markets has been greater than usual, vacilating in step with the risk on / risk off nature of the stock market. To help counter this volatility I needed to do some extra homework. I uncovered the fact that the mortgage back securities market has been in a low volatility gentle uptrend, especially since the beginning of October. 

GWM Flexible Income Holdings and Yield.

Bear in mind that we are mainly interested in total return as opposed to current yield in the current risk off environment.

Summary

I will try to hold the GWM Core Equity positions longer term, adding in occasional hedges as needed. Hopefully, this will be all the adjustments I will need to make until the market begins trending again.

This blog post does not constitute an offer of investment advice. This blog is only provided for educational purposes. Please read the Important Blog Disclosure posted in the right channel bar.

Market Comment 12 20 2011

Market was up big today.

Is this the beginning of the Santa Claus rally or

just an oversold bounce.

Given the current news driven market environment I suspect the latter. 

Daily Market Snapshot

Gold gains, but its outlook will remain uncertain

until it closes above its $1650 resistance level.

. 

Moreover, gold no longer fullfills the role of safe haven.

Gold now seems to move in line with the stock market.

Correlations do change over time. 

While the MDM is still green, the market is not acting well in general.

Some market observers refer to late December as "Silly Time" and rightly so.

Market Direction Model

This blog post does not constitute an offer of investment advice. This blog is only provided for educational purposes. Please read the Important Blog Disclosure posted in the right channel bar.

Market Comment 12 14 2011

The stock market lost more ground again today.

The US Dollar strengthened while oil and gold made strong moves to the downside.

The Euro is sinking as the European Community is facing likely recession.  They seem to lack what it takes to come up with any plan other than austerity. None of the strong countries seem to be willing  to essentially co-sign for the borrowing that the weaker countries like Greece and Italy need to do.

The market has decidely changed its outlook from inflationary to deflationary. That of course means you sell gold, hard assets and commodities in general. And that is just what they did today and will continue to do. Consequently, I took some small short position (via inverse ETFs) in gold and oil as well semi-conductors.

Our Core Equity folio is primarily invested in high dividend paying defensive stocks like Merck and Altria. I want to hold on to these longer term providing they hold up reasonably well.

Most of our other folios are also positioned rather conservatively. We do have a higher risk small cap ETF in our Long / Short folio. I will be monitoring the account closely.

Daily Market Snapshot

The market is getting weaker.

At the moment Santa is nowhere to be found.

By the way, the chart below shows just how bad the markets in other countries are suffering. Well, so much for those that say asset allocation and diversification will save you; it is a flawed notion.

Market Comment 12 13 2011

Daily Market Snapshot

There was a lot of volatility today with the market loosing ground by the end of the day.

Our Daily Market Snapshot is now showing a stalemate standoff between the bulls and bears.



Click here to learn how to interpret the the GWM Market Snapshot.

Market Direction Model

Still on a buy signal, but that could change

if we continue to get bad news from around the world.

Green = Buy   Yellow = Neutral   Red = Sell

This blog post does not constitute an offer of investment advice. This blog is only provided for educational purposes. Please read the Important Blog Disclosure posted in the right channel bar.


 
 





GWM Market Direction Model

Since the year 2000 the market has experienced some serious ups and downs. The good old Buy and Hold investment strategy that worked so well in the 80s and 90s has failed long term investors in the 2000s.

Until the market re-enters another era of steady, stable and reliable returns, it pays to adopt a more active strategy, one that seeks to minimize loses in a down-turn and maximize gains when upside opportunities present themselves.



Ian Woodward

 GWM's Private Investment Management style is very well suited for the current market environment. A very important component of our portfolio management methodology is the GWM Market Direction Model (MDM). Ian Woodward, a very savvy independent market analyst, and Chris White of Edgerater Software, joined forces to develop the system we use at Gerritz Wealth Management, Inc. Ian developed his methodology over the past  thirty years and continues to refine it. Chris created the computer code to crunch the numbers, providing us with an elegant interface to our investment analysis program.

The summer and fall of 2011 proved to be an exceptionaly challenging period in the market. The market as measured by the S&P 1500 declined by nearly 20% in August. The market then retraced a good portion of those loses. The market then proceeded to give us another 10% decline in November. The GWM Market Direction Model helped us navigate through this very difficult period, providing us very timely buy and sell signals.

Our Market Direction Model is color coded for a quick and easy read on the market. Disregard the numbers and focus on the colors. Green = Buy, Yellow = Neutral and Red = Sell.

GWM Market Direction Model



Green = Buy, Yellow = Neutral and Red = Sell.



Buy & Sell Signals



Delivering good returns in a bad market.



Market Comment 12 12 2011

We have been out of gold since last week. It is definitely loosing its luster.

Our Market Direction Model remains in the green.

Green = Buy    Yellow = Neutral    Red = Sell

The market was down most of the day, but did close well off its lows.

While giving up a little ground, the bulls are still in control.

Click here to learn how to interpret the the GWM Market Snapshot.

Market Snapshot in Pictures (Part 3)

This blog post will complete my presentation on the GWM Market Snapshot. Did I hear someone say yea?

Market Snapshot in Pictures (Part 3)

Now Forget the Numbers

But Remember the

Shapes & Colors

Current Market Snapshot as of 12/09/2011

Click here for a more in-depth presentation on understanding the GWM Market Snapshot.