We’ll be talking about Paul Novell’s flagship SPY-COMP strategy on the blog tomorrow. The strategy uses monthly economic data, like the kind available from the FRED database. We’ve covered a handful of strategies like this in the past (think Philosophical Economics’ Growth Trend-Timing). Whenever we do, we invariably get a ton of questions, because it […]
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A Quick Note on a Small Change to Meta
We had mentioned this in passing on previous posts, but never expounded upon it here on the blog. We thought it would be too boring and down in the weeds. But the emails just keep coming (we forgot our members tend to be as analytically-minded as we are), so here are the details… Meta is […]
Tactical Asset Allocation: Mid-April Checkup
Tactical Asset Allocation (TAA) weathered the storm in February and March, significantly paring down losses vs conventional buy & hold. So far it has trailed the bounce in April, but these are early days. We track 50+ TAA strategies sourced from books, papers, etc., allowing us to draw some broad conclusions about TAA as a […]
Tactical Asset Allocation: Surveying the Damage in March
Tactical Asset Allocation (TAA) weathered the storm in March well, significantly paring down losses versus conventional buy & hold. We track 50+ TAA strategies sourced from books, papers, etc., allowing us to draw some broad conclusions about TAA as a style. In the table below we show the March and YTD returns of these 50+ […]
This Crisis Has Not Been Kind to Tactical ETFs
DIY tactical asset allocation (i.e. the types of public strategies that we cover on this site) has been strong through this crisis. Tactical ETFs on the other hand have struggled badly. We track 50+ DIY TAA strategies, allowing us to draw some broad conclusions about TAA as a style. In the graph below we show […]
Where Tactical Asset Allocation Stands Now (Monday 03/23)
Tactical Asset Allocation (TAA) as a whole continues to weather the fallout well, significantly paring down losses versus a conventional buy & hold portfolio. Individual strategies vary widely. We track 50+ published TAA strategies, allowing us to draw some broad conclusions about TAA as a style. In the table below we show the MTD/YTD returns […]
Where Tactical Asset Allocation Stands Now (Thursday 03/12) – Updated
Edit 03/18: This situation is getting sufficiently scary, in a way that transcends investing, that we’re going to slow down these periodic updates. Based on how TAA entered the month it should be pretty easy to extrapolate where returns stand now. Will post our next update at the end of this week. Stay safe out […]
Where Tactical Asset Allocation Stands Now (Monday 03/09)
We’ve fielded a lot of questions this morning about how Tactical Asset Allocation is faring this month. We track 50+ published strategies, so we’re able to draw some broad conclusions about the current state of TAA. Generally speaking, all is well. Individual strategies vary, but as a whole, TAA has weathered the storm so far. […]
Last Week (Painfully) Illustrated the Importance of Non-Binary Portfolios
This is one of my favorite takes of the last week. It was tweeted on Friday, which held two distinctions: (1) It capped off a helluva scary week, and (2) It just so happened to be month-end, when many TAA strategies trade by default. The managers I envy the LEAST today are those who run […]
Where TAA Stands Now
We rarely comment on the current state of the market. The whole point of all this time we spend designing smart, agile rule-based portfolios is so that we don’t have to run around with our hair on fire when all hell breaks loose. Trading on emotion is almost always a bad idea. Having said that, […]