This is a test of a tactical strategy from the paper Trending Fast and Slow. It trades the S&P 500 by switching between fast and slow momentum based on market volatility. The strategy would have kept pace with the S&P 500, while significantly reducing the worst drawdowns. Backtested results from 1954 follow. Results are net […]
TAA Analysis
Portfolio Optimizer Version 2.0
We’ve just released version 2.0 of our Portfolio Optimizer, and the nerds in us are pretty excited. New here? We track tactical asset allocation strategies. Members can combine those strategies together into what we call “Model Portfolios”. The Portfolio Optimizer shows the optimal mix of strategies to trade in your Model Portfolios based on objectives […]
Tactical Asset Allocation During Bear Markets and Major Pullbacks
One of the primary benefits of Tactical Asset Allocation (TAA) is the ability to manage losses during major market declines. TAA does that by reducing allocation to risk asset classes like stocks and real estate, and increasing allocation to defensive assets like bonds and gold. In this post, we test how the 60+ TAA strategies […]
When the Close Is Not Really the Close (A Geeky Discussion)
This post covers an issue rarely discussed in backtesting: the day’s last real-time price shown at 4pm ET often differs slightly from the day’s official closing price determined shortly after 4pm. This is not an Allocate Smartly issue; it’s an oddity of the exchanges. Every so often this difference can cause discrepancies between backtests based […]
Diving Deeper: Does the Day of the Month Matter?
Most Tactical Asset Allocation (TAA) strategies trade just once a month. Backtests of those strategies usually assume trades are executed on the last trading day of the month. Why? Monthly asset data is often available further back into history than daily data. Assuming trades are executed at month-end allows for longer backtests, showing how the […]
New Feature: Cluster Analysis
We track a lot of tactical strategies, and it can be difficult to understand how they all fit together in the big picture. The usual correlation matrix (example) is helpful when drilling down on a single strategy, but it’s near impossible to see the forest for the trees among the 1000’s of data points. In […]
Strategies That Play Well With Others
We track more than 60 tactical asset allocation strategies. In this post we look at which of those strategies are most often recommended by common portfolio optimization techniques, and why strategies that “play well with others” are not always the best strategies. First, a little background for the uninitiated: Members can combine the strategies we […]
Max Sortino Added to the Portfolio Optimizer (And Whether That Matters)
We track more than 60 Tactical Asset Allocation strategies, which members can combine together into custom portfolios. To make creating those portfolios easier, we provide an optimizer showing the best performing combinations of strategies based on the member’s investment objective, such as maximizing the Sharpe Ratio (risk-adjusted return) or minimizing volatility. By popular demand, we’ve […]
“Accelerating Dual Momentum” Redux: Longer History, Tempered Expectations
This is a follow up to a strategy we’ve covered previously: Accelerating Dual Momentum (ADM) from EngineeredPortfolio.com. See our first test of ADM, which includes a description of the strategy rules and our own analysis of the strategy. Here we’ve extended our test by 20 years to include a less effective era for this strategy. […]
New Feature: Optimized Model Portfolios
We track more than 60 Tactical Asset Allocation strategies. Members can combine those strategies into what we call “Model Portfolios”. Combining strategies in this way reduces the risk of any single strategy going off the rails and helps to provide smoother, more consistent investment returns. But deciding which strategies to trade in your Model Portfolio […]