Last week several of our core market health indicators strengthened a bit, but not enough to overcome the indicators that showed weakness. The net result was an overall weakening in market health. As a result, we’re raising more cash in our Core Long / Cash Hedge strategy. It is now 60% long and 40% in cash. Here’s more information on our Long / Cash hedging strategies. In the chart below the yellow lines represent raising cash and the green lines are adding exposure to the stock market.
Enough of our core indicators have weakened that our “core” Long / Cash Hedge strategy is now 80% Long and 20% in cash. Our core strategy ignores our Market Risk Indicator. As a result, it takes larger draw downs, but has better overall performance because it enters the market earlier in new rallies. If you follow our Market Risk Indicator you would have gone 100% to cash on 10/19/2012. You can see a comparison of the hedge strategies here. Below is the current chart for the core strategy. The green lines represent adding long stocks. The yellow lines represent raising cash.
Our Long / Cash hedging strategy is now 100% cash. Please see our Long / Short Hedging Strategy Update for an explanation. In the chart below the green lines represent buying stocks for the portfolio (reducing cash). The yellow lines represent raising cash by selling stock.
Our Long/Cash Hedge strategy is now 100% long stocks. For an explanation of current conditions see our Long Short Hedge Strategy update. On the chart below the green lines represent adding long exposure. The yellow lines represent raising cash.
We saw continuing improvement in our core market indicators this week allowing us to add exposure to the market in our Long / Cash hedge strategy. We are now 60% long and 40% cash. Most of our measures of market strength, trend, and risk are positive, while most of our measures of the economy and quality are lagging. This is the point during strong bear market rallies where we often see whip saws. During the 2000 to 2002 bear market this level of exposure was often associated with a market peak within a few weeks. However, during normal up trends this level of exposure generally signals a continuation of the up trend. In the chart above green lines are adding exposure and yellow lines are raising cash.
Our internal indicators of core market strength improved enough today to allow us to add more exposure to the market. We are now 40% long and 60% cash. In the following weeks we’ll continue to add exposure if our core market indicators continue to rise. We’ll raise cash if market conditions deteriorate. On the chart below our purchases of additional longs are represented by the green lines. The yellow lines represent selling stock and raising cash.
Our core indicators strengthened enough today to increase our exposure to the market to 20%. We’re 80% cash and 20% long in our Long/Cash strategy. We’re dipping our toes in the water as the underlying strength in the market could propel the market higher. The yellow lines on the chart represent raising cash and the green lines on the chart represent buying stocks (by lowering our cash position).
Our market risk indicator flashed this week, however, we always use a weekly close to generate a signal. The strength on Thursday and Friday reversed the signal early this week so we end the week without a risk warning. This means we didn’t add any aggressive hedges today. Instead, we’re following our core hedging strategy indicators leaving us 100% cash in our Long/Cash strategy and 100% hedged with a short of the S&P 500 in our Long/Short strategy. Some of our core indicators are getting close to going positive that could give us some exposure to the market at the end of next week if the trend continues.
On 5/11/2012 our Long / Cash portfolio moved from 40% long stocks and 60% cash to 100% cash. On the chart below the green lines get wider as we add exposure to the markets. The yellow lines get wider as we take exposure off.
Market Risk Warning
Volatility Hedged Portfolio
Long / Cash Portfolio