Help Wanted (yours)
And, how I'm whistling past the market graveyard
Every once in a while, it’s good to be reminded that the equipment still works
Hey, get your mind out of the gutter! I’m talking about my investment process! I’ll explain that a bit further down in this post, and summarize my latest market view. But first, some updates, perspective, and commentary that I wanted to communicate as an “appetizer” prior to that market view.
After a trio of short trips to cap our summer travel, it is so nice to be back in South Florida. I suspect many of our subscribers have been on the go for the past couple of months, and as summer winds down, schools start up again, and the U.S. Presidential Election looms, I hope you had a good time, whatever you were doing.
Obviously, I am never too far from the markets, my portfolios, and the responsibilities I have to anyone who follows my work. In the past year or so, I’ve traded and written from Europe, the Serengeti, multiple spots in the United States, and frequently from my “Hallandale Beach, FL office,” better known as Gulfstream Park, where I watch horse racing, eat well, and, as it turns out, do some very productive writing and investing.
Frankly, the next section of this post is as important as anything you have read from me on this site. So please spend a few minutes reading it.
The other site we run is SungardenInvestment.com
And that, alongside things here at ETFYourself.com, is where the title of this week’s post comes from. You see, we’ve been at this Substack thing for a year. And we love it. And like any project/business, we want everyone to get the most out of the effort. Between my writing gigs at Seeking Alpha, etf.com and Forbes.com, as well as other legacy duties from my former time as a personalized investment advisor, there’s a lot going on. Oh, did, I mention that SungardenInvestment.com on Substack is where I report in real time my trades and portfolio strategy on my CORE ETF, YARP Dividend Stock and new MacroTraxx accounts I run, which make up the vast majority of my own money? Yeah, there’s a lot going on.
And THAT is where your help is wanted…and needed!
ETFYourself.com is just about one year old. During that time, Dana and I have “thrown some spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks.” Which is a poor expression for me, since I love pasta and hate to see it wasted!
What can you help us with? TELL US WHAT YOU WANT FROM US. We can send a survey out (and maybe we will again), but we all know that about 1 of 50 subscribers will fill it out.
What we are specifically analyzing internally is this:
What are the best things Sungarden/Rob’s experience has to offer?
Is it portfolio construction, ETF analysis, introduction to unique ETFs, market musings, interesting takes on market movements, charting/technical analysis, basic investment education?
Is it investing “201/301” which means those who have the basics down and know what they like and want can take the next big leap forward with our help?
All of the above is what ETFYourself.com set out to do, can do, and we think has done. More so for those who pay $40 a month or $400 a year to go into a bit more detail with us. But it is frankly hard for us to read our audience. And we all want the same thing in general: we want to make money but not dare lose big. That’s how I’ve rolled for 30+ years, and that’s who I am as an investor.
But then, there’s the more direct look into what I do with my own money, and with explanations and rationale that goes beyond ETFs, to include stocks, options and bonds as well. That’s SungardenInvestment.com, our other (non-horse racing) site on Substack. But it is a $300/month or $3,600 a year, non-advisory service. In other words, I talk about what I am doing, as opposed to delivering personalized advice (my old job!).
And, while we believe that any investor with, say a portfolio size of $300,000 or more will get more out of that service than the jungle of low-cost newsletters, jokers and hype machines, as well as the investing part of many advisory services, it is not for everyone. And unlike the advisory business Dana and I used to own, people find us much more often than we find them now. And we are always glad they did.
So the other important aspect, beyond what our subscribers want, is what they believe is a fair price to pay for that ongoing insight: fair to you, fair to us.
If you are a free subscriber to ETFYourself.com, I STRONGLY encourage you to also subscribe for free to SungardenInvestment.com. Because there’s a good chance that the ETFYourself.com site will adjust its emphasis, more toward ETF research specifically. That will allow us to provide my more frequent, more in-depth, more Substack-like blogging efforts over at SungardenInvestment.com.
Those likely upcoming adjustments will be happening soon. BUT, not until we open our ears wide and let our current paid and free subscribers tell us what THEY want, what they like, don’t like, etc.
I have never been about “how many followers do I have?” I AM about “who wants to follow my work as a professional investor, and use that ongoing knowledge to help themselves?”
Our advisory business was roughly 30 families, $80mm in assets, and we had worked with the majority of them since the 1990s or very early part of this century, when we sold that business in 2020 to “semi-retire” to research and publishing. Bottom line, we have spent the past 12 months seeing what was out there for what I know, the ethical and straightforward way we operate in business and in life, and seeing who wants to be part of that “club” with us.
So, your help is wanted, and needed. Contact us at info@sungardeninvestment.com, or start a conversation in the chat. Thanks!
This Week’s Market Commentary
This picture, taken from my screen earlier today, says a lot about what I see in the markets, just 8 days after what increasingly looks like a very temporary market “event” surrounding a pending U.S. recession, and the one they already have in Japan, which is wreaking havoc on a long-tenured strategy big investors use called the “Yen carry trade.”
Oh, to be very clear, I don’t think that we are done dealing with all of the above. As I wrote to you last week, and also in a recent Seeking Alpha article, the current environment reminds me more than a little of 1987. The “ain’t no stopping us now” attitude of so many market participants, while taking lightly the bubbly growth of a host of market mechanisms that would eventually backfire.
In 1987, August was a warning, a reminder that risk was high. It wasn’t until October that the risk was fully realized. So my “base case” for what is happening now is similar to how that year developed. Nothing ever matches perfectly.
All I’m saying is, enjoy the rallies, but look out behind you.
This screen says it all. This was the performance of the 100 largest US stocks, as of mid-day Tuesday, alongside their year-to-date returns. Notice that quite a few laggards (or “turds” if you read one of my posts last month) are jumping back into the game. NKE, INTC, WBA, BA and of course SBUX at the top of the list.
That’s a great sign…except that when it happens so quickly, it tends to be temporary. Same goes for the quick rebound in the stocks that have romped all year, had sharp pullbacks, and are surging once again. Hey NVDA, LLY, META, I’m talking to you!
(little known fact: I wrote to SungardenInvestment.com premium subscribers yesterday afternoon that I was adding to several existing stock positions due to a combination of upcoming ex-dividend dates and charts that were at least “not bad.” SBUX was one of those, which is where a combination of process, charting experience and yes, some lucky bounces, all help the cause. )
I’ll discuss more in the premium section below the paywall, but here’s one picture worth a thousand words. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it to under 50.
What I see here is what could be a short-term, giant recovery back to the old QQQ highs. If it happens, that’s a 10% move. Not enough to make me a “long-term investor” in the broad stock market (SPY looks similar, by the way), but plenty of room to try to attack it, at least a bit.
Frankly, this is why I am so focused on the broader array of investment work I do. For newer investors or those who simply want to follow the KISS rule (keep it simple, Sungarden), ETFYourself.com provides that high-level view and a 7-ETF portfolio for paid subscribers intended to demonstrate a portfolio management process, albeit one that I put heavy constraints on (consider changes on Tuesdays primarily, 7 ETFs in the portfolio at all times, 7 ETFs to choose from for each slot, etc.).
Today’s markets are so skittish, news-driven and short-term focused, and I don’t think that will entirely change back to the way so many of us were taught. Some adapted, others didn’t.
So over at SungardenInvestment.com, through what is more of my total portfolio, every day is potentially a “live” day. Whether it is:
Shifting subtly in the CORE ETF portfolio that also includes a dash of options exposure
Tactically managing position sizes in the YARP™ stock portfolio to pursue total return and grab dividend income when the coast is clear…and using options and cash to protect when it isn’t
Getting my “wild side” on via small tactical positions in the MacroTraxx portfolio, that combined T-bills with ETFs (sometimes levered ETFs) to try to invest aggressively, but with that T-bill “buffer”
The 3 different sub-strategies above combine to help me exploit markets like this, in ways that take what I did for decades for others, and now do for myself. And for those who want to learn from and with me along the way. The recent market slide and bounce were exactly the type of conditions that to me, make the Sungarden approach so relevant and yes, timely.
The challenge to us: how best to deliver that ongoing insight from us to you. So tell us.
So yeah, you’re help is wanted…and needed…before we start the next phase of this most enjoyable phase of our professional lives.
As usual, we’ll discuss the current ROAR Score and the 7-ETF model for paid subscribers below.