Instead of chasing after performing sectors, investors can use exchange traded funds to capitalize on market segments that might be on track to do a one-eighty.
Trang Ho for Investor’s Business Daily points out a couple of contrarian ETF plays that could help investors capture a turn in some areas of the markets that have been either oversold or overbought.
“Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful,” Warren Buffett once famously said.
The ProShares Short S&P 500 (NYSEArca: SH) provides a daily inverse, or -100%, play on the S&P 500 Index.
“I believe the U.S. stock market is in the late stage of the upward trend that began in March 2009,” Mike Shell, president and chief investment officer at Shell Capital Management, said in the IBD article. “Since 1932, the average bull market uptrend has lasted 36 months and the current trend is 54 months old. If history is a guide, this bull market is coming close to an end.”
Shell also points to catalysts like the Fed tapering, Syria crisis, new Fed chair appointment and debt-ceiling as potential hurdles to a continued equity rally.
The Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (NYSEArca: VWO) is “due for a bit of a breather” after falling 11% year-to-date in anticipation to an end to easy money, Matt Reiner, portfolio manager at Wela Strategies, said in the article. [Don’t Look Now but Emerging Market ETFs are Outperforming]
“VWO is down greater than 10% for the year, and the contrarian investor may find some value in this beaten-up investment,” Reiner added.