As 2018 winds down, the extended bull market has seen volatility rearing its ugly head. With 2019 right around the corner, investors should think about how to position their portfolios for what may be coming ahead and mitigate potential further downside on their investments.
On the upcoming webcast, Managing Risk in Your Clients’ Portfolios, Jan van Eck, CEO of VanEck, and Stephen Blumenthal, Executive Chairman and Chief Investment Officer at CMG Capital Management Group, will delve into a tactical investment strategy that may help investors navigate market swings to enhance a portfolio’s overall performance.
For example, investors who are wary of potential pullbacks in an extended bull market environment may turn to alternative strategies, such as the VanEck Vectors NDR CMG Long/Flat Allocation ETF (NYSEArca: LFEQ). LFEQ can provide investors with an investment solution that offers a systematic approach to preserve capital by increasing cash when market health is weak while participating in uptrends with a full allocation to equity.
The ETF strategy tries to reflect the performance of the Ned Davis Research CMG US Large Cap Long/Flat Index, which follows trade signals that dictates the portfolio’s equity allocation ranging from 100% fully invested or “long” S&P 500 exposure to 100% in cash or “flat” Solactive 13-week U.S. T-Bills.
The index’s model follows a two-step process. The first step measures trend following and mean reversion within the S&P 500 industry groupings to determine a bullish or bearish market environment. Additionally, the model applies a risk filter process to ensure that all of the price-based industry level indicators are effective over time.
The second step calculates the scores taken from the first phase to produce the equity allocations of the index. When the index is not completely long or flat, either 80% or 40% of the portfolio will be allocated to the S&P 500, with the remainder allocated to the Solactive 13-week U.S. T-bill Index.
LFEQ is currently exposed to about 80% in S&P 500 and 20% U.S. Treasury Bills.
Financial advisors who are interested in learning more about risk management strategies can register for the Thursday, December 6 webcast here.