Blessings Even with Rough Financial Markets
Dear Gaugers, from our families to yours, everyone at MarketGauge (and related companies) wishes you and your families a happy, healthy, and grateful Thanksgiving holiday.
Even with a rough year in the financial markets and hot inflation, there is still so much for us all to be thankful for. What might be the 3 things that come to your mind when you go around the table, and everyone asks, “what are you most grateful for this year.”
One of those things for us (here at MG) is being of service to you, our subscribers, readers, investors, friends, and public, who we wish to help educate and guide to better investment/financial decisions.
There aren’t many investors (including the largest hedge funds) that are net positive this year. This week it was reported on Fox Business that the average retirement fund is down 23% year-to-date (YTD). This is consistent with most of the financial universe reporting.
While some of our long-term investment strategies are down on the year, our blended strategies are outperforming the markets by a wide margin because several strategies are positive YTD.
Our performance is a result of the time and effort we put into testing, re-testing, developing enhancements, and rolling out new investment strategies to create smoother, better, and risk-averse investment outcomes. Markets have changed, new asset classes have emerged and submerged, and one must adapt.
Decades of experience and the current bear market have demonstrated that combining multiple, disparate, non-correlated investment strategies is the best way to achieve an optimal outcome. Last week we demonstrated the returns and peace of mind you can enjoy with blended strategies in a webinar entitled “How To Create Your All Weather Portfolio…”
A blended strategy is an investment method you can do yourself, or (we recently released) several options to have it 100% done for you by an asset manager. If you’d like to learn more, watch the webinar mentioned above or contact Rob here.
So Many Different Opinions About Where the Market May Be Headed
We had a Zoom interaction with our All-Access members this week. (email rob@marketgauge.com or book a call with him if you’re interested in becoming an All-Access Member). Geoff took a poll to see measure the group’s investment sentiment. The question was, “Do you think we get up to 4400 on the S&P or back down to recent lows first?” The idea of the poll was to see if one side was lopsided, which of course, would point to a contrarian viewpoint. (The majority are often wrong). Such was not the case. It was evenly split.
This divide in opinions is what we are finding with investment research and publishing companies as well right now. I receive a few subscriptions myself. I also connect with many friends and colleagues weekly who like to share their viewpoints.
I can assure you, our readers, that the opinions I read and receive from others are all over the place right now. And as well as our small, exclusive survey of All-Access members, they were about evenly split.
So, who do we believe? How do we go about investing (regardless of any consensus opinion)?
The answer is really quite simple (at least we think so). Find someone who has a reputable track record and has been successful, especially in down markets, and stick with just a couple. Blending different investment strategies, similar to what we are now rolling out, is an optimal way to spread your investment thesis. We feel particularly strongly about the potential for commodities and metals right now. In fact, we believe we may be at the start of a commodity super cycle.
Our algorithms are also telling us that these areas are gaining strength. We are encouraged that our dynamic rules-based and trend-adapting strategies are uncovering early opportunities that most financial media has not yet identified (examples this year were ERX, UNG, TBT and TAN).
Was There a Good Reason for This Most Recent Market Rally?
Click thru to read more about the factors that have been driving the market recently and what our Big View indicators are uncovering about the changing tides of the market:
