The defensive posture taken by Sabrient’s fundamentals-based SectorCast-ETF model has allowed the long/short model portfolio to prosper in the face of the market weakness we’ve seen over the past week. The formerly hot Materials sector had begun to show signs of cooling off last week even as the overall market was hitting new highs, and over the past week it fell hard.
Although the market is flashing signs of a strong breakout for the New Year, Sabrient’s SectorCast-ETF model continues to flash defensive signals. Given the quantitative model’s reliance on value-based fundamentals, this shouldn’t be surprising after such a lengthy and sustained rally. This week, there are few changes to the sector rankings. Most notable is the continued rise in Energy, which now scores a 62 but hasn’t yet cracked the Top 2.
As the stock market continues to trade at 15-month highs, Sabrient’s SectorCast-ETF model is getting even more defensive, even though we are in a historically bullish time of year. The fundamentals-based quantitative model has a GARP (growth at reasonable price) focus, and this week there are significant changes to the sector rankings.
I’ve been reading prominent market pundits predicting everything from the “Crash of 2010 coming” to “Major surge ahead.” With such divergence of predictions, it seems like a good time to remain conservatively long/short in accordance with Sabrient’s SectorCast-ETF value-oriented model.
Given the recent market weakness, it’s no surprise that Sector Detector’s long/short portfolios have outperformed. This week, Sabrient’s SectorCast-ETF model remains defensive. Of course, the underlying quantitative model isn’t aware that we are entering a time of year that is traditionally bullish. It simply reads the data and tells us which sectors appear to be relatively overvalued.
