Sunday, January 22, 2012

ETF Asset Management System

At the beginning of every month, I calculate the value of the proprietary "Investment Value Index" for each of the following five major asset classes represented by their respective ETFs: cash (SHY), long-term Treasury bonds (TLT), gold (GLD), stocks (SPY), and real estate (IYR). Then I allocate 50% of the capital to each of the two ETFs with the highest value of the "Investment Value Index".

For example, suppose at the beginning of February 2012, the two assets with the highest value of the "Investment Value Index" would be cash and long-term Treasury bonds, I would allocate 50% of the capital to SHY and the other 50% to TLT. If at the beginning of March 2012, the two assets with the highest value of the "Investment Value Index" change to gold and long-term Treasury bonds, I would exchange SHY to GLD, and continue to hold TLT.

The equity growth curve from January 2003 to December 2011 is as follows:



A few parameters of the ETF Asset Management System are:

Investment vehicles: ETFs of five major asset classes (SHY, TLT, GLD, SPY, and IYR)
Annualized return: 13.9% (from January 2003 to December 2011)
Peak-to-trough equity drawdown: -11.9% (from November 2008 to May 2009)
Numbers of trades: 42 times in 9 years (average 4.7  trades per year)

The profit/loss profile of the completed trades is as follows:




Among the 42 trades, 28 were profitable, 14 were losses. The average profit per trade was +10.1%, the average loss per trade was -3.3%. The highest profitable trade was +87.8%, the largest loss trade was -7.2%.

In summary, the ETF Asset Management System is a 100% quantitative and mechanical investment system. It holds only 2 of the 5 ETFs of major asset classes at any time. It is simple, easy to follow, and trades fewer than 5 times per year on average. Above all, it fulfills the ultimate winning investment principle of "cut losses short, let profits run".

Disclosure: I hold 2 of the following 5 ETFs at any given time: SHY, TLT, GLD, SPY, and IYR.


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My investment blogs:

http://murmuronhudson.blogspot.com

http://blog.sina.com.cn/murmuronhudson

http://blog.wenxuecity.com/myindex.php?blogID=48731

3 comments:

  1. I believe it great and a kind of followed this strategy, but a little aggressive.

    Why no comments so far. Maybe they think it is still a low return for them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A robust system works under any condition, if you random the data ( shuffle the data)' it won't work. Also gold increase way more in that period, so you selection od gold is biased already ( known fact)

    ReplyDelete
  3. The same trading rules applied to any different set of assets excluding gold also works:

    ETF Investment System Since 1950 (without gold)
    http://etfinvestmentsystem.blogspot.com/2012/05/etf-investment-system-since-1950.html

    In fact, the same principle works beyond finance to other risk business such as corporate competitions or sports betting.

    ReplyDelete