Hi Tom, Thanks for the explanation of how Newport works in the background, it helps a lot.
I got frustrated with it when trying to move existing positions into it in a way that made sense and so gave up on it. Now I see that I should not have tried to do that but only new positions as I created them because what you describe makes more sense as a way to go.
The other thing it seemed to me, who knows how accurate this perception was, that in order to generate reasonable levels for buy and sell I had to have larger positions than was possible at that time with the free cash on hand.
So I'm going to go back and try Newport again on the newer positions that I have that I've been tracking with the spreadsheet.
But I still have the concern about ETFs that, for the most part, which trade within a narrow range. This, too, seems to require larger positions than I can create and generate trades within reasonable time frames and have any range of diversity and this concerns me.
How do you handle the tight range issue, Tom?
I've been tracking the Bloomberg sector listings in my Sunday paper for more than a year. I wish I could find out which ETFs or indexes they use to create their charts, probably ETFs as they list market value for each sector. Anyway it seems that Consumer Staples, Utilities, and perhaps Telecom are the ones out most out of step with the general direction of the market. Given this I'd want at least one of these and one or two of the others to create my basic portfolio going forward for the bulk of my portfolio. Does this make sense, especially that we are likely to have at least a correction within the next twelve months?
One fellow I've read calls a ~10% downturn a timid bear, a downturn of ~20% a hungry bear and anything more a ferocious bear. My guess is that we will see a hungry bear this time around, but, who knows?
Best,
Allen
