Today, we finished managing our ETF portfolio.  Here's where our investments stand as of Friday.   A break-out gets us rockin' finally after nine months of whipsaw-palooza.  A poor outcome from G20 probably delivers a painful drawdown. But we can't control any of that.  All we can do is follow our rules and trade positions that outpeform the broader All Country World Index using the tools in Chaikin Analytics.  Watch our trading video here. 

Here are this week's trades:

This morning we flushed out the bearishness of yesterday's close.  As we suspected earlier this week the bull vs bear ratio of the SPY has slipped back below 2:1. 

We then turned our attention to managing our simulated ETF portfolio. This week we our managing our U.S. holdings.  Despite the overall outperformance of tech, we found ourselves liquidating a sub-sector of tech.  We also liquidated half  of our XLRE position, which we feel will end up being a whip-saw, but we have to  follow our rules.  Watch our Thursday premarket video for our complete analysis. 

A few things from our Relative Strength Wednesday analysis powered by Chaikin Analytics

• Markets are up against resistance
• Money Flow, especially in cyclical stocks, not as strong lately. Institutions may be starting to sell into strength. 
• Defensive sectors Healthcare and Utilities occupy the stop spots on our sector ranking/trend chart.  Doesn't bode well for a huge breakout rally. 

With earnings, China trade and Fed all in play in July and implied volatility holding above 15, the data suggests bullish trading but with some hedges in place. 

Macro- Monday reinforces are bullish lean, however there are some caution flags not to ignore. While the fundamental ratings ( Bull / Bear ratios) have improved in all 11 SPY sectors, including energy, the bias clearly remains defensive.  The Bull / Bear ratio of the SPY has improved well above 2:1, in fact, as you can see,  we have entered a the top 1/3 of the chart, which is hard to maintain for extended periods.  All of our weekly Macro material can be found in the MARKET CONDITIONS section.   Watch out video for our complete Macro-Monday analysis AND to see as we manage some shorter term trades and use the Chaikin Screener to look for new bullish trades. 

Friday's trading meeting: we had a data feed issue, but did our best to manage our ETF portfolio. 

Relative Strength Wednesday trading meeting video above, relative strength trend chart below. 

The Bull v Bear ratio on the $SPY remains bullish at nearly 2:1, while price remains up and above both short and long term moving averages. While overbought, we are remain cautiously bullish. 

The Bull v Bear ratio chart (above) currently approaching a level that can act as resistance.
​You can always view all of our Macro-Monday work on the Market conditions page .  

During Friday's trading meeting, we confirmed our tepidly bullish market posture and continued to manage our ETF portfolio following 3 - 6 month strength in the market.  For the first time since we started investing in our paper-portfolio last October, we actually executed some forced liquidation trades from our International holdings to make room for some better performing US sector and subsector ETF's. With the market approaching resistance and our portfolio invested (finally) to its upper holding limit, we are either about to enjoy an extended run of intermediate gains or endure a painful drawdown. The Fed minutes will likely determine our short term fate. We have no idea which it will be, so we follow our rules designed to protect us from catastrophe, while relying on Chaikin Analytics and relative strength trends in the markets to maximize risk reward trade-off.  All of our holdings are listed below.  Trading video is above. 

It seems that we are continuously managing our simulated ETF portfolio.  After our daily snapshot of the markets, pre-open, we look at forced liquidations in our portfolio.  Our rules and the fact that we only manage once a week have, for the most part, kept us from getting whipsawed.   Today we are forced to liquidate one holding in US sector 2 holdings.  Watch our video to which part of tech has failed to outperform on a relative strength basis and is now out of our portfolio.