June | 2017 | iMarketSignals

This system invests in well capitalized companies with strong market positions, which pay good dividends, have price appreciation potential, and provide a degree of downside protection during bear markets.
The portfolio holds six large-cap stocks selected from a universe of twenty Russell 1000 Index stocks with Capital Strength type characteristics, rebalanced quarterly in January, April, July and October.
A backtest, from 7/6/2006 (inception of FTCS) to 5/31/2017, showed a 24.7% annualized return with a maximum drawdown of -25.7%, and low average annual turnover of about 80%.
Over the same period the First Trust Capital Strength ETF (FTCS), which selects stocks from the NASDAQ Index, produced only 9.63% annualized return with a maximum drawdown of -53.6%.
FTCS’s performance is not much better than that for SPY (the ETF tracking the S&P 500), which over this period returned 8.25% annualized, with a maximum drawdown of -55.2%.