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• An investor who is able to assess stock market climate, and able to adjust asset allocation accordingly, will have an advantage in the market.
• Four different approaches are used to assess market climate which are based on economic, momentum and sentiment indicators. This results in five different market climate segments.
• During up-markets the system is invested in long equity ETFs and then switches progressively to fixed-income ETFs when neutral or negative stock market climates exist.
• This system invests simultaneously in four Vanguard ETFs (or their corresponding mutual funds), appropriately selected for the prevailing market climate, and typically holds them for longer than a year.
• A backtest of the model from Jan-2000 to Aug-2016 shows an average annual return of 15% with a maximum drawdown of -12.6% and a low average annual turnover of 82%.

• This system provides investment selections according to stock market climate. During up-markets it is long equity ETFs and switches to bond- and gold ETFs during neutral and negative markets.
• It invests periodically in only two ETFs, appropriately selected for the prevailing market climate.
• A backtest from Jan-2000 to Jul-2016 shows an average annual return of 16% with a maximum drawdown of -17% and only 61 realized trades during this 16.5 year long period.

• The system screens for S&P 500 stocks which yield significantly more than the average yield of the index and which also have a low 3-yr beta (low volatility).
• It is shown that holding continuously all the screen-selected high-yielding, low-volatility stocks of the S&P500 would have provided an average annualized return of about 14% from Jan-2000 to Jun-2016.
• Holding only the highest ranked seven stocks of this group and periodically rebalancing would have produced a higher annualized return of about 22% with a maximum drawdown of -34%.
• The iM HiD-LoV-7 System shows much higher returns and less risk than the S&P 500 Low Volatility High Dividend Index.

• Royalty companies receive a stream, which is an agreed-upon amount of gold, silver, or other precious metal that a mining company is obligated to deliver in exchange for up-front cash.
• From 2008 to 2016, Franco-Nevada produced the best returns of all royalty companies, and better returns than GLD or SPY.
• When compared to GLD as the benchmark, the iM-Rating for FNV is A(A), indicating that the most recent one- and five-year Rolling Returns for the company were higher than for
• Additionally, the one- and five-year rolling return graphs for FNV are sloping upwards near the end, indicating possible further excess gains over the benchmark ETFs, GLD and SPY.

The iM Fund Rating System rates a fund’s return relative to a benchmark fund by comparing the terminal values from periodic $1.00 monthly contributions to both funds over the same period. Ratings can range from a grossly underperforming ‘E’ to a good outperforming ‘A’. The ratings are derived from the most recent past 1-yr and 5-yr Rolling Performances, shown as ‘1yr(5yr)’ e.g. A((B)).
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• The DAGS, short for Dynamic Linearly Detrended Enhanced Aggregate Spread, is a derivative of the Enhanced Aggregate Spread (EAS) recession indicator which comes from Robert Dieli.
• The DAGS can signal, as much as nine months ahead when a cycle peak (recession start) is likely to take place.
• Armed with that information, investors can make appropriate plans. As of writing (May 2016), it signals, at least to the end of January 2017, a continuation of the expansion phase of this business cycle.

• The Enhanced Aggregate Spread (EAS) comes from Robert Dieli, and most of the following description of this indicator, and why it works, is from personal communications.
• The EAS can signal, as much as nine months ahead, when either a cycle peak (recession start) or a cycle trough (recession end) is likely to take place.
• Armed with that information, decision makers can make appropriate plans. As of this writing (May 2016), it signals that it is highly unlikely for a recession to begin before the end of 2016.

• A reliable source for recession forecasting is the unemployment rate (UER), which can provide signals for the beginnings and ends of recessions.
• Recently Gundlach warned if the UER moves up a couple of tenths in the next couple of months, “we will be on recession watch.”
• The latest UER (March 2016) is at 5.0%, signifying that no recession is imminent. However, should the UER increase to 5.3% then a recession will be signaled.
• Investors should carefully monitor the unemployment rate, because if it moves up a few tenths of a percent from where it is now, then high recession probabilities prevail.

This model is similar to our iM-BestogaX-5 System which is partially hedged by shortening SSO. But the underlying component models of the iM-BestogaX-5(SDS) System use a long SDS hedge instead of short SSO.

• The iM-BestogaX Index of the Russell1000 holds the so called “Vice” stocks (excluding Gaming stocks), plus the stocks from the GICS-sub-industries: Restaurants, Soft Drinks, and Internet Retail.
• This capitalization weighted index outperformed SPY by about 4.5-times from Jan-2000 to Mar-2016.
• Over down-market periods the iM-BestogaX Index lost on average 87% less than SPY, and over up-market periods gained on average 24% more than SPY.
• Trading systems which periodically select a small number of highest ranked stocks from the Index produced simulated annualized return as high as 34.4% with maximum drawdowns of about -20%.

• The BestogaX universe of the Russell1000 consists of the so called “Vice” stocks (excluding Gaming stocks), plus the stocks from the GICS-sub-industries: Restaurants, Soft Drinks, and Internet Retail.
• A discussion on the merits of investing in the stocks of the BestogaX universe is available here.
• The iM-BestogaX5-System is a combination of the partially hedged BestogaX-5 Investor and Trader models, each of which periodically select five of the highest ranked stocks from the Russell1000 BestogaX universe.
• No market timing in the stock buy- and sell rules. During adverse market conditions it is hedged short SSO, with hedge ratios varying from 20% to 50% of current holdings.
• This system has a low turnover, because the specified minimum holding periods are one year, and three months for the Investor and Trader component models, respectively.  

Please refer to the relevant model descriptions for performance curves of the two equal weight component models BestogaX-5 Investor partially hedged and BestogaX-5 Trader partially hedged.
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• The BestogaX universe of the Russell1000 consists of the so called “Vice” stocks (excluding Gaming stocks), plus the stocks from the GICS-sub-industries: Restaurants, Soft Drinks, and Internet Retail.
• A discussion on the merits of investing in the stocks of the BestogaX universe is available here.
• The iM-BestogaX5-Trader model periodically selects only five of the highest ranked stocks from the Russell1000 BestogaX universe, and holds them for at least three months.
• There is no market timing in the buy- and sell rules. The model is rebalanced weekly, resulting in small weight adjustments, and dividends are re-invested when available.
• Backtesting was done on the web-based trading simulation platform Portfolio 123.

In the Figure-1 below, the red graph represents the performance of the model and the blue graph shows the performance of the benchmark SPY.
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• The BestogaX universe of the Russell1000 consists of the so called “Vice” stocks (excluding Gaming stocks), plus the stocks from the GICS-sub-industries: Restaurants, Soft Drinks, and Internet Retail.
• A discussion on the merits of investing in the stocks of the BestogaX universe is available here.
• The iM-BestogaX5-Investor model periodically selects only five of the highest ranked stocks from the Russell1000 BestogaX universe, and holds them for at least one year
• There is no market timing in the buy- and sell rules. The model is rebalanced weekly, resulting in small weight adjustments, and dividends are re-invested when available.
• Backtesting was done on the web-based trading simulation platform Portfolio 123.
  

In the Figure-1 below, the red graph represents the performance of the model and the blue graph shows the performance of the benchmark SPY.
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• The BestogaX universe of the Russell1000 consists of the so called “Vice” stocks (excluding Gaming stocks), plus the stocks from the GICS-sub-industries: Restaurants, Soft Drinks, and Internet Retail.
• A capitalization weighted index of this universe outperformed SPY by about 4.5 times from Jan-2000 to Mar-2016.
• Over down-market periods the iM-BestogaX Index lost on average 87% less than SPY, and over up-market periods gained on average 24% more than SPY.
• Many of the BestogaX companies have affordable products, familiar name brands, and worldwide distribution networks, providing them with reliable revenue growth also during adverse economic climates.
• Investors holding continuously all the BestogaX stocks, and rebalancing to equal weight every four weeks, would have had an annualized return of over 17% from January 2000 to March 2016.   

Over the backtest period, Jan-2000 to Mar-2016, the number of stocks in this universe varied from a minimum of 23 to a maximum of 32. Stocks currently in the BestogaX universe are listed in the table below, with market capitalization shown in $-millions. There are 25 large-cap companies with a market-cap greater than $5-Billion.
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The iM Standard Market Timer endeavors to signal periods when it may be advantageous to exit the market or hedge one’s portfolio of stocks.

• This combination model aims to provide reasonable returns with low drawdowns during all market conditions.
• There are six equal weight component models in Combo6, five of which are from Combo5 and the BESTOGA3 is the sixth component model.

• This combination model aims to provide reasonable returns with low drawdowns during all market conditions.
• There are six equal weight component models from Combo6, (five of which are from Combo5 and the BESTOGA3), which are then hedged 25% with the Best10(Short Russell3000), the seventh component model.

The iM Gold-Timer timer endeavors to signal long-term investment periods for Gold. It uses the SPDR® Gold Shares ETF: GLD. When not invested in GLD the model goes to 100% cash.

• This model selects periodically up to 10 stocks of the Russell 3000 index to sell short.
• Stocks having a market-cap less than $800-million and those having a 10-week average daily total amount traded of less than $6,000,000 are not sold short.
• Simulated performance over a 16 year backtest period shows an annualized return of 18.8% with a maximum drawdown of -48%.

• This combination model aims to provide good returns with low drawdowns during all market conditions.
• For the period 2000 to 2016 the backtested annualized return is 24.0% with maximum drawdown of -10.5%.
• There are five equal weight component models in Combo5.