MI APPROACHES
- GTAA-6
- Bowley Growth/Surprise screen, quarterly hold, top 5-6
2021 Results
GTAA-6: 16.1% (Success: it outperformed the appropriate benchmark VBINX’s 10.7%).
In general, I target up to 60% of the port to equity-type “risk” asset classes, and 40% to fixed-income classes including cash depending on the same 8m MA criteria. General rule is reallocate monthly within a few days of month-ends. Details of using the 8M MA / absolute and relative momentum discussed previously.
Best
Domestic Large Cap: 24%. This lost to SPY’s 30% due to using combination of RSP and select large cap growth stocks.
Lg Cap Momentum: 21% (includes Bowley below and tech hypergrowth)
Real Estate 16.6%
Worst
SC Growth: -18.4%: led by MI screen blend down 8% by March. The performance of IJT reflected the general reduction in demand for small cap growth after 2/12/21. It was a trendless, oscillating year after that.
Emerging: -14%; performance here was mitigated by only in with <5% for 4 months in year. In Emerging I’m including a specific future growth pick BYDDY which had a tough December. EEM had a tough year, draining down to a YTD loss after a 15% Jan-Feb run.
My cash allocation oscillated between 45% and 20% depending on market and asset class trends. I ended the use of traditional MI screens after Q1.
Bowley Growth/Surprise screen: 30.1%
Quarterly hold, top 5-6. This mostly mechanical approach is most recently explained at discussion.fool.com/bowley-quotapproachquot-update-1121-34982342…
Best picks came from some under-reported places
BLDR - the largest residential construction supplier in the US - +57% (to date)
DDS - Dillards dept stores. (Really?) +73%
UPST - Screen pick, and ubiquitously discussed Saul pick also. I was in and out 3 times - +44%, +73%, -16%
JYNT - +52% chiropractic services
Worst performers were in Feb and March as the new market rotation started.
KOPN - -32%
RDFN - -30% real estate ~Zillow
ROKU - -25%
Sometimes I did get out on limit downs, but KOPN as an example was one I should have - a quite smaller-cap single product money losing company that had a huge run up just before a blowout earnings report - which was “lost less than expected” and drove up the surprise %.
On the plus side, this “hi performing companies in hi relative strength industries” approach was instructive. Following top down industry-level accumulation trends down into high revenue growth and earnings surprises uncovers some gems. It also can highlight where and when distribution or rotation starts in formerly “hot” industries - like cloud/internet in the middle of '21.
Best wishes for '22,
FC