The purpose of this website is to share some of the investment research I have been working on since 2018. Successfully picking individual stocks can be can be an arduous task, often requiring skills we don’t have or have time to acquire. The invention of ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) provides a universe of investment strategies that any novice investor can harness to provide an investment portfolio for the long haul.
ETFs are an investing vehicle that has become immensely popular in last 10 years. ETFs differ from Mutual Funds in that they can be traded like a stock at any time during market hours. ETFs also provide a nice tax loophole concerning short/long term capital gains (Bloomberg, Investopedia) that is not widely known, discussed, or promoted. An ETF like OMFL can engage in short term trading, but as long as you hold the ETF 1 year, you will not be charged with any short term gains.
There are thousands of ETFs constructed differently to suit different investing strategies. Many are computerized models (algorithms) that do all the stock picking, while others have a manager or managers, that hand pick the stocks. When you buy an ETF you are buying 100’s of different stocks with the click of a mouse. Essentially all the stock picking is done for you. My research lead to a portfolio of four ETFs, with consistent performance, and resilience in a bear market. There will always be some hot ETFs that concentrate in one sector or strategy and generate high returns for a short time period, but then fizzle out and perform poorly when the investing strategy or sector falls out of favor.
As you see on charts here, an ETF such as QQQ which is made up of the top 100 Nasdaq stocks can generate outsized gains over long time frames, but experience higher drawdowns in a bear market. We will use differing allocations of OMFL, SCHD, SPGP, SCHG and or QQQ to create a balance between conservative risk and aggressive growth. Back testing many ETFs I have focused on optimum growth during the good times, balanced with steady dividends, and resilience during a bear market. On the ETF info page I have collected Summary links and Methodology links for those interested in how each ETF is constructed, OMFL, SCHD and SPGP make use of distinctive computer models to pick their constituents. While SCHG and QQQ are based on the Dow Jones U.S. Large-Cap Growth Total Stock Market Index & the Nasdaq 100 index respectively, and less algo driven. On the model portfolio page you can pick from 5 portfolios to suit your own investing needs.