Mousetrap 7/17/2011

Since the Mousetrap model only looks at the technical relationship of industries to each other, and the fundamental relationship of stocks to each other, not much happened last week:

Industry Stock Current Action Date Return

PAPER BKI Hold 5/31/2011 10.91%
FURNITUR CFI Buy 6/22/2011 16.78%
OILGAS SE Buy 6/27/2011 3.67%
WATER AWR Hold 7/5/2011 -0.17%
ENVIRONM CLH Hold 7/6/2011 1.90%
NWSPAPER GCI Buy 7/14/2011 -0.95%

If I didn’t own any of these already, I’d be looking at GCI as a buy for tomorrow.

As for broad market timing, the models still show

SECULAR CONDITION: this as the second half of a secular bear market (based on performance ratios of Stocks vs Bond vs Gold), likely to last until 2017 (I base this on population growth ratios).
CYCLICAL CONDITION: the models show us bouncing along what appears to be a broad market top, with Utilities being strongly favored by institutional money flow.

If I only owned two (secular) investments they would be IWM (or RSP) and GLD.

If I owned a third (cyclical) ETF it would be XLU. Although I am not presently holding any of these, I’ve been mentioning them, so I might as well do so in a simple and consistent manner in case someone is interested in knowing the current state of those ETFs. So, it will be something like this:

SECULAR: IWM and GLD
SECTOR: XLU (utilities)
MOUSETRAP: (as I usually post)

These will always be long positions. IWM and GLD will likely remain unchanged for years. I’m not entirely satisfied with GLD for tax purposes, however, and so in the near future I’ll be reviewing other kinds of commodity ETFs that might not have the tax disadvantage of GLD. If I find a satisfactory substitute I’ll post a note and make the change.

The sector selections will change from time to time, but not too often.

And for the time being, I have no buys or sells scheduled, since all of my “buy” slots on the Mousetrap model are currently filled.

Broke even today thanks to the hedged portfolio, but the Mousetrap took a beating:

BKI 5/31/2011 10.00%
CFI 6/22/2011 13.42%
SE 6/27/2011 2.53%
AWR 7/5/2011 -1.45%
CLH 7/6/2011 1.68%
GCI 7/14/2011 -4.41%

Will be curious to see what happened with the money flow in the different industries, though I doubt any major shuffling happened.

Bki 5/31/2011 13.05%
cfi 6/22/2011 14.50%
se 6/27/2011 3.36%
awr 7/5/2011 -.94%
clh 7/6/2011 5.14%
gci 7/14/2011 -.73%

Bki 5/31/2011 12.57%
cfi 6/22/2011 15.82%
se 6/27/2011 2.91%
awr 7/5/2011 -1.08%
clh 7/6/2011 4.67%
gci 7/14/2011 -1.98%

Bki 5/31/2011 13.29%
cfi 6/22/2011 24.95%
se 6/27/2011 4.61%
awr 7/5/2011 .34%
clh 7/6/2011 5.82%
gci 7/14/2011 1.10%

GCI remains the top buy on the Model. Everything else is a hold.

Also, on the sector rotation model XLU was dropped after today and replaced with XLK (I've actually been holding XLK in a Robot test, so I'm glad my model favors it again).

Bki 5/31/2011 14.40%
cfi 6/22/2011 25.79%
se 6/27/2011 4.50%
awr 7/5/2011 -1.05%
clh 7/6/2011 5.33%
gci 7/14/2011 0.37%