Quote Originally Posted by manucastle View Post
Thanks for your quick reply Billy,

I am probably going to show my ignorance here but I never learned anything by not asking stupid questions :O)

Lets for example add to the Robots a bond fund and we need an ETF with good liquidity so lets choose SHY (iShares Barclays 1-3 Year Treasury Bond).

This fund has a negative correlation with GDX of -0.10 and with IWM of -0.41 over the last 5 years.

http://www.assetcorrelation.com/user/add_to_custom

Would this not be a good alternative to make some money during the times when both GDX and IWM Robot signals are in cash. Or on the other hand be simply a better investment at times than the other two ?

I hope you can indulge me.

Trev
Trev, is SHY really an alternative to cash with an ATR of 0.09%?
In comparison to IWM, (ATR = 3.04%) and GDX (ATR = 3.40%), your allocation into SHY to compensate the volatility of the other 2 instruments should be close to 100% of your portfolio.
SHY gained 0.08% last week, IWM lost 10.55% and GDX lost 2.58%.
Frankly, if a SHY robot ever told you to be long, what would have been the difference with being in cash?
Finally, there is no money flow that could be computed for a bond ETF like for a stock ETF. We would have to rely on the treasury futures flow or the ETF's flow itself for direction and we know that it would not be practical nor reliable.
Billy