Just a quick update while I'm on vacation this week.

I’ve been reading prominent market pundits predicting everything from the “Crash of 2010 coming” to “Major surge ahead.” With such divergence of predictions, it seems like a good time to remain conservatively long/short in accordance with Sabrient’s SectorCast-ETF value-oriented model.

Given the recent market weakness, it’s no surprise that Sector Detector’s long/short portfolios have outperformed. This week, Sabrient’s SectorCast-ETF model remains defensive. Of course, the underlying quantitative model isn’t aware that we are entering a time of year that is traditionally bullish. It simply reads the data and tells us which sectors appear to be relatively overvalued.

Last month, I posted that net insider trading transactions had turned positive for the first time since May. Updating this for the week ending November 27, it appears that optimistic insiders again outnumber pessimistic ones.

As the stock market continues to trade near its highs, Sabrient’s SectorCast-ETF model remains defensive, given its GARP (growth at reasonable price) focus. The top and bottom ranked sectors remain the same this week, but there was noticeable movement in the middle. In particular, Information Technology is dropping while Telecommunications rises.

Sabrient’s SectorCast ETF rankings solidified its defensive bent this week. Healthcare continues to lead, but Consumer Staples moved ahead of InfoTech into the second spot. On the bottom, Materials remains in the basement as the fundamentally most overvalued sector, but Industrials dropped quite a bit in the wake of its recent price momentum, which added to its already overvalued levels.

We are seeing only slight movement to Sabrient’s Sector Detector ETF rankings, as Healthcare, InfoTech, and Consumer Staples continue to lead, while Materials sinks further into the cellar and remains the fundamentally most overvalued sector. 

Latest rankings: This week, SectorCast-ETF indicates that Healthcare (XLV) remains solidly in front on a forward-looking basis, with the highest score of 93.

Healthcare, InfoTech, and Consumer Staples continue to lead in the Sector Detector ETF rankings, based on Sabrient’s fundamentals-based SectorCast model. Actually, they increased their scores this week relative to the other sectors as the bottom-up speculative rally led to further overvaluation in the fundamentally weaker sectors. 

Sabrient's research team posts a wide variety of useful data for internal reference, and much of it is used within our quantitative models and client deliverables. One of the things that we track is Net Insider Transactions.

You’ve heard it before: trading today’s stock market can be hazardous to both your wealth and health. The market can go up fast…and it can fall even faster. In such an environment, many sophisticated investors and portfolio managers turn to “absolute return” strategies that seek to make money no matter where the market goes.