CMG AdvisorCentral

Tactical investing news, views and resources for financial advisors

How To Play This Crazy Bond Market – Blumenthal In Forbes

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Forbes“This is just not normal,” CMG Capital Management Group CEO Steve Blumenthal writes in his latest Forbes article The ‘Bigger Short’ Or How To Play This Crazy Bond Market. “Nearly 90% of the industrialized world economy is presently anchored by zero rates, and half of all government bonds in the world today yield less than 1%. Wow. The race into risky assets continues, but those assets are bid up and richly priced.”

What can investors do in this crazy, mixed up bond market?

“One idea,’ Steve offers, “is to use a process like the Zweig Bond Model as a tool to identify the bond market’s primary trend.  The Zweig Bond Model, named after the great Marty Zweig, has been in a sell signal since early April 2015 with the exception of one short week. It is in a sell at the time of this post.”

See the Forbes article The ‘Bigger Short’ Or How To Play This Crazy Bond Market. | See all Steve Blumenthal’s Forbes articles.

Mike Sciortino in The Wall Street Journal

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The Wall Street JournalMike Sciortino, Head of Distribution at CMG Capital Management Group, is featured in the Wealth Adviser section of The Wall Street Journal. Mike talks about how advisors can be more successful by being active, engaged listeners. An excerpt:

“The degree to which you can provide clarity in your work will solidify your clients’ commitment to a plan, and their commitment to that plan determines your collective success. Really listening to a client’s goals and fears so that you can provide solutions that meet their fundamental needs is the foundation of that success.”

See the full story: Voices: Michael Sciortino, on the Value of Engaged Listening. After actively listening to your clients, tell stories to connect with their hearts.

 

Mauldin on Blumenthal

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John Mauldin

John Mauldin

CMG Capital Management Group CEO Steve Blumenthal was in New York Tuesday to meet with good friend John Mauldin and to attend a special event in tribute to George Gilder’s “A New Information Theory of Money” at the Princeton Club. Steve also got to meet with Steve Forbes at that event (see picture below).

John Mauldin’s latest “Outside The Box” begins like this:

“A recurring theme in my letters is the various ways in which we can go about determining valuations for stocks and other investments. My good friend Steve Blumenthal has gathered a number of charts from various authorities showing different ways to look at valuations for today’s US stock market. He topped it off with some very good estimates of forward-looking returns on total US equity portfolios. He is not arguing to get out but rather to be aware of where we are and to temper your expectations for the future. Steve writes in an easy, fluid style that I think you will enjoy as this week’s Outside the Box.”

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Blumenthal On Bloomberg ETF Report

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BloombergBusiness

CMG Capital Management Group CEO Steve Blumenthal was interviewed by Bloomberg Radio’s Catherine Cowdery at the Inside ETFs Conference in Hollywood, Florida, last week. The segment was just posted on Bloomberg Business.

Bloomberg Business launched last month to deliver business and markets news, data, analysis, and video to the world, featuring stories from Businessweek and Bloomberg News.

ETF Report Podcast. Hosted by Catherine Cowdery.

CMG’s Blumenthal on ETFs at Top of Momentum List (Audio)

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Bring On 2015

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good bye 2014 bring on 2015Welcome 2015! It’s the first trading day of the new year.  How can you navigate the markets in the new year? Sign up for updates here at AdvisorCentral and we’ll do our best to keep you informed of the tactical investment outlook from the CMG perspective.

And we’ll share the weekly #CMGInspire post from Mike Sciortino about how advisors can access their inner resources to be successful.

Some 2014 milestones for us.

We launched CMG AdvisorCentral in February 2014 and we’re going strong. We have some improvements that will be unveiled later this month that will make AdvisorCentral a valuable investment education resource for advisors and their clients.

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Blumenthal’s 2015 Investment Preview In Forbes

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By Steve Blumenthal, CEO and portfolio manager, CMG Capital Management Group

ForbesI wrote often throughout 2014 about the danger signals flashing from an excessive run up in debt and derivatives. We have a repeat of the scenario we suffered in 2008, only much worse (Watch Junks Bonds For Early Warnings Of New Financial Crisis). The budget recently passed by Congress put taxpayers on the hook for a 2008-like derivatives failure. The potential losses could exceed the previous financial meltdown as other world market conditions exacerbate a bad situation.

As a risk manager, I need to acknowledge and plan to mitigate these big, macro risks. At the same time, as a tactical manager, I acknowledge that right now the weight of evidence points to a continued positive trend for this mega bull market.

In a world of excessive debt and unprecedented Central Bank intervention, where is a global investor to go? For now, the best place remains in U.S. equities.

Global debt continues to be the #1 concern going into 2015. A sovereign debt crisis looms on the horizon yet for now the creativity of global central bankers has kicked that can down the road. It is desperation time in Japan and the Eurozone is not far behind. A number of factors favor the U.S. dollar and U.S. equities through mid-2015.

Read the rest of Steve Blumenthal’s 2015 investment preview in Forbes Looking Ahead To The Year That Interest Rates Will Finally Rise

Russia ETFs Crumbling Blumenthal Tells IBD

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Investor's Business DailyCMG Capital Management Group CEO Steve Blumenthal is quoted in the Investor’s Business Daily story Russia ETFs Reel From Crumbling Ruble, Rate Hikes. Excerpt fom the story:

“Raising rates is an attempt to attract foreign investors to buy Russian bonds at 17%,” thereby shoring up the ruble,” said Steve Blumenthal, CEO of CMG Capital Management.

Top-Heavy In Energy

The fortunes of Russia ETFs are closely tied to oil and gas; energy stocks make up 40% of RSX’s portfolio. The highly concentrated RSX’s top 10 holdings include Novatek, Lukoil (OTCPK:LUKOY) and Gazprom (OTCPK:OGZPY).

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Happy Thanksgiving

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Michael F. Sciortino, Sr. Executive Vice President, Managing Director, Head of Distribution, CMG Capital Management Group

Michael F. Sciortino, Sr. Executive Vice President, Managing Director, Head of Distribution, CMG

” As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” – John F. Kennedy

We at CMG pause at this special time of year to thank you, our clients, and to wish you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is the day we celebrate the small joys of the day together. We enjoy the smell of the turkey roasting and the pie baking while we listen to the crackling of the wood in the fireplace. We enjoy the jokes that are told and the old family stories that are shared once again.

Thanksgiving is a day to be grateful and happy with who and what we have. Nothing is more important than this sharing of this moment in time. Hold tightly to these moments, they will stay with you forever.

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The New Enhanced Portfolio

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InvestmentNewsThe traditional 60/40 buy and hold portfolio is dead, CMG Capital Management Group CEO Steve Blumenthal told InvestmentNews in the story Investment Managers ditching 60/40 portfolios in favor of more liquid alternatives

Enhanced Modern Portfolio Theory is what Blumenthal calls it. It’s not that Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) is wrong, rather that it’s time to question whether 60/40 remains the best way to optimize the risk-reward relationship. This asset mix is simply too narrow in the current low-dividend-yield, low-inflation, low-interest-rate environment.

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Blumenthal in IBD: It’s A Game Changer

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Investor's Business Daily“It’s a game changer,” Steve Blumenthal, CEO of CMG Capital Management Group, told Investor’s Businsess Daily in the story Three Best Reasons To Invest In The Currency-Hedging ETFs.

Steve was referring to Friday’s news that the Bank of Japan is massively scaling up its bond-buying program. Both the nation’s central bank and its state pension fund also plan to buy domestic and foreign stocks. This injection of liquidity, Steve added, should inflate Japanese equity prices aggressively, similar to what multiple spells of quantitative easing did for U.S. stocks in the past six years or so. Excerpt from the story:

It’s a shot in the arm for Japan’s perennially listless economy. But the stimulus makes for a bearish outlook on the Japanese currency. For U.S. investors, a weakening yen could significantly erode returns on their investments in that nation.

Fortunately, there’s a simple way for people to get exposure to Japan but mitigate risk of the dollar’s potential rise against the yen: exchange traded funds. Several hedged ETFs let investors buy a rally in Japanese stocks without getting hit on currency moves.

“It’s double bang for the buck,” said Blumenthal, who invests in WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity (ARCA:DXJ), up 6% so far in 2014.

Read to story in Investor’s Business Daily: Three Best Reasons To Invest In The Currency-Hedging ETFs