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April 21, 2017

Market Direction, ETF's

Major stock market indices continue to consolidate. It is prudent to diversify and take some risk off. Instead of traditional hedging stratagies like shorting I see more opportunity in low beta vehicles. This allows one to continue to stay bullish and capture any further market gains while hedging slightly. I really like difersifing onto gold GLD, US Treasuries via ETF TLT and alternative ETF CGW.

Technically gold and Treasuries are clearing resistance here and are moving inversly to the major indices. Water ETF CGW is also very uncorrelated to the market over the past few weeks. If there is a major crash history shows US Treasuries to be the best place for safety. In 2008 us treasuries surged. It also seems reasonable to allocate some of this bond position into foreign bonds.

I believe these three ETF's can add some diversity to a portfolio while giving it some protection as well.