Stop Guessing. Start ROARing!
ETFYourself.com and the ROAR Score. To take risk out of taking risk.
The Mission: A Better Investment Experience
I founded ETFYourself.com to put my proprietary research directly into your hands. I manage my own money now, and I’m inviting you to look over my shoulder as I do it.
Wall Street sells “buy and hope.” I’ve created a disciplined, defense-first process designed to seek a low-volatility, long-term investment experience.
After 30 years and 100,000+ hours on the inside managing mutual funds and private wealth, I realized that generic “Buy” ratings are often just sales tools—they tell you what to buy, but never how much to own or when the risk has become too high.
Along with my friends at PiTrade, we created an innovative DIY research portal that takes the research/newsletter insights I’ve shared with subscribers at ETF Yourself on Substack since 2022, and built an action-oriented, interactive tool which updates my ROAR Score research on ETFs and stocks, every market day. It also gives you access to my curated ticker watchlists, to “borrow” some of the portfolios I’ve built, and even create your own portfolios, once you learn to use the ROAR.PiTrade.com site.
The Tool: The ROAR Score
Everything here is built on the ROAR Score (Reward Opportunity And Risk). It is a research-grade compass that answers one fundamental question:
“Is the next 10% move in this security more likely to be UP or DOWN?”
The Strategy: The Risk Thermostat
Instead of “all-in” or “all-out,” we use the ROAR Score like a Risk Thermostat. We don’t try to predict the future; we adjust our exposure based on the current probability of loss.
Dial Up Growth: When the ROAR Score is high, we tilt toward investments that move in sync with the broader market, like SPY (S&P 500).
Dial Up Safety: When the ROAR Score is low, we shift toward investments that don’t rely on the market’s path to earn a return, such as BIL (1-3 Month T-Bills). Or even securities that are built to go up when the market goes down.
This tactical approach helped preserve capital during every bear market since the 1990s. My primary focus has always been ABL: Avoid Big Loss. Growing wealth in the good times is easy; protecting it is where the real work happens.
How to Follow My Research
I have built this ecosystem to meet you where you are—whether you want to follow my playbook, use my tools, or master the craft alongside me.
FREE SUBSCRIBERS
You will receive the top sliver of the Weekly ROAR each Tuesday, as well as the Sunday edition (digest), which recaps and links to my written insights at Barchart.com, Seeking Alpha and elsewhere.
BASIC SUBSCRIBERS ($150 a year or $15 a month) get:
Full version of the Weekly ROAR, which covers charts, ROAR Scores and my most direct opinions and observations about markets, ETFs and stocks. In particular, with the creation of our new analytics and portfolio-building portal, ROAR.PiTrade.com, these weekly letters from me are more powerful and simple to understand than ever.
The Almost Daily ROAR, which I created recently to show investors how I use ROAR.PiTrade.com to manage investment risk, with timely examples. That way, you can either use that system yourself, or get my “cheat sheet” version of it.
The Sunday edition (digest)
1 live group session with me each quarter.
PREMIUM SUBSCRIBERS ($600 a year) get:
Everything that BASIC subscribers get, plus...
10-ETF Allocation Portfolio (aka ROAR 10). This is my main ETF portfolio, and the modern, automated version of how I managed money during my 27-year career as a professional fund manager and fiduciary client advisor.
ROAR 10 is where my “very best thinking” resides. Since this portfolio has more moving parts that the 2-ETF versions which are featured in my mainstream writing, we decided that it should be part of the premium level service. ROAR 10 combines the ROAR Score approach which was built on my 40+ years of charting, and my decades of portfolio construction/management work.
Weekly LIVE Tuesday sessions, and the Zoom recordings of those sessions we sent out the next day. THIS is where the most advanced learning and research lives. And where you can ask me any questions to help you be a better investor, and understand our research.
Where to find Rob on the Web
🏠 ETFYourself.com – My primary home for tactical research and personal portfolio moves.
🛠️ ROAR.PiTrade.com – The interactive research portal and portfolio construction tool.
PiTrade.com - Copy trade Rob’s model portfolios through this Robo Advisor
📈 Barchart.com – Read my weekly column on technical analysis and market primers.
🎓 Seeking Alpha – Home of the Sungarden Investment Club for live interactive sessions.
A Founder’s Note: From Graph Paper to the ROAR Portal
My journey began in 1980. I was 16 years old, watching my father—a dedicated DIY investor—meticulously chart stocks by hand with graph paper and a pencil. He wasn’t looking for “hot tips”; he was looking for a way to protect our family’s future when his industry essentially vanished overnight.
That experience became my “North Star.” I don’t manage other people’s money anymore; I manage my own using the same “defense-first” principles I learned at my father’s side. ETFYourself.com is my playbook, and ROAR.PiTrade.com is the tool we built so you can use it too. Together, they are my legacy.
Maybe a a piece of my mind can give you peace of mind.
— Rob Isbitts
