Read more

Rob will be doing a brief AMA live session today from the Money Show at 4 PM. Register below

For anyone on the Orlando area, Rob will be speaking at The Money Show today, Tuesday, October 6, 2026. See HERE for more details!

Read more

Separately, they might not mean much. Just charts on a list of many I track constantly. But my job is to piece the story together. Then act on it in my own portfolio, and tell our subscribers about it. So they can either take that research in, alongside the other sources they use, or simply push a couple of buttons and mimic what I do.

These will all be familiar to those who have read my work for a while. I own some (long or inverse), others are more like benchmarks, gauges of market health I’ve used for years. However it is how they play off of each other that is my 7-ETF “cocktail” for this week’s report. Here are the 7, their ROAR Scores, some charts, and my latest take:

Read more

I have not written about this type of thing here often. But I’m doing it today. And can continue to if subscibers like the concept. So let me know what you think.

What is it? Technically, what the pros call a “convexity’ options trade.

And while I’m a pro for 40 years now, I prefer to teach trading and investing in English, not financial “Greek” so to speak. So, below, in plain English, is a little trade I made this morning.

Not because I am certain it will work. But because I judged it to be very much in line with my normal agenda: looking for highly-favorable return/risk tradeoffs. That’s what the ROAR Score is all about.

In this recent Barchart article, I described one recent trade of this nature, which turned out to be a 20x profit. Even on a 3-digit dollar trade, that’s noticeable to me!

In a market where I’m finding it increasingly difficult to do other than “take 5%” (5-year US Treasuries yield that now), the question is how to boost that return beyond the 5% I can get for just saying “yes.”

This is one type of trade I’m increasingly looking to do. I’m happy to share more of these with paid subscribers, if enough people want to see them, likely through the weekly live show we do every Tuesday at 4pm ET.

Here’s my latest convexity trade. Or, for those of us who prefer plan language, the investing version of a “lottery ticket.” Though in my estimation, its odds are more like those a favorite at the race track. 3/2 or 2/1 odds, so to speak.

The chart that prompted me to say “worth taking a big shot, with small $ amount”:

Read more

As interest rate volatility persists and traditional equity indexes reach critical technical levels, tactical investors must adapt to shifting macroeconomic dynamics. This week's breakdown covers structural moves across Treasury yield curves, defensive portfolio strategies, and modern ETF income mechanics designed to protect capital in changing rate environments.

For anyone on the Orlando area, Rob will be speaking at The Money Show on Tuesday, October 6, 2026. See HERE for more details!

Read more

I’ve used that title phrase several times, especially during our weekly live sessions. And I see no reason to recant that sentiment.

By the way, if you are an ETFYourself.com paid subscriber, and you are not taking advantage of attending our live weekly sessions on Tuesdays at 4pm ET (or watching the replays we send out the next day), why not? That’s your best opportunity to “ask me anything.” And, to criticize, er provide constructive feedback to us, to make your $200 a year go further. With markets very much going the way of us RISK MANAGERS, maybe this is a good time to check in on what we cover.

As noted in this past week’s live show, this coming Tuesday (October 6) at 4pm, I’ll be in Orlando, in between my 2 presentations that day at the Money Show. But I expect to be able to do an abbreviated version of the live show, from somewhere within the giant resort where they hold that excellent event.

A September to Remember. For Many Good Reasons If You Are A Risk Manager.

Read more

Read more

Next Tuesday I’ll be live HERE

I am focused a lot more on the bond market than the stock market these days. As in, I think bonds are where the better long-term return/risk tradeoff is. Likely for the rest of the decade.

That doesn’t mean I am not active in the stock market. I just do so with 2 very important adjustments versus how I used to approach it. And, how I think many investors have become complacent about. Thus, I hope subscribers here can benefit from putting in the effort to understand my alternative view of stock market investing in 2026. And for the foreseeable future. It starts with 3 simple observations of mine:

Read more

As headline equity indexes dance around record levels, underlying breadth is deteriorating rapidly across sectors. Between dot-com era structural parallels, deceptive "all-time high" technical traps, and crumbling index pillars, tactical investors must prioritize risk management over momentum chasing while taking advantage of structural upgrades in fixed-income covered call strategies.

For anyone on the Orlando area, Rob will be speaking at The Money Show on Tuesday, October 6, 2026. See HERE for more details!

Read more

We had to choose from among many pictures of bears for this week’s Fresh Charts post. We went with the polar variety. Because as the charts I show and analyze below reveal, winter is already here for some market segments.

It is hitting the headlines. But it is VERY early. That’s why, as an ardent risk manager, I am spending more of my time “setting up” for potential big moves. The key to making money in volatile, and even sustained down markets for stocks, bonds, or anything else is to distinguish between what is likely to be temporary, and which moves have “legs.”

The most critical investing lesson I’ve learned over the decades:

If you give yourself at least a shot at making money on sustained down moves, and prioritize “don’t lose big” over “how much can I make if the market always goes up,’ even if you don’t succeed, you likely win in the long run. Why?

Because every $100 you had at the peak bottomed at closer to $95 than $80. Or $70. Or $60. Or $50. Or less.

By the way, my friends at the Money Show (now in their 45th year - pretty cool!) offered me a second live session at their upcoming conference in Orlando. I say “hell yes,” so I’ll be speaking in the early afternoon, then again in the late afternoon that day. If you check out this link to my Money Show Speaker page, you can use that as a springboard to see all of the speakers across the 3-day event, and sign up to join us.

Money Show Orlando on Tuesday, October 6

I have found that this conference, since it is purposely limited in size, offers the very best “access” to a wide range of investment insight. I’m thrilled to be a part of it once again. And in this digitally-dominated world, it is nice to know there are still places where people gather to exchange ideas.

Now, to those Fresh Charts. Let’s start with the regular best/worst setups table, then some charts that I think are the real drivers of near-term market direction.

Read more

Read more

Read more

For $0 a year (a.k.a. free), you can see the top/intro section to my Tuesday Weekly ROAR, as you are doing as you read this. And, you can create a free account at ROAR.PiTrade.com and pull up my daily automated market summary. Here’s one clickable section of it, that indicates to me that as of Monday’s close, the big stocks are again better-positioned from a return/risk tradeoff standpoint then the smaller ones.

We track the global markets through dozens of ETFs. And you can also pull up current ROAR Scores on any ETF or stock. All free. You just need to registered with your email. You don’t even need to be an ETF yourself.com ($200/year) paid subscriber to access it.

The other 2 levels are the paid subscriptions. They both contain access to all of my automated model portfolios, plus the ability to create and track your own. And, more extensive access to the research data in that portal. You can also use the portal as an access point for all you see here at ETFYourself.com, as well as the roughly 400 articles I’ll write at Barchart.com this year.

I know I’m biased, but I’ve yet to see a DIY portfolio creation system that can match what we built. And we priced it so that any investor with at least $100,000 in “serious’“ investable assets could afford it.

If you are a total DIY investor, and do not care about knowing what I trade in my personal (live, not automated) model portfolios, as soon as I trade, the Premium service tier is for you.

And if you DO care to know what I’m trading in those personal models, either to mimic my trades in your brokerage accounts, or just to use it as research input and to learn how an experienced investment allocator (me) works, that’s who the new Flex Model Signal tier is designed for.

To subscribe to any of the 3 service levels shown above, visit ROAR.PiTrade.com.

Model Portfolio Updates

In fairness to the paid subscribers to the new Flex Model Signal service tier, my discussions of specific trades in those live portfolios (ROAR Flex and Hedged Bond) here will be very limited. What I will do regularly is bottom-line my positioning, in words, less so than numbers. And, since those 2 portfolios recently kicked off, and are actively managed, I figure this is a good time to summarize how I “set the table” at the outset of each.

For paid Flex Model Signal subscribers, we have now installed the trade notes feature. So embedded with most model changes will be a very brief commentary on those trades. As for regular portfolio position and past transaction updates, that’s all on the way soon. We are just determining the most efficient way to deliver it, to avoid you chasing lots of emails and such.

ROAR FLEX INITIAL POSITIONING

• I have ROAR 10, all present and accounted for. Except for VIXY, which I have left out for now.

• $VIX is not acting normally, and hasn’t been for a while. And ROAR Flex allows me to expand beyond those 10 core ETFs, which includes inverse ETFs that essentially short parts of the stock market, sectors, or even some single stocks. With and without leverage, depending on the underlying security. I’ve helped myself to some small positions in those.

• “Small” as in, even if they go down a lot, I don’t have enough in them to have too much of an impact on the larger portfolio. Why bother? Because a small position can become a big one in some cases. And I can add to them if I the “early buy” status I assigned to it to take, say a 1-2% portfolio position, appears to be doing what I expected it to.

• Most of these have been on the inverse side so far. If Monday’s head-spinning, AI-focused rally has any “legs” to it, that might prompt my attempting to “take a big shot with a small amount of the portfolio” on some of the high-flyers.

• As of Monday close, there were no single stock positions. That’s not due to a lack of effort on my part. But it does speak to how few “clean setups” are available. I buy stocks when an ETF won’t suffice. And when the market is just one big risk on/risk of trade surrounding the potential of a new tech era that companies are spending historic amounts of money on, creating a race to see if that spending pays off…well, that’s not a stock-picking environment to me.

• Overall, this portfolio is about playing offense and defense at the same time. That means I’ll always have longs and inverses. But the overall “net long” posture is what I focus on more than anything else.

• That does not lend itself to traditional portfolio allocation lingo as much as what you’ll see just about everywhere else, except for some long-short hedge funds. So I’ll be less likely to describe sector and geographical allocations, as those tend to be isolated to the tactical (“swing trading”) parts of the portfolio.

HEDGED BOND INITIAL POSITIONING

• The initial ladder of IShares IBond ETFs is now established. I took equal-weighted positions in each. Since this is my portfolio, and every DIY tends to be different when it comes to the specifics of their own ladder within a larger bond portfolio, the best way to get insight into the infinite ways to customize your own bond ETF mix is to attend our weekly live sessions. That’s open Q&A time.

• The supplementary positions include some that aim to add return if rates decline, and others if they continue to rise. Do both cancel each other out? No.

• There are 2 reasons for this. First, I am not sitting still on these. The ladder is the anchor, these are the tactical trades around that ladder. As I see it, if I were 100% confident that rates would never be this high again for decades, I’d just get that 5% yield and when rates fell, I’d make more. But nothing is guaranteed.

• So instead, I know that a strong segment of the Hedged Bond portfolio is my base, and yielding close to 5%. And like a ladder of actual bonds, those ETFs mature annually, so they act a lot like owning bonds.

• Rates are as unpredictable as ever now. That’s why the time to create and offer Hedged Bond as a way to learn from what I DO, not just what I SAY OR WRITE, was so timely in our minds. And those of several subscribers.

• So the other portfolio positions have different roles for different parts of the yield curve. I might not need 8 additional ETFs beyond that ladder as I started the live model with. But if there’s one thing the ETF business excels at, it is giving us choices. That’s a good start. I’ve spend decades understanding how to use those choices tactically. So I prefer to use several of those tools here at the outset.

• As time goes on, as I always do, EVERYTHING in the portfolio is evaluated regularly. Those laddered ETF positions will always be there. But they might not always be allocated at the same allocations they are now. It depends on what I think I want to have come due each year to spend and/or reinvest. That’s why this portfolio works so well via model signal delivery.

To subscribe to any of the 3 service levels shown above, visit ROAR.PiTrade.com.

As massive corporate AI debt issuance crowds out lower-tier borrowers and long-term Treasuries offer a historic valuation entry point, tactical investors must navigate overextended precious metals, high index concentration, and small-cap refinancing drag through disciplined fixed-income allocations and targeted downside hedges.

For anyone on the Orlando area, Rob will be speaking at The Money Show on Tuesday, October 6, 2026. See HERE for more details!

Read more

Read more

Read more

Read more

As macro structural forces distort traditional market indicators, tactical investors must navigate suppressed volatility, false sector rebounds, and high index concentration through disciplined risk management and targeted hedging strategies.

Read more

Read more

Some inquiries were made regarding our services offered so we we wanted to give everyone a summary as there have been several upgrades in the last month:

Access Premium and Flex HERE

Feel free to contact us with any questions at info@sungardeninvestment.com.

Here is yesterday’s recording for anyone who missed it or wants to review:

Read more