Our new Dow 30 model portfolio, and a $1,000 trading idea.
With markets fixed on war, here's a pair of polar opposite ideas from my current research.
If you have not visited our model portfolios page at ROAR.PiTrade.com, I strongly encourage you to check it out. From all the great feedback we continue to receive about that analytics site, the My Portfolios tab appears to be our “greatest hit.”
We see why. It contains a growing set of “Pre-Built” Portfolios you can simply click on, track and either use as a research reference, implement yourself or have copy traded at PiTrade.com. You can also build your own portfolios there.
The ROAR 10 ETF model is what I’d consider our “flagship” model, since it is essentially the 2026 version of what I did for decades as a fund manager and investment advisor. And, while many of the model portfolios we offer are what I’d call “simply effective” with 2-3 ETFs in them, a few are more complex. ROAR 10 ETF is one, and I’ve just launched another one: Dow 30.
Why Dow 30 model portfolio, and how does it work?
You can read about it on the site, but here’s the skinny:
It owns all 30 Dow stocks at all times.
It owns those stocks in varying allocations, based on the individual and combined ROAR Score of the Dow 30 stocks at any point in time.
Cash is its only hedge (no inverse ETFs), and it is benchmarked to the DIA ETF.
Thus, Dow 30 is a GROWTH portfolio, a higher risk model than ROAR 10 ETF.
Here’s its back-tested performance back to 1/1/2020.
As you can see, the Dow 30 model, using ROAR Scores to determine the allocation across the 30 stocks, outperformed DIA by more than 4% annually, with about 1/10 less risk (measured by Max Drawdown). That amounted to 45% higher returns over this period. The Sharpe Ratio (Return per unit of risk) is nearly double that of DIA.
In each calendar year since 2020, Dow 30 has either outperformed DIA, or has earned a return of at least 11.8%.
Our model portfolios are free to try for now. Soon we’ll be putting them behind a paywall, as our “beta test” phase for investors to try it out will end soon. We’ll have an announcement on the specifics shortly.
Now, to that other bit of news. This is something I’m aiming to do more of going forward for our paid subscribers: provide insight into what I do with my trading accounts.
ETFs, stocks and bonds are the main asset types I use in my own “core” portfolio. And while we all have different objectives, I hope that by writing about other aspects of my own investing, I can help subscribers to expand their own “vision” of what is possible as a DIY investor.
Case in point: I run a little $1,000 “spec” account, and use options to try to “take big shots with small amounts of money.” Earlier today, I did this: