The Weekly ROAR: What I’m Thinking About Right Now
The picture that "stopped the scroll" for me at exactly 11:44 AM today.
If you look at the major averages, you’d think everything is fine. The index-worshippers are celebrating. But underneath the surface, we are staring at a massive market Rorschach test. To me, it doesn’t look pretty.
We are living in an environment where a tiny handful of high-flying growth stocks are carrying the entire weight of this bull market. The passive investing crowd has a saying: “When in doubt, ETF it.” They buy the SPY or the QQQ and assume diversification has their back. It doesn’t. In fact, if and when these top-heavy growth giants finally roll over, they won’t just fall—they will be the downside leaders.
Take it from the guy who built the ROAR 10 ETF Model Portfolio: there’s a VERY good set of reasons that QQQ is in there, but as one of 10 “levers” I can nudge up or down in weight every week, based on my ROAR Score analysis.
As a chartist, I don’t care about narratives or Wall Street’s cheerleading. I care about risk management and where the capital is actually flowing. Right now, the charts are telling me two distinct stories:
One S&P 500 sector is quietly perking up from the dead, and
One highly specific, overlooked safety valve within that ROAR 10 ETF portfolio will be a great signal for when the growth mirage shatters. Even more than it has been historically.
If you’re a retiree or a DIY investor managing your own nest egg, you cannot afford to ride a top-heavy index off a cliff. You need tools that act as an iron-clad hedge, and you need sectors that give you a place to hide.
Here is exactly where I am looking, what I am buying, and the tickers on my radar this week. I’ll also cover this briefly at today’s live session, as part of the broader topic of “Why 97% of ETF Don’t Matter.”