Fun with M3...12.13.13

It's Friday the 13th in 2013 but the markets are actually showing some positivity (made up word).
We're seeing tenuous strength at best as traders await the supposedly watershed FED pronouncement next week of a possible tapering schedule. Rest assured there will be dips and turns in the market along the way as that day approaches.

In the meantime I thought it would be fun to construct a couple more test M3 models in the spirit of yesterdays petro setup.

First, let's look at how a simple model of SPY, AMZN (Amazon) and FB (Facebook) would have turned out>>>>>

That's a pretty simple model and if you actually look at the daily charts its clear that FB was the engine that really drove the returns....and continues to do so.

Now let's add AAPL (APPLE) to the mix as a benchmark.  Still the darling of the tech world AAPL represents about 20% of the capitalization of the NASADQ100 index so it is the 800 pound gorilla that MSFT used to be (long time ago) and its price action can still cause a visible ripple in the QQQ's when it moves.

In this case we've used a top 2 sort to try and hedge the AAPL risk profile.  The results speak for themselves.  The model beats AAPL's returns and with a lower risk exposure by almost 50%.

These little vignette type setups using the M3 can be extremely useful in more closely examining the momentum and relative strength of a specified "benchmark" ETF or stock and we could construct many other setups with this risk mitigation goal in mind... but, for now, I leave that to my readers to explore on their own.