Rutherford Portfolio Review (Tranche 3 and Tranche 4): 6 September and 13 September 2024

Orchids – Botanic Gardens, Singapore

Due to the disruption in access to Yahoo price data, and the fact that I am presently travelling, I was not able to post a review of the Rutherford Portfolio last week so I will attempt to play catch-up this week.

After a minor pull-back last week it was a bullish week in US Equity markets with prices again closing near the resistance level of the July all-time highs (triple top?):

This has created a higher low at the ~5400 level in the SPX (S&P 500 Index) and the August pull-back may well be relatively insignificant in terms of longer term trend:

This will be confirmed should we break through the ~5680 level in the next couple of weeks (creating a higher high).

Although US Equities showed the greatest relative strength of all major asset classes (~4% return), all classes generated positive returns over the past week:

Current holdings in the Rutherford Portfolio look like this:

with the following performance:

No adjustments were made to the portfolio (Tranche 3) last week due to the interuption in access to price data. However, backtracking, the recommended adjustments would have looked like this:

where I would have sold shares in AOR to add a position in RWX (International Real Estate).

Checking the current rotation graphs:

Real Estate sectors (VNQ and RWX) remain strong, although weakening a little in the shorter term.

Checking the recommendations from the rotation model:

we see Buy recommendations for VNQ, RWX, TLT (US Treasuries) and GLD (Gold).  Since all these ETFs are currently held in Tranche 4 with the exception of RWX I will sell current holdings in VTI and AOR and add a new position in RWX. Combined with last week’s recommended adjustments I will be adding RWX to both Tranches 3 and 4 and will use any excess cash to rebalance positions in VNQ, TLT and GLD.