From Bear to Bull with ETFs

The goal of this book is to focus on certain US-registered ETFs and their performance during the recent bear market and subsequent bull market. We will concentrate on those ETFs that refer to, are part of, are linked in some way to, or are references for the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index and its sector components. We will also add some ETFs that capture performance results outside of the S&P 500. We will compare the performance of various ETFs against SPY. For the purposes of this book, we will use SPY as the benchmark ETF, as it represents the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index. As the first tradable security in the ETF class, SPY has become the single largest ETF of its kind. This book consists of two sections. The first focuses on actual trading and events that occurred in the market from April 29, 2011 until October 3, 2011. In each chapter, the relative performance of the ETFs is observed in that bear market and subsequent bull-market recovery, as we examine those ETFs again for the period of October 3, 2011, through February 24, 2012. We have purposefully picked February 24, because it is the date when SPY regained a price comparable to the previous bull market peak, on April 29, 2011. The second section of this book focuses on commentaries that discuss the events during the period of April 29, 2011 through February 24, 2012. We have reproduced unedited commentaries written and published during this bear market and ensuing bull-market phase. The writings are extracted from Cumberland Advisor’s website, www.cumber.com.