20 May 2010

The Horizons AlphaPro Dennis Gartman ETF and Its Narcoleptic Returns


"The investment objective of the Horizons AlphaPro Gartman ETF (the “ETF”) is to provide investors with the opportunity for capital appreciation through exposure to the investment strategies of The Gartman Letter, L.C. (“Gartman”), founded by Dennis Gartman. The ETF will use equity securities, futures contracts and exchange-traded funds to provide the ETF with long and short exposure to multiple asset classes which may include but are not limited to global equities, commodities, fixed income and currencies.

The ETF provides long or short exposure to multiple asset classes including global equities, commodities, fixed income and currencies."

The ETF seems to be underperforming the major indices and precious metals, and mostly everything except for Obama's approval ratings. It did perform a little better than the TLT 20 Year bond index. At least their performance is consistent.

In fairness to Mr. Gartman I do not know how faithfully this ETF follows his philosophy and market 'calls.'

Perhaps this is like one of those Krusty the Klown franchise deals where the product only involves his name, philosophy, pictures, quotes, and trademarks, with no responsibility or genuine involvement in the content. I would suppose he is getting something out of this deal.

I mean look at their returns for the past year. It defines 'mediocrity.' A passbook account at .25% offered better returns with less risk.

I did think that it was cute that they blamed "President Obama's attack on the financial sector' for their lousy performance this year. LOL The Congress could not reform a schoolyard with a SWAT team if the kids had enough leftover lunch money to make it worth their while.

The Gartman ETF seems to be doing a little better than Goldman's advice to its retail clients, which has been wrong 7 out of 9 times according to recent stories from Bloomberg. Gee, do you think they are doing so well because they are doing what they do best, and taking the other side of the trades for their own book? Oh no, I forget. They are "market makers."

At least the Gartman ETF managed to get a memorable symbol for the ETF, HAG:TSX. I suppose DEDMUNI:TSX was out of the question.

When someone sent this chart and fund description to me I thought it was a hoax. I guess you really can't make this stuff up.

Oh well. Another Wall Street legend, shot to hell. Still, tomorrow is another day.