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<p>As an investor in today’s volatile markets, you naturally have questions about our strategy and the historical performance of our Model Portfolio. Over the past 40 years, InvesTech has earned a widely respected reputation for our objective analysis and safety-first investment philosophy. While profits are important, we know that earning profits is only half the picture. Preserving one’s portfolio (and profits) through a severe bear market like 2000-02 or 2007-09 can make the difference between a comfortable retirement or financial disaster.</p>
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<p>InvesTech's time-proven strategy involves measuring market risk – and taking maximum advantage of those investment opportunities when risk is the lowest. Our objective is to contain losses in a bear market to less than half of the decline of the broad market averages and to capture at least 80% of the upside during bull markets. Historically, we have been successful in achieving this goal which not only outperforms market averages over the long-term, but also significantly reduces volatility.</p>
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<p>The final issue of the Hulbert Financial Digest, published in February 2016, included the ranking of top mutual fund newsletters and showed that InvesTech Research was #1 in long-term performance –both for risk adjusted and unadjusted performance– with an annualized gain of 8.7% per year… almost double the Wilshire 5000's annual return over the same period.</p>
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<h2><strong>InvesTech’s Performance (2000 – current)</strong></h2>
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<p>Back-to-back devastating bear markets in 2000-02 and 2007-09 have left most investors questioning the viability of a buy-and-hold strategy. At InvesTech we do not follow a buy-and-hold investment philosophy. Instead, we adjust equity exposure according to our assessment of market risk. This judgment is made based on InvesTech's time-tested proprietary technical indicators, historical analysis, and current economic and political forces.</p>
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<p>Our safety-first investment philosophy led investors safely through the bear market of 2000-02. During this period, our defensive holdings and high-cash position protected subscribers from devastating bear market losses and kept our Model Portfolio essentially intact. In the 2007-09 bear market we achieved our objective of limiting losses to less than half the decline of the market averages (graph at right). In April 2009, just weeks after the official bear market low, we once again began increasing our invested allocation in anticipation of a new bull market. Since January 2000, the InvesTech Model Portfolio has gained 398.7%, while the S&amp;P 500 is up only 242.3% (including dividends). During the period January 1, 2000 through September 30, 2020, annualized performance of the InvesTech Model Portfolio was +8.1% compared to the S&amp;P 500 Total Return Index gain of +6.1%.</p>
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<h2>During the Bubble Years (1996-1999)</h2>
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<p>InvesTech’s technical indicators were among the first to confirm the U.S. stock market had embarked on a dangerous valuation bubble. That placed our safety-first philosophy in direct conflict with the mania on Wall Street. We made a very difficult decision during this period to step aside from the bubble. While we did not track our Model Portfolio performance prior to 2000, Hulbert Financial Digest data showed our total return for 1996 closely approximated that of a money market fund.</p>
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<p>In defense of our high-cash position, we do not come across bubbles every day on Wall Street. This one, along with 1929, had been the only two clearly definable bubbles of the century. While we have developed new technical tools that will, hopefully, allow us to take part in and profit from similar situations in the future, we will never abandon the principles of our safety-first philosophy.</p>
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<h2>Performance Prior to the Bubble (pre-1996)</h2>
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<p>In 1996, InvesTech was recognized as one of only six financial advisory newsletters to have beaten the market on a risk-adjusted basis since inception in the early 1980s. And an October 1995 Forbes article described InvesTech’s long-term portfolio performance as “more or less impervious to declines.”</p>
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<p>The reason is simple: InvesTech has an established reputation for maximizing safety-first profits. But reducing risk from major bear markets can be even more important, as shown in 1987 when InvesTech received widespread recognition from USA Today, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times for moving to a 100% cash position just prior to the October Crash.</p>
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<p>As an experienced investor, you must decide what performance means to you. Someone who is willing to wait 10 years or more to recover after losing two-thirds of their portfolio in a generational bear market, may not agree with our safety-first approach. On the other hand, if you have a deep respect for market risk and the impact that a devastating bear market can have on your portfolio or emotional well-being, then InvesTech Research offers what you are looking for… a risk-averse strategy and the ability to identify and take advantage of the best profit opportunities when they appear.</p>
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