Conclusion, Investment Implications, Strategy

We exited our Oct 31st long idea in the SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE) today, as indicated in Table 2 of our Keys To This Week: Market Sectors & Industry Groups report, on the open today for zero gain.  We exited the idea due to recently contracting total net assets in the ETF as shown  in the chart below.

 

Analysis and Rationale

The chart below plots SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE) daily in the upper panel with a corresponding chart of the ETF’s daily total net assets and their 21-day moving average in the lower panel.  We use the 21-day moving average to indicate the monthly (our Tactical time frame) trend of asset expansion or contraction.

KBE daily with its corresponding total net assets 

The red highlights in the lower panel show that these assets began a new trend of Tactical asset contraction on Nov 17th.  Note that the previous trend of Tactical asset contraction, from mid-August through September, fueled the most recent decline in KBE. These data warn that a similar decline may be emerging now.