Two hot areas in 2013 that have not caught much of Quant’s
affection have been Japan and financials.
The former has proven beneficial but financials have continued to
outperform the S&P 500. The Big Daddy
financial ETF, the SPDR Financial Select Sector Fund (XLF), has begun to score
better in June and is at 8th place to start this week. Some of its outperformance stems from its
8.55% weighting in Berkshire Hathaway and its insurance positions but having almost
30% in the big four US banks hasn’t hurt performance either.
There has been some recent press about the quality of bank
earnings and while we have seen XLF’s P/E score rise as the ratio has come
down, its other fundamental sub scores have not risen as much. Its overall Fundamental Score of 65.4 is good
enough to get it in the top 10 today because its Behavioral Score is a very
solid 81.1. All three technical sub
categories show strength over the short, intermediate and long term at close to
80 for each and the three sentiment sub categories are similarly strong led by
a 99.8 short interest score. Its substantial
size, liquidity and sponsor combine for an 80.3 Quality Score but the financial
sector is not Quant’s favorite, leading to a middling 49.1 Global Theme Score. Those
latter two categories do not get factored into its 8.11 Green Diamond Reward
Rating because some of their components are part of the ETFGsm risk model. Even
considering 2008, XLF gets a low 2.16 Red Diamond Risk Rating, which is more a
reflection of its gradual and steady recovery over the last four years.
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