The top three sectors in this growth fund are Consumer Cyclical (23.57% of assets); Technology (19.67%); and Healthcare (14.26%).
Hussman Strategic Growth (HSGFX)
From Bob Carlson’s Retirement Watch
Hussman Strategic Growth (HSGFX) is a mutual fund primarily invested in about 140 stocks chosen because they are reasonably priced and have positive market action, a measured by factors such as price behavior and trading volume.
But the fund also can use futures, options, and other tools to either hedge the stocks against a market decline or leverage them for a market rally.
The fund had problems applying its hedging strategy following the financial crisis. But about a year ago, it refined its process so that its hedging strategy is determined primarily by market action using a series of technical indicators.
Most recently, the fund reinstated its hedges in early February 2018 and has maintained them. As a result of the hedging, the fund is up 2.88% in the last four weeks and 13.00% for the last three months. Over 12 months, it is up 8.31%.
Manager John Hussman will lift the hedge positions if the market action becomes more positive, but it will take more than short-term rallies to cause a change. The fund kept its hedges in place through the spring and summer of 2018 as the major market indexes set new record highs, because the technical factors followed by Hussman indicated the rally was weak and likely to reverse course.
Bob C. Carlson, Bob Carlson’s Retirement Watch, www.retirementwatch.com, 800-552-1152, February 2019