The Scotia Partners, Ltd. Growth S&P Plus and S&P Moderate Growth Strategies provide a somewhat unique way to participate in a leveraged, long/short S&P 500 Index strategy. Scotia’s founder, Cliff Montgomery, CFA, seeks to identify only those trading days with the highest probability of success, either long or short. He does so by applying his proprietary system to a variety of market data to determine which days appear to be most likely to offer potential gains.
Cliff describes his trading model as being trend following in the long term, but contrarian in the short term. Because of the highly selective nature of the model, Scotia's programs have historically been in the safety of a money market fund about two-thirds of the time, and only invested in the market about one-third of the time.
This is a very interesting strategy, especially considering that Scotia's investment strategies found a way to navigate the high market volatility in 2007 and 2008, while many other formerly successful money managers struggled. As you will see in our Advisor Profile, Scotia is one of the most exciting money managers we have seen in several years.
The S&P Moderate Growth Strategy differs from the more aggressive Growth S&P Plus Strategy in two ways. First, the Moderate Strategy trades using only Scotia’s core trading model, while the S&P Plus Strategy also uses an overbought/oversold signal. This means the S&P Plus Strategy is likely to have more trades per year than the Moderate Strategy.
A second difference is that the Moderate Strategy will make partial allocations on the initial trading signal while the S&P Plus always commits 100% of the account on all trades. Thus, the S&P Plus Strategy will either be 100% long, 100% short or 100% neutral (cash) while the Moderate Strategy can have 50% allocations to each of these positions.
The model is 100% mechanical and Scotia has indicated it will not override its signal under any circumstances. When in cash, the model moves to the Rydex US Government Money Market Fund. The Scotia Growth S&P Plus Strategy trades frequently, and is not expected to be tax efficient.
The minimum account size for the Growth S&P Plus program is $25,000 and it is available to both individual and IRA investors. All accounts are held at Rydex Funds in the name of the investor. Scotia Partners has outsourced its back-office administration and trading operations to Purcell Advisory Services, LLC, a Registered Investment Advisor and third-party back-office administration firm. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Be sure to read Important Notes below. |