Momentum or I guess relative momentum here is to participate in stocks that are relatively strong compared to others, irrespective of the market. Yes, if the market is going down, there will be fewer and fewer such stocks, and yes, even these can fall.
On an opposite note, despite a bull market, some stocks which have shown relative strength may fall after we purchase, the initial buyers who are responsible for the momentum, which we have captured may have changed their view, and exit, so we too will have to do the same, if we follow a stop loss at individual level. Here, the draw down will not be more, as a strict SL exists.
If no such individual SL mechanism exists, and SL is applied at PF level, then there could be a big draw down, but this is part of the sysytem design, just like there is upper limit to profit booking, there is no manual intervention with losses too, exit entire PF at 30% loss, current loss is 29%, do nothing.
Many ways to handle SLs, each perhaps with varying pros and cons.
Valuation has no place here, the stock selection here is based on momentum, like a screener, we are just chasing the price, no concern about value, and this is not investing either.
So unlike sector/trend following concentrated PFs which have given stellar returns, like you have mentioned, this momentum strategy continues in thick and thin, so XIRR/CAGR is perhaps a better calculation. There is no lookout for the next hot sector/stock, this is a basket approach.
As far as taking hit every week, I can say that, it is hard to predict what can happen next week, every time. If there are many results in the search, it essentially means that market is good, if the next week results exceeds the previous week’s results, then the market is very good, so on and so forth. One strategy that is mentioned is to allocate more when market is strong, and relatively less when market is week.
A momentum strategy may look simple, but I think there will be a few things that need to be tuned, in order to do it for extended periods, not to mention this is a work in progress.
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