As Top Equity News glanced over yesterday’s best performing ETFs, clusters from similar veins crowded the top of the leaderboard. The two most prominent are small/micro-caps and growth-at-a-reasonable price type stocks.
However, the exchange-traded-fund that stood out, fatter than the rest is iShares MSCI USA Minimum Volatility (USMV). Minimum Volatility, how good does that sound in this jack-hammer market? The sound is just about as soothing as the noise of silence right after the kids go to sleep. Every parent knows that feeling; nothing never sounded so good.
Volatility on its own isn’t a bad thing, especially when it is predominantly to the upside, but this market has even the most seasoned pros second guessing themselves. TEN studies the charts every day, and we can tell you with little doubt, the past six-months have been filled head-fakes right and left.
Monday, the charts produce can’t miss sell signals with overlapping layers of confirmation. Tuesday, stocks gap up 200 points at the open due to yet another remedy to fix the ailing Zeuropean Union. Wednesday? forget about Tuesday, down 2% intra-day because the EU basket-case is halfway to hell.
The volleying between buy/sell signals, followed by reversals has been dizzyingly nauseating. So how does minimum volatility sound to this Doc Brown haired market follower? Kids, it’s time to go to bed – now!
USMV is a thinly trade ETF averaging just 6400 shares a day. So, TEN peeled back the label to see what ingredients are in the inside.
For the last week, the top 10 performing USMV constituents are:
Amgen Inc. (AMGN)
VeriSign, Inc. (VRSN)
The Home Depot, Inc. (HD)
Wisconsin Energy Corp. (WEC)
PG&E Corp. (PCG)
Edwards Lifesciences Corp. (EW)
Xcel Energy Inc. (XEL)
SBA Communications Corp. (SBAC)
Celgene Corporation (CELG)
The Travelers Companies, Inc. (TRV)
The entire group is fairly impressive based on our technical analysis. If Top Equity was forced to pick one chart with the most short-term upside, we would probably select… Jeopardy Music… Edwards Lifesciences Corp. (EW).
The cardiovascular disease product and technology supplier’s chart shows EW shares topping its 50-day-moving-average for the first time since early November. Ed’s MACD line is once again in buy territory above zero, and the 12-day-average bullishly crossed-over its 26-day cousin. Finally, the stock price has made a series of at least three higher highs and higher lows. By most definitions, this is a start of new uptrend.
If Edwards Lifesciences can get a little breeze at its back, the price could return to $77.50 in the next couple of weeks; if things turn sour for investors, then a stop a little below $67.50 looks about right. EW closed Wednesday at $70.03.
ETF X-Ray: Edwards Puts Volatility to Bed is an article from: 
