Our research continues to indicate that a portfolio should be positioned to take advantage of the reopening US economy throughout 2021. Consequently, our FSI Sector Allocation clearly favors sectors that will benefit from the improving growth outlook and our outlook for a robust corporate profit recovery. A third bullish factor is the continuation of an accommodative policy stance by the Federal Reserve. Despite the possibility of some 1st quarter choppiness, our work on the U.S equity market remains bullish when looking out 6-12 months, and our sector allocation should help investors take advantage of this bullish backdrop.

The year begins with crosswinds that are impacting the S&P 500’s day-to-day trading. On the negative side is the near-daily news that the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations remain severely elevated, the emergence of a potentially more infectious new strain of the virus, and the disappointingly slow rollout of the nationwide vaccination effort. Offsetting the gloom and doom stories are the recently passed fiscal stimulus package from Washington D.C., optimism in the efficacy of vaccines and new effective therapeutics, and a central bank that has stated that they will remain vigilant and supportive.

Importantly, we remind investors to try and not be overly influenced by any negative shorter-term fluctuations in equity prices and keep their attention of the bigger picture, which in our view is one of economic normalization, rising 2021 profits expectations from the depressed levels of 2020, and higher stock prices.

In terms of the FSI Sector Allocation, we successfully avoided the three worst sectors since our month-end September launch, which have been Utilities (XLU), Staples (XLP), and Real Estate (XLRE). On the flip side, we have been nicely exposed to four of the top six sectors during that span (Industrials/XLI, Materials/XLB, Comm Serv/XLC, and Tech/XLK). Unfortunately, our work had not turned fully favorable on the two biggest gainers, which were Energy (XLE) and Financials (XLF). We did marginally upgrade our view on both sectors over the past several months (XLF to neutral and XLE to tilt below), but our key indicators have not flashed the signals that we require to move them even higher. We will keep a close-eye on our relevant indicators to see if these areas warrant additional upgrades.

Overall, our allocation has been a balance between Value/Cyclicals and Growth/FAANG sectors that has provided an effective active management exposure for investors without having to pick individual stocks. We are satisfied that our approach has posted strong absolute performance and also outperformed the S&P 500 since inception. We very much expect that further relative gains will be achieved throughout the coming year.