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In my Fast Track Marketing System I divide marketing into seven very specific modules:1. The Game of Marketing2. The Mindset of Marketing3. Marketing Messages (Your Value Proposition)4. Marketing and Selling Conversations5. Written Marketing Materials6. Marketing Strategies7. Marketing Action PlansAll of these have their particular challenges. But in my experience in working with thousands of Independent Professionals, it’s #7 that seems to be the hardest for most people.After all, most of the other 6 modules are all about preparation to market yourself.You learn the basics of the game of marketing, you work on your marketing mindset, you develop marketing messages, conversations, and written marketing materials, and ultimately choose the marketing strategies to get the word out.And then the rubber hits the road. You have to actually get out there and connect with potential clients through networking, speaking, an eZine, social media, emails, etc.For most, the bottom falls out of their marketing at this point. It simply goes nowhere, or more specifically it goes into the infamous “Random Zone” where things are done haphazardly and inconsistently.If people have worked to develop the whole foundation of their marketing first, know who their target market is, have put together a web site and have practiced their marketing and selling conversations, they are going to have more success.But even the well-prepared struggle with implementation.Why is putting action plans into action so hard? Here are three of the most common ones. Are they familiar to you?1. As soon as you start reaching out, you face possible rejection. What if your message, your talk, your emails fall on deaf ears? What if your potential clients could care less? What if they outright rejected your promotional efforts?We conjure painful mental images in our mind that stop us cold.For this one we need to work again on our mindset, on our thinking, realizing that if we reach out and people aren’t interested, that it’s not personal. They don’t hate us; either they are simply not good prospects right now or our message doesn’t have the impact it could.So reach out to new prospects and keep improving your messages.2. It takes way more time and effort than you ever thought it would. We think of marketing as a few promotional things we do here and there. This should be easy, we think. But it’s not.Time to do a reality check. Any marketing activity takes time, effort and commitment to make it work. Marketing is a bit of an art and nothing works perfectly on the first draft.You need to make detailed and realistic plans based on strategies that others have used successfully in the past. If you just make it up as you go along, your chances of success are very slim.3. It’s never good enough and although you might even know what you’re doing, you put off your marketing launches until everything is perfect… but it never is.What underlies this are beliefs about perfection, not being good enough and being judged by others. It’s not so much rejection you fear, but disapproval. What will others think of you?Well, if your marketing campaign isn’t relevant to those you are targeting, it’s not a big deal. They’ll just ignore it. They won’t think much about it at all. But for the ones that are looking for what you offer, they’ll not only be interested, they’ll respond.Your prospects are not looking for perfection from you; they’re looking for assistance and value. If you’ve got that, perfection is virtually irrelevant.I’ve done a whole lot of marketing action plans that were rejected by most people, took me a long time to implement, and were far from perfect. And most of them have made me hundreds of thousands of dollars!Marketing success is about know-how, value, commitment, and persistence. Everything else is just a distraction.The Fearless Marketer Bottom Line: There could be a lot of other things stopping you from following through with your marketing plan as well. The question is, where are you going to focus – on your fears and worries about rejection, time, and perfection – or are you going to focus on the value and difference you make and give your marketing plans a real chance?

If you own a website, you must be able to know the advantages of obtaining SEO training courses to help you take your business to the next level.Search engine optimization is indeed important for every website owner or web developer. With this, knowing the latest SEO techniques and information is also a must. You cannot simply expect an overnight success if you own a website, which is why you really need to become knowledgeable about SEO.The Importance Of SEO Training CoursesA lot of website owners and web developers know the basics of SEO but it is always a continuous process. Ample knowledge and skills about search engine optimization is very important. In order to drive more traffic to your website, you must know the proper way of optimizing your site. The truth is, you can find various resources online. These resources can be in a form of video tutorials and pdf files – and you can get them online for free. However, getting resources online for free cannot assure you of obtaining up-to-date information and training. What you can find online for free might already be an outdated information regarding SEO. One must realize that in SEO, information and techniques are usually updated from time to time. In other words, the SEO techniques and information you knew last year might not be useful anymore. This reason alone is enough for you to consider taking up an SEO training course.The Advantages Of SEO Training CoursesEasy and Fast learning – One of the advantages of taking up an SEO training course is the convenience it offers. You don’t need to spend too much time looking for helpful resources because these will be provided to you during the training. It is considered an easy way of learning SEO because you can learn effective SEO strategies from the comforts of your home or office.It Helps You Save Money – There are companies or websites which hire an SEO expert just to get more traffic to their website. However, hiring a professional can be quite expensive. With this, taking an SEO training course will really help you save money while learning how to do SEO all by yourself.Get The Latest SEO Techniques and Information – This is probably one of the best advantages of taking a course on SEO. By taking a course on SEO, you will be able to obtain the latest SEO techniques and information that will really help you along the way.Finding The Best SEO Training CoursesNow that the competition among websites is getting tougher, it is really a must to take an SEO training course. However, you might be asking as to how you can find reliable SEO professionals who can give you a step by step approach to obtain what you need to learn.The good thing is, today you can find various websites or companies which offer great SEO training courses at reasonable prices. You can search online for wide choices of SEO professionals or institutes. This way, it will be faster and easier for you to learn the latest techniques and information about SEO.

If you’re stuck wondering how to be a successful small business owner, know this: running a small business often simply means making good use of successful small business ideas. Successful small business owners face many ups and downs throughout their work. They know that small business ideas cannot turn out successful unless they use the proper approach and strategies.If you want to be one of the few successful small business owners, remember that having a good strategy is crucial. Without the right strategy and a proper approach, you are not likely to achieve your goal.Some small business owners manage to overcome their everyday challenges, while others seem to give up after a while. So, let’s find out what successful small business owners do differently from the unsuccessful ones. Let’s turn their experience into your success through your small business ideas.1. MAKE ANNUAL REVISIONS OF YOUR BUSINESS PLAN AND BUDGETEvery business goes through changes every now and then, including your small business. For this reason, your business plan and budget should be somewhat flexible to bear such changes along with your business goals. Without revising your business plan and budget, you shouldn’t expect your business to flourish and expand.The flexibility of your business plan will help you avoid and overcome the eventual unpleasant surprises on the market. Also, such flexibility will give you some time to adjust to certain changes you may experience on your way.Every business experiences both success and failure points each year. In order to detect and estimate these points, you should revise your budget and business plan every year. While revising, you should check if you are still going in the right direction. If not, you may need to make some changes and adjustments to achieve better results in the upcoming period.Successful small business owners don’t hesitate to reallocate funds, if that is what it takes to achieve success. In order to increase profits, after they conduct a business revision, smart business owners define and implement the necessary changes immediately.2. UPDATE YOUR OFFER AND ADD VALUE TO ITPeople change, as do their needs and habits. As soon as you notice that you aren’t selling as much as you used to sell before, it is time to make changes. If people aren’t purchasing what you currently have to offer, that’s a clear hint that something needs to be done.A simple price cut may be the first thing that comes to your mind. As much as lower prices may seem more appealing to your customers, they also point to a devaluation of what you offer. Devaluation of your products or services is never a good thing, so try doing just the opposite – add value to your offers.The best way to update and add value to your products and services is by developing new offers. If possible, try to offer something completely new to your customers. You could offer product bundles, training programs and workshops, and so on.3. DARE TO BE DIFFERENTMost successful small business owners believe in daring to be different. They know their target consumers. Trying to target everyone and anyone as a consumer will get you nowhere fast. Instead of trying to make products for the masses, focus on a clearly targeted community and grow with it. Once you target your consumers, it is easy to understand their needs.Understanding your consumers is the secret to a successful business. When you know their needs, you can modify your products and services in order to satisfy them. Satisfied consumers will not only become your regulars, but they will also spread the word about what you offer. This may become the best marketing strategy for your business.Spreading the word about your products or services is called a referral marketing strategy. It’s been proven that most of the faster growing small businesses turn to this kind of marketing rather than relying on traditional advertising.4. KNOW YOUR COMPETITIONSuccessful small business owners know their competition. They know that keeping an eye on the competitors and understanding their policy and pricing is crucial to the business. It is wise to consider your direct competitors in your area, as well as indirect competitors.A direct competitor offers the same primary services to the same target group as you, and they are easy to follow on the market. However, an indirect competitor company offers the same or similar products as a segment of a wider product or service offering.In some cases, the indirect competitor may offer a product that is an applicable substitute for the original product. Successful small business owners know how to position their company against the indirect competitors. They take both types of competing companies seriously and they account for them in their annual business plan.5. HIRE THE RIGHT PEOPLEEven though hiring the right people for your business sounds obvious, it can be a really tough job for small business owners. Also, not hiring the right people could be a huge downfall for a small company. People who don’t share the concept of your business approach and goals are not the type of people you want to engage in your business.Candidates who don’t have the right temperament, skills, or talent for the job position that you offer can be too pricey for your company. Having the right people in the right job positions can make your company outstanding. Exceptional companies recruit exceptional people.6. ACCEPT TECHNOLOGY CHANGESTechnology changes on a regular basis nowadays. Successful business owners are very well aware of that, so they change accordingly. Doing things the way they were done years ago will not provide the same success nowadays.Accepting technological improvements can help your company become more effective and efficient. Keep yourself informed about the latest in new technology, and the improved solutions it brings. Choose the most appropriate ones for your business and adopt them. Your customers will be grateful and you’ll experience great benefits.7. TRUST YOUR INTUITIONIf you believe your intuition has been serving you well so far, listen to your inner voice carefully. Your instincts can lead you a long way. If you still feel strongly about something, regardless of the lack of facts or data – act on it. What seems right for other businesses doesn’t necessarily mean that it will work for you as well.Relying on intuition is often the first step out of your comfort zone, and the first step towards becoming a leading company on the market. While you watch your business grow and spread, remember that having faith in yourself and the business you are running is crucial. Being aware of your inner voice can lead you to making business decisions with more confidence and a greater success rate.

Scarcity of space is a problem prevalent in most urban homes. The problem becomes all the more compounded when you realize that you don’t have enough space to organize your media and entertainment equipment such as the TV and VCR.Look around and you will find that the every room in your home has some unused corner. Simply stated, corner entertainment centers are the ideal solution to dealing with your space problem providing storage areas for today’s typical mega media equipment.There are many variants of corner entertainment centers available. You have the option of choosing between existing centers and custom made centers. Custom made entertainment centers have the advantage of fitting your requirement to enhance your audiovisual needs.When deciding on an entertainment center, consider features such as the size of your TV and DVD player. The size of the TV is especially important because if it is too big and heavy and the center’s size is not in proportion, it will become a safety hazard.Entertainment centers are designed to hold everything from gaming systems to CD/DVD players and books. Also, if you work from home, you can choose an entertainment center that has additional space to hold your computer.Also, keep in mind that though it might take you some time to search for the perfect corner entertainment center, do remember there is a furniture style and size to match every television on the market- from trim corner stands to room-spanning home theater units. Before buying a corner entertainment center, select a design that fits in with your home décor.All said, corner entertainment centers can solve your space problems on one hand and provide the perfect storage space for your TV, CD/DVD player, computer system, books, and other knick-knacks.

There are many options for buying a group of securities in one product. The most popular ones are mutual funds, segregated funds and exchange traded funds. What they have in common is that these products are an easy way to buy a group of securities at once instead of buying each security individually. The fund can also proportion the securities so you the individual investor does not have to. There are two main classifications for what type of fund you can purchase in terms of costs. It is important to know how these costs work so you can avoid paying too much for this convenience. These products differ in terms of how they are administered, access to the products and their costs.Active Versus Passive InvestingBefore getting into which of the products are suitable for you, there are some aspects that need to be considered so that you understand what the variations are among the products.Active investing is when someone (a portfolio manager) picks the stocks that are in the fund and decides how much of each one to hold (the weighting). This portfolio manager would also monitor the portfolio and decide when a security should be sold off, added to or have its weighting decreased. Since there is ongoing research, meetings and analysis that must be done to build and monitor this portfolio, this fund manager would have research analysts and administrative personnel to help run the fund.Passive investing has the same setup as active investing, but rather than someone deciding what securities to buy or how much of each one to buy, the portfolio manager would copy a benchmark. A benchmark is a collection of securities which the fund is compared against to see how well it is doing. Since everything in investing is about how much money you can make and how much risk it takes to make that money, every fund out there is trying to compare to all of the other funds of the same type to see who can make the most money. The basis for the comparisons is the benchmark, and then it becomes comparing between peers or funds managed the same way. Comparisons in general are done only for returns. The risk aspect of the equation is handled by looking at what type of securities the fund holds or how specialized the fund is.How Do I Know By the Fund Name If it is Active or Passive?The short answer is that you have to get to know how the fund manager operates the fund. Some clues to know more quickly if the fund is active or passive are given next. If they are intentionally trying to pick securities according to some beliefs that they have about the market, this is active management. If the fund description talks about “beating the benchmark” or “manager skill” then it is actively managed. Another clue is to look at the return history. If returns vary versus the index by different amounts each year, then the fund is actively managed. Lastly, the fees may be expensive and have sales loads.If the name of the fund says “Index” or “Index fund” there is a good chance that the fund is passively managed. If the name of the fund says “ETF” this could be a passive fund, but you need to make sure of this because some ETFs are actually active funds, but they are managed in a certain way. Most of the passively managed ETFs are provided by BMO, iShares, Claymore, Vanguard and Horizons in Canada and Powershares, Vanguard and SPDR (or Standard and Poors) and others if the holdings are from the U.S. Most of the other companies would have actively managed funds only. If the fund description states that the fund is trying to “imitate” the performance of an index or benchmark, then this implies that it is copying the index and this is passively managed. From the return perspective, passively managed funds will be very close to the index that they claim to imitate, but slightly less due to fees each year. The amount that the returns are under the index will be close to identical each year unless there are currency conversions or variances in cost which may come from currency fluctuations or hedging that the fund may do. Passive funds typically do not have sales loads as they are geared toward people who invest for themselves.There are some funds that try to mix active and passive management. These funds can be assumed to be actively managed, although their results will be closer to the benchmark than most of the other funds, so this is something to consider if the variation from the index is a factor.Types of CostsWhatever product you buy, there will be a cost associated with buying it, keeping it and selling it. This will be true whether you have an advisor versus doing it yourself, and whichever institution you go to. Even buying your own individual stocks will have trading fees which you must account for. How much you are paying for each product however as well as the advice will make a large difference in what return you will get after everything is done.There are many types of costs to be aware of when you are deciding which products to invest in. This article will focus on the passive funds that make up a growing selection of products for retail investors.The Management Expense Ratio (MER)This is the largest cost for most funds and represents the cost of managing the fund. “Managing the fund” means running the investment company, advertising, overhead and the cost for the advisor or sales person when it applies. Administrative costs like GST within the fund and accounting for trades and record keeping are also part of this cost. The MER is given as a percentage, which is the percentage of the assets that the fund manages or invests over a year of time. If you have $100,000 invested in a fund, and the MER is 0.5% per year, you are paying $500 per year to keep this fund. The cost is subtracted from the return and what you see in your investment statement is your return net of fees, or after fees. The Management Expense Ratio is the management fee plus the administrative costs. The administrative costs are usually between 0.05% and 0.1% of the assets of the fund. If the information you obtain states a “Management Fee” instead of a “Management Expense Ratio” you would have to add on the administrative costs to get the true fee. Seek out the prospectus and look up fund operating costs to find exactly how much the number is.For American funds, this would be called the “Expense Ratio” which is the same thing as the Canadian MER, but advisory fees are not included in the ER. They would be included in Canada for the MER if the product is actively managed. If the product is passively managed in Canada or the U.S., the same names apply, but no advice would be part of the cost since these products are used by people who invest for themselves and would pay for advice separately if they retain it.What Is Tracking Error?In many cases, when you are buying a passive investment, you want to imitate an underlying benchmark or index. Another way of saying this is that you want to achieve the average rate of return in a given market all the time. Since every fund has costs to operate it, you will not get the benchmark 100% of the time because this means that you would be investing for free. The tracking error is the difference between the measured return that the benchmark provides and the actual return that the passive fund or imitating portfolio provides. As an example, if the S&P/TSX index had a return of 5% for a 1 year time period and 10% for a 2 year time period, and your fund had a return of 4.5% for 1 year and 9.5% for 2 years, then the tracking error would be 0.5% each year. Tracking error tends to be pretty consistent over all time periods but not perfectly consistent because the costs of running a fund will vary, and sometimes the act of trying to follow an index can get tricky if that index is very volatile or illiquid. The tracking error is not a fee per se but it is a way of measuring the costs of owning the real fund versus the index that it is being compared to. Tracking Error is also useful in determining how consistently the fund is being managed from a cost perspective.Early Redemption FeeSome companies charge an early redemption fee if you sell their fund within a short period of time. How short the period is will depend on the institution. In some cases, it is 30 days, but it can be 90 days, 6 months, 1 year or some other time period. This fee is designed to discourage quick redemptions or short term trading of the product.Sales LoadsSales loads for passive funds would only apply to a fund that is sold through a sales person. You may be able to get the same fund without the sales person in most cases. Passive investing generally does not have sales loads – but the exception would be if an advisor recommends these funds and charges you some type of fee for the selection. This would be another question to ask if you are being advised to buy a passive fund and are not seeing any direct cost to buying the product.Currency Hedging CostsThis type of fee will occur in funds that trade in non-Canadian currencies and hedge them back so that the price you receive would be in Canadian dollars. The cost of transacting the hedge itself is the fee being described here, and it can range from 0.5% to 1% per year. If the fee is not disclosed, assuming a 0.5% fee is the cheapest that it will likely be. If you are investing in emerging market currencies or non-developed market currencies, the hedges are much more expensive to put in place and can go higher than 1% per year. This is a cost embedded in the return of the fund, but should be examined to flesh out exactly what you are paying to have the return hedged.The alternative would be to keep the securities in their home currencies and whatever changes happen to the foreign exchange rates would be reflected in the price of the product. The fact that currency exchange rates can change is a risk of your investment, but it is not considered a fee like the other fees discussed in this article. This fee does not apply if the fund price is in your home currency. You may have a U.S. dollar account, buy a fund that trades in U.S. dollars and then redeem this fund for U.S. dollars. Until you convert the money on your own to Canadian dollars, there is no currency charge. You would have a conversion charge when you change the final dollar amount to Canadian dollars.Other Passive CostsPassive investing has some unique fees such as account administrative fees, trading fees, foreign exchange conversion fees, spreads on trading, opportunity costs and separate advice fees which are not seen in the active investing world because the account will capture all of these fees.Account Administrative FeesThe account administrative fees are charged by an institution for opening your account, transferring securities in or out of your account, or an annual administrative fee to keep your account open. These fees may depend on how much money you have with the institution, and can be reduced or waived as your account balance increases. These fees tend to be a flat amount as opposed to a percentage, which means they are comparatively small versus the assets that the account may have.Trading FeesTrading fees are fees charged for trading stocks or exchange traded funds. These fees will typically be a flat fee per trade and will depend on how often you trade and what type of investments you trade. Generally, the more frequently you trade and the more exotic the product that you trade, the more the expense. The further you are from home in terms of what you trade, the more expensive the trades are is a rule that applies most of the time. The longer you hold onto an investment, the less trading you will do, and the cheaper the trading fees become over time since this cost would be spread out over the life of the investment.Foreign Exchange FeesForeign exchange conversion fees will occur each time you exchange currency. This could be for withdrawing, exchanging securities, rebalancing among the holdings you have, or getting into securities or funds that are denominated in other currencies. Most of the time, the currency exchange rate has to do with the U.S. dollar, but it can be any currency if you have foreign accounts and do the investing passively.Bid Ask Spreads and Opportunity CostsSpreads on trading refers to the bid and ask price for a given security. When you buy something, you always pay the “ask” price or the higher price that the seller wants to receive, and when you sell something you would receive the “bid” price or the lower price that the buyer wants to receive. The difference between them is called the spread. To know how much this would be, examine a price quote for the fund you want to buy when the market is open and you will see the bid-ask spread when you look at any quotation for the fund. The difference between the bid price and the ask price would be the amount you are paying in dollars. This difference divided by the price of the purchase price of the fund would be the costs in terms of a percentage. As an example, if a fund has a bid price of $8.00 and an ask price of $8.10, you would be paying 10 cents per unit or share as a spread. If you bought the fund at $8.10, the cost would be $0.10/$8.10 or 1.2%. This percentage is a “one-time” fee for every buy and sell pair of trades. The longer you hold your investment and assuming the price rises, the cheaper this spread will get in terms of percentages since the value of the investment tends to rise higher over time. The reverse would be true if the value goes down for a given investment. The spread can vary over time and depending on how much volume is trading at a certain time of day.If you decide to fix the price for buying or selling a security instead of going in at the prevailing price in the moment or “the market”, you run the risk of not getting the security or having to pay much more for it at a later date. This is called the opportunity cost and it will vary a lot with each trade but it does exist and would be considered if you are trying to time your trades and if you are doing it frequently.Advisory FeesSeparate advice fees refer to a scenario where you would pay separately for advice and the products you are buying. This would be relevant if you hire a fee for service financial planner, advice only financial planner, money coach, or consultant who charges a flat fee for advice separately from whatever products you invest in. If you do it yourself, there are costs for research, courses or software that you would purchase to help you do the passive investing. Once again, if you have a traditional advisor, you are not seeing these costs itemized anywhere because they are part of the MER of the funds you hold in their account, but these costs would be standing on their own if you invest for yourself and buying your own securities.Fees of Holding One Fund Inside of Another OneIf a fund that you want to invest in has other funds in it as part of its holdings list, then you will pay the MER fee for the fund you are buying as well as the fund(s) that the fund holds. The best way to check if this is happening is to look at the holdings list. If a fund holds another fund, it tends to be a large holding so a fact sheet with a top 10 holdings summary should provide good information. If you want to be really thorough about this, you would have to get an entire holdings list with each and every holding in it so you can see if there are minor holdings that may be funds. This is typically not necessary as the further down the holdings list a security is, the smaller its weighting is and the less impact the fees will have on your total cost.The actual numbers for each of these items will differ depending on specifically what the fund is and how it is managed. If the fee is necessary to operate the fund, like currency hedging, then this would be included. Whether a fund holds stocks or another fund can also impact withholding taxes if the fund is investing outside of Canada – particularly for U.S. products. This topic can get complex, so it will not be discussed here. Some funds will contain other funds to get access to illiquid markets, or to trade in parts of the world that have hundreds of securities. Buying a fund in these cases would actually save on time and trading costs, so it can be justified depending on the market being invested in.Intangible CostsThe key takeway is that you need to do a cradle to grave analysis of what you have and see the costs from beginning to end to get an idea of what is really happening. Ideally, the costs should factor in time spent, effort spent on research, tools used for investing and costs of discipline and assurance which would be available when dealing with an advisor that may not be there when you are doing it yourself. When comparisons are done to the market index or benchmark, this is really an ideal (free) comparison which is not realistic. You cannot buy a free version of the index – the ETFs come closest to this and are represented as the passive way to invest.Where to Find These Costs?The most comprehensive place that will contain the most detail regarding fund costs is the prospectus. This can be found be searching for the product name and the word “prospectus”. If you do not know the exact product name, you can search the fund management company only and then search for the product name on their web site. The fund companies will have these documents with the regulator as well as their own web sites and they will be typically in PDF format which can be read and downloaded from your computer. A simplified prospectus would also have the same data that you would be looking for regarding fees.

Summary
SPDN is not the largest or oldest way to short the S&P 500, but it’s a solid choice.
This ETF uses a variety of financial instruments to target a return opposite that of the S&P 500 Index.
SPDN’s 0.49% Expense Ratio is nearly half that of the larger, longer-tenured -1x Inverse S&P 500 ETF.
Details aside, the potential continuation of the equity bear market makes single-inverse ETFs an investment segment investor should be familiar with.
We rate SPDN a Strong Buy because we believe the risks of a continued bear market greatly outweigh the possibility of a quick return to a bull market.
Put a gear stick into R position, (Reverse).
Birdlkportfolio

By Rob Isbitts

Summary
The S&P 500 is in a bear market, and we don’t see a quick-fix. Many investors assume the only way to navigate a potentially long-term bear market is to hide in cash, day-trade or “just hang in there” while the bear takes their retirement nest egg.

The Direxion Daily S&P 500® Bear 1X ETF (NYSEARCA:SPDN) is one of a class of single-inverse ETFs that allow investors to profit from down moves in the stock market.

SPDN is an unleveraged, liquid, low-cost way to either try to hedge an equity portfolio, profit from a decline in the S&P 500, or both. We rate it a Strong Buy, given our concern about the intermediate-term outlook for the global equity market.

Strategy
SPDN keeps it simple. If the S&P 500 goes up by X%, it should go down by X%. The opposite is also expected.

Proprietary ETF Grades
Offense/Defense: Defense

Segment: Inverse Equity

Sub-Segment: Inverse S&P 500

Correlation (vs. S&P 500): Very High (inverse)

Expected Volatility (vs. S&P 500): Similar (but opposite)

Holding Analysis
SPDN does not rely on shorting individual stocks in the S&P 500. Instead, the managers typically use a combination of futures, swaps and other derivative instruments to create a portfolio that consistently aims to deliver the opposite of what the S&P 500 does.

Strengths
SPDN is a fairly “no-frills” way to do what many investors probably wished they could do during the first 9 months of 2022 and in past bear markets: find something that goes up when the “market” goes down. After all, bonds are not the answer they used to be, commodities like gold have, shall we say, lost their luster. And moving to cash creates the issue of making two correct timing decisions, when to get in and when to get out. SPDN and its single-inverse ETF brethren offer a liquid tool to use in a variety of ways, depending on what a particular investor wants to achieve.

Weaknesses
The weakness of any inverse ETF is that it does the opposite of what the market does, when the market goes up. So, even in bear markets when the broader market trend is down, sharp bear market rallies (or any rallies for that matter) in the S&P 500 will cause SPDN to drop as much as the market goes up.

Opportunities
While inverse ETFs have a reputation in some circles as nothing more than day-trading vehicles, our own experience with them is, pardon the pun, exactly the opposite! We encourage investors to try to better-understand single inverse ETFs like SPDN. While traders tend to gravitate to leveraged inverse ETFs (which actually are day-trading tools), we believe that in an extended bear market, SPDN and its ilk could be a game-saver for many portfolios.

Threats
SPDN and most other single inverse ETFs are vulnerable to a sustained rise in the price of the index it aims to deliver the inverse of. But that threat of loss in a rising market means that when an investor considers SPDN, they should also have a game plan for how and when they will deploy this unique portfolio weapon.

Proprietary Technical Ratings
Short-Term Rating (next 3 months): Strong Buy

Long-Term Rating (next 12 months): Buy

Conclusions
ETF Quality Opinion
SPDN does what it aims to do, and has done so for over 6 years now. For a while, it was largely-ignored, given the existence of a similar ETF that has been around much longer. But the more tenured SPDN has become, the more attractive it looks as an alternative.

ETF Investment Opinion

SPDN is rated Strong Buy because the S&P 500 continues to look as vulnerable to further decline. And, while the market bottomed in mid-June, rallied, then waffled since that time, our proprietary macro market indicators all point to much greater risk of a major decline from this level than a fast return to bull market glory. Thus, SPDN is at best a way to exploit and attack the bear, and at worst a hedge on an otherwise equity-laden portfolio.