The AdvisorShares Rockledge SectorSAM ETF (NYSE: SSAM) will open for trading on Thursday, 12 January, 2012. New York-based Rockledge Advisors ("Rockledge") is the portfolio manager of SSAM, which seeks to generate stable and consistent annual returns under all market conditions by utilising both long and short positions in US Sector ETFs that correspond to the US large capitalisation sectors.
In almost any year or market cycle, there is a significant difference in the performance between the top performing sector and the bottom performing sector. This strategy is designed to invest in the top performing sectors, while hedging by short selling the sectors expected to have the lowest or negative returns. To do this, Rockledge will use a proprietary quantitative analytical system known as the Sector Scoring and Allocation Methodology ("SectorSAM") which helps Rockledge determine specific conditions in both economic and business cycles. Rockledge evaluates whether a sector is cheap or expensive, given the cycle relative to the rest of the market and will invest (be long) in the undervalued sectors while avoiding (be short) the overvalued sectors.
Alex Gurvich, Co-Founder of Rockledge and portfolio manager of SSAM said, "The U.S. economy goes through various growth cycles, which means there should be relative sector variation at all times. We rotate investments between the U.S. economic sectors based on our proprietary evaluation in order to try and outperform the overall market. We believe that the prudent investor, who understands the risk vs. reward tradeoff, should be looking at sector investing vs. individual stocks. Holding a position in a sector can provide inherent diversification while reducing individual company risk."
"We are very excited to be launching SSAM with Alex Gurvich’s team from Rockledge," says Noah Hamman (pictured), CEO and Founder of AdvisorShares. "Financial Advisors and investors are seeking more active and hedging strategies to add to their investment portfolio. The ability to add a new alternative manager in a transparent, cost-effective actively managed ETF structure will be a compelling offering to both advisors and their clients. We feel this provides an excellent complement to our existing suite of actively managed ETF strategies."
