I think this broad market is two things at the same time. 1) The most dangerous market I’ve seen in 40 years in the profession. And, 2) the most opportunistic. Yes, both can be true at the same time.
However, the buy-and-hold thing is dead in the water for the foreseeable future. Markets are too mechanical now, and that has forced my hand. I’d say at the start of this decade, I was 70% investing and 30% trading. Now, I’m doing 90% trading and 10% investing.
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I say that because while I maintain a continuous position in the 10 ETFs that comprise my ROAR 10 model portfolio, as well as in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), those positions are anything but “fixed” in size.
My ROAR Score governs my allocations. I have a very simple 2-ETF model that tracks it, allocating to just SPY and the State Street SPDR Bloomberg 1-3 Month T-Bill ETF (BIL), based on SPY’s ROAR Score each week.
That ROAR Score for SPY, which has been hanging at the modestly bullish 60 level (100 is lowest risk of major loss, 0 is highest), recently dipped to 40. That now puts it into a low-neutral range. And as I show you below, as we saw earlier this year, it can dive to a more dangerous level very quickly.
I think we could be in that type of market right now. The last time this happened, I called a “warning shot” on Feb. 13. A few weeks later, on March 5, SPY’s ROAR Score moved down through the 60 level.
That led to a 7% drop in SPY in just 17 trading days. However, once again, the bulls stepped in and saved it from more damage. Another sustained stock market crisis averted.
| 2026-02-12 | 681.27 | 60 |
| 2026-02-13 | 681.75 | 40 |
| 2026-02-17 | 682.85 | 40 |
| 2026-02-18 | 686.29 | 40 |
| 2026-02-19 | 684.48 | 40 |
| 2026-02-20 | 689.43 | 40 |
| 2026-02-23 | 682.39 | 40 |
| 2026-02-24 | 687.35 | 40 |
| 2026-02-25 | 693.15 | 40 |
| 2026-02-26 | 689.30 | 40 |
| 2026-02-27 | 685.99 | 40 |
| 2026-03-02 | 686.38 | 40 |
| 2026-03-03 | 680.33 | 40 |
| 2026-03-04 | 685.13 | 40 |
| 2026-03-05 | 681.31 | 40 |
| 2026-03-06 | 672.38 | 40 |
| 2026-03-09 | 678.27 | 40 |
| 2026-03-10 | 677.18 | 40 |
| 2026-03-11 | 676.33 | 40 |
| 2026-03-12 | 666.06 | 40 |
| 2026-03-13 | 662.29 | 40 |
| 2026-03-16 | 669.03 | 40 |
| 2026-03-17 | 670.79 | 40 |
| 2026-03-18 | 661.43 | 40 |
| 2026-03-19 | 659.80 | 40 |
| 2026-03-20 | 648.57 | 20 |
| 2026-03-23 | 655.38 | 20 |
| 2026-03-24 | 653.18 | 10 |
| 2026-03-25 | 656.82 | 10 |
| 2026-03-26 | 645.09 | 10 |
| 2026-03-27 | 634.09 | 10 |
| 2026-03-30 | 631.97 | 20 |
| 2026-03-31 | 650.34 | 10 |
| 2026-04-01 | 655.24 | 10 |
| 2026-04-02 | 655.83 | 10 |
| 2026-04-06 | 658.93 | 20 |
| 2026-04-07 | 659.22 | 40 |
| 2026-04-08 | 676.01 | 40 |
| 2026-04-09 | 679.91 | 40 |
| 2026-04-10 | 679.46 | 30 |
| 2026-04-13 | 686.10 | 50 |
The all-clear signal occurred on April 13, when SPY’s ROAR Score snuck back up to 50. The ETF then ran to $778, an all-time high, before peaking recently.
This points out two different ways people use the ROAR Score. One is to play it conservatively, and wait for the dust to settle after a market starts to turn south. That can mean lower stock exposure but not zero (my approach), or a more timing-driven strategy, involving the “in or out” thing alluded to above.
Using earlier this year as one example, if you bought SPY at the depths, around $632, you scored a more-than-15% gain. Waiting until April 13 or later cost you a few percentage points, likely in exchange for greater peace of mind.
A low ROAR Score does not mean “sell.” It means “high risk of major loss.” But basic investing tenets remind us that if you are willing to take high risk, that’s where returns can be higher. Feast or famine.
So just because I play the middle most of the time, any type of technical analysis, including my ROAR Score method, can be thought of that way. In Barchart Opinion, it also tends to be darkest before dawn. Buying a “sell 100%” typically leads to a wide range of outcomes, from great to horrible.
You see, every investor can get returns from stocks and ETFs. But they should seek to determine how much risk they can put up with while pursuing that gain. That’s ROAR in a nutshell. It tries to keep both reward and risk in mind at all times. That’s how I came up with the name!
Here’s how this relates to right now.
SPY has held there, really well, as some AI stocks and others plummet. The Invesco QQQ ETF (QQQ) has rolled over, but the “old economy” blue-chip stocks are fighting back. Not enough to bring SPY to new all-time highs. But enough to keep it from looking like a crash is imminent.
I’m going to be watching the ROAR Scores for SPY and just about everything else very closely. But keeping in mind that it has a lag effect, in that we use the past 10 days’ price data, not simply where it closed “today.” And unlike a binary “buy/sell” moving average indicator, ROAR only asks “how much risk am I taking in this security now?”
For SPY, that risk level just increased last week. That puts it in the spotlight.
The next key event is to see if the ROAR Score sinks to 20, 10, or even 0. That will increase the chance that this is at least a correction. And the longer it stays down there, the longer the risk of major loss is very high (score of 20 and below), the more it starts to translate to something much bigger than a correction… like a crash.
Rob Isbitts is a semi-retired CIO, former fiduciary investment advisor, Barchart columnist, and straight-talker. Download his new free e-book on hedged bond investing for retirement at ETFYourself.com. His research and model portfolios are at ROAR.PiTrade.com.
On the date of publication, Rob Isbitts did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.
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