Defender ETF Does Only Half the Job

Late last year I wrote about the Claymore/Sabrient Defender ETF(DEF Quote) and was generally positive on it. Half a year later, results are solidly mixed. This is still a great core holding for broad exposure, but as a defense play, it has yet to prove itself.

The basic idea behind this fund is that it should do well when the market goes down.

The exact methodology is proprietary, but every quarter it rebalances to take into account what did well on bad days around the time of the rebalancing. ...