Gluteus Maximus

Claymore Plans Momentum-Based Commodities ETF

If you want to see a mutual fund that mimics the same underlying index(S&P CTI) check out DXCTX from Direxion Fund. Launched in July of 2008 it up 13.48% vs S&P 500 -35.25%. The strategy works (so far) having a very low if not negative correlation to stocks. Year to date the fund as been up when the markets are down and recently with the bear market rally, the fund as been down. Another similar fund is Rydex's (RYMFX) which is based on the S&P DTI Commodity Trend index. This is more of a managed futures fund that is spit 50/50 between financial (currencies) and commodities. This fund has been around longer than DXCTX. Since March of 2007 the RYMFX is up 9.3% vs S&P 500 -41.84. Be warned that all the funds mentioned above as well as the forthcoming Claymore ETF will NOT short oil which happens to be the biggest single weighting. If the trend for oil is heading lower the index redistributes the weight across the other positions.
One final note: If want to follow the funds during the day look up SPDTT:IND on Bloomberg to see how RYMFX is doing and LSC.IV on Google finance to see how DXCTX is doing.

The 'Preferred' Way to Play Financials

I've been purchasing preferred etfs for several months and enjoying the ride so far. Getting paid to wait if you can take the upds and downs. Keep in mind the tax implications of PFF, PGX and PGF. Only PGX is 100% QDI (favorable tax treatment) the others don't fully qualify.

Buy Sectors, Not Stocks

To further support your thesis, Wall street trading over course of my career of fifteen years has moved to basket/program trading. Institutions are either positive or negative on a sector when it comes to trading. Furthermore, the same can be said for stocks in different sectors. When an order came in to sell, institutions rarely cared what you are selling they just wanted cash. Selling a large cap basket may include IBM, JNJ and GM (yes, GM was once considered a large cap company) the fundamentals rarely mattered.