By some definitions sector rotation is what you are talking about. Sometimes people get the sector with the best RSI and pick the two or three constituent stocks with the best RSI. There was a sector rotation fund, I cannot think of the name of the company that had it, that did 23% a year for two decades leading up to 2000, it performed horrendously in a bear market, way underperforming the market. I would guess that if you had the sense to invert the strategy in a bear market and trade the short side it would keep on working. Those particular fund managers never revealed exactly how they did sector rotation. Maybe they were tracking the business cycle or it might have been pure TA. I don't know of a better approach for somebody that has a lot of $ and needs to make it work hard. There are way better ways to trade a smaller account.
Must have been simple rotation. You can kick the S&P 500's butt with momo strategies in a bull market, but in a bear you basically give it all back. It's a highly volatile strategy in any case.
Speaking of etf's, I follow the QQQQ, and SPY and they've been pretty much flat all year. Not real exciting so far. - nathan