Allocate Smartly tests and evaluates "tactical allocation" strategies, and facilitates their application by investors. It does not develop, rate, or rank them.

A useful comment on the underlying principles by which such strategies are meant to operate has been produced by the owner of the web site Financial Mentor. He does not seem to have any formal affiliation with Allocate Smartly, but he clearly thinks highly of it, and has allowed two strategies that he has developed to be presented there (without disclosure of the precise rules by which they operate). There are a few other black box strategies on the site as well, but most are transparent as to the rules by which they work.

At some point he wrote what must be an VERY extensive guide to the whole subject, which I have not seen. But I found one section of it post for free on the web, specifically about Allocate Smartly (from a year or two back, I'd say). It can be found here:

financialmentor.com - Lesson Choose Your Portfolio of Systems Part

I found it helpful, probably because he emphasizes some things I also believe:

The basis of a strategy's out-performance has to be recognizable and reasonable.
A lot of allocation strategies spend too much time in cash.
The long bull market in bonds means you need to be careful about pursuing long-term historical optimization.
Timing and allocation decisions should be bright-line choices, not matters of judgment or inference.

Baltassar