According to Bloomberg data, the modest year-to-date increase in the S&P 500 is attributable to health care and retail alone. Worse yet, the two industry segments trade at a 20% premium to the market at large. Paying a premium for growth is one thing. Chasing a handful of momentum stocks is another. Brokerage firm Jones Trading sharpened the knife even further, noting that six corporations account for more than the entirety of the meager 2015 gains in the S&P 500. Those…
At the tail end of 2014, individual investors as well as financial web site editors asked me for predictions on a variety of assets heading into 2015. I answered as many folks as I could. I suggested that foreign developed stocks via iShares Currency Hedged EAFE (HEFA) or Vanguard Europe Pacific (VEA) would likely outperform U.S. stocks, due to perceived value, easing of monetary policy and four consecutive years of foreign equity underperformance. (When was the last time that U.S. equities…
Perma-bulls on the major networks routinely gloss over the reduction in stock market breadth. For example, 60% of the Dow 30 components currently sit below long-term moving averages. When companies like Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, DuPont, Intel and Verizon are simultaneously suffering from rally fatigue, one might anticipate an eventual breakdown in the gravity-defying direction of popular benchmarks like the Dow and the S&P 500. It is not just companies in the Dow that are struggling. Most of the individual sector investments…
Bullish borrowers have increased their margin debt to invest in stocks from $445 billion in January to $507 billion today. And why not? The overall price movement for growth sectors of the stock market remains healthy. Flashy sub-segments like cyber-security and biotech continue to soar. For example, I allocated a small portion of moderately aggressive client assets to the Pure Funds ISE Cyber Security ETF (HACK) in early February. Its series of higher lows since its inception lent credibility to…
Perma-bulls may note that the S&P 500 eked out a 0.4% gain in the first quarter of 2015. They may also choose to ignore warning signs such as the 5th consecutive month of decelerating economic activity in the manufacturing segment. The last time that this happened? 2008. A quick check of the individual sectors that make up the overall market demonstrates that an increasing number of them are losing ground rather than gaining it. For example, the transporters in the…
McKinsey & Company, a multinational consulting firm, recently compiled data on global debt and economic growth. The company determined that worldwide debt has reached nearly $200 trillion dollars, up from roughly $140 trillion at the time of the 2008 crisis. Gross world product grew approximately $15 trillion to $70 trillion in the same time frame. In other words, IOUs grew roughly 41% over the last seven years in a period when the global economy expanded at a more modest 27%….
Lost in the bull market euphoria is the reality that economists have been dead wrong about the direction of asset prices, particularly bond prices. Last December, when 55 of the most prestigious economists across a wide range of institutions had been polled by Bloomberg about where the 10-year yield (3.0%) would end the year, each of the 55 professionals anticipated higher rates. The average of those estimates? 3.41%. And yet, the 10-year will finish the year closer to 2.25%. That…
Talk about doom and gloom. Oil bears are predicting $40 per barrel, even $30 per barrel. Meanwhile, a whole lot of folks are treating the chatter like it is a foregone conclusion. What would need to happen for oil to go from $110 per barrel at the height of Russia-Ukraine tensions down to $30 per barrel and stay there? Oil-producing exporters would need to vow never to cut production… ever. Countries exceptionally dependent on oil revenue (a la Russia) would…
I have not been able to sell my house. I have lowered the original asking price ($1,139,000) by more than 5%. I have jacked up the commission for buyer agents. None of it matters – million dollar homes throughout Orange County, California are not receiving a whole lot of offers. Granted, real estate is local. What’s more, I may be fortunate enough to rent out the residence. (My family already has a new home to move into in November.) Yet…
In spite of a stock market sell-off that nearly set the S&P 500 back 10%, some stock ETFs have already recovered. That’s right. A handful of funds barely trembled during last week’s frightful liquidation. Shortly thereafter, this intrepid group ascended to record heights. Here are the more notable stock ETFs on the latest 52-Week High list. Do the 1-month and 3-month performance intervals hint at a pattern? New Highs: Least Volatile ETFs Are Shining The Brightest 1 Month % 3…
