Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citigroup are all down about 17% - 21% in 2011. Making matters worse, Moody’s has placed these companies under a ratings review. In fact, the technical picture for Financial ETFs is becoming increasingly bearish. While the Financial Select Sector SPDR (XLF) and iShares DJ Regional Banks (IAT) are only down 7%-8% YTD, they’ve fallen 2x as far from 2011 highs and share prices have fallen [...] Continue Reading...
Even the bulls have been hedging their commentary lately. For example, Blackrock’s Bob Doll frequently points to accommodative monetary policy, strong corporate results and an increasingly self-sustaining economy as reasons for stocks to grind higher. More recently, though, the chief equity strategist acknowledged economic malaise by philosophizing, “A significant acceleration or deceleration in the pace of jobs growth has [...] Continue Reading...
Industrial stocks are often regarded as the heart of the U.S. economy. If big-name manufacturers from Caterpillar (CAT) to Alcoa (AA) are thriving, then all may be “right” with America. Yet consumption, not manufacturing, represents roughly 2/3 of U.S. GDP. It follows that retail stocks may represent the economy’s ”soul.” At present, job uncertainty is casting a gloomy cloud over big-name [...] Continue Reading...
Until recently, scores of gurus had questioned the sector rotation into non-cyclical sectors. April jobs numbers were “phenomenal” and corporate earnings were sensational. Why should investors sell in May and go away? Yet telecom, health care and consumer staples (e.g., toothpaste, peanut butter, etc.) were rocketing up the relative strength percentile rankings. And many analysts explained that the April-May [...] Continue Reading...
Standard and Poors reported that the U.S. housing market has dipped back to 2002 prices. Yet ETFs like the Vanguard REIT Index ETF (VNQ) and the iShares Cohen & Steers Realty Majors (ICF) are up more than 8% and 10% respectively in 2011. With global economic concerns causing the markets to pullback from their 2011 highs, is now the time [...] Continue Reading...
ETFs To Avoid, ETFs To Embrace, Ultrashort ETFs, Commodity ETFs, ETFs For A Stock Correction Click here to listen to the show: 6-5-2011 Continue Reading...
Yesterday, June 2, 2011, 14-year old Sukanya Roy rocked the 1st place trophy at the 2011 Scripps National Spelling Bee. For some reason, I thought of my 14-year old daughter, and wondered whether she could spell, “perescii.” Then my mind shifted to something else entirely. Specifically, I wondered how many Americans could spell the word, “ethnocentrism.“ It is essentially spelled like it sounds. What’s more, it [...] Continue Reading...
5 down weeks in a row! In some ways, it sounds worse than the actuality. After all, the S&P 500 closed out the first week of June a mere -4.6% away from a multi-year pinnacle. Of course, pessimists really do have reasons to fret. The Citigroup Economic Surprise Index is at its worst levels since the recession was in [...] Continue Reading...
On the last day of May, stocks gained significant ground in Japan, China, Europe and the United States. Jim Cramer of CNBC Mad Money fame announced that you don’t get that type of across-the-board activity often, and that a rising tide for a global rally would lift all equity boats going forward. On the first day of June, however, worldwide markets hammered stock assets by 1.5%-3%. Mr. [...] Continue Reading...
The debate over the best way to get total commodity exposure has raged for years. One author (see below) appears to favor the PowerShares DB Commodity Tracking Fund (DBC). Gary Gordon tends to favor the Greenhaven Continuous Commodity Index Fund (GCC) for its equal weighting approach across 17 possibilities. Nevertheless, each investment has a drawback or two. With [...] Continue Reading...
