Are you wondering if the market can go significantly higher by year end? Maybe your question should take the U.S. market’s remarkable resilience into account. Specifically, the S&P 500 has not closed in bear market territory. In fact, the large-cap barometer would have to close below 1096 to get there. Yet, with the exception of a few scary moments, the gauge has demonstrated its [...] Continue Reading...
In the 5-year bull market from 10/2002 through 9/2007, large-cap indexes typically carried price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios ranging from 17-18. Perma-bears harped on these “valuations” throughout the period, expressing that major benchmarks had not reverted back to a historical average of 15. With the real estate lending bubble bursting in dramatic fashion, stock assets plummeted 40%. Separately, the P/E price tag for the S&P [...] Continue Reading...
In spite of significant corrective activity in U.S. stock assets… in spite of bears clawing away at a number of foreign stock assets… the most popular company on the planet remains unharmed. In fact, shares of Apple hit a new all-time high on September 20, 2011. Everyone is “gaga” for Apple stock. That includes you, me… even the guy who takes [...] Continue Reading...
Euro-zone members have yet to come to a meaningful agreement on how to save weaker countries from sovereign debt defaults. Consequently, Germany has been studying the adverse impact that a default by Greece would have on German banks. Meanwhile, CEOs of French financial institutions can be seen on the talk circuit, claiming that banks in France are well-capitalized and [...] Continue Reading...
How many articles are going to emphasize how bad the month of August treated investors? The fact that U.S. stocks in the S&P 500 shed -5.7% speaks for itself. On the other hand, the reality that August had been down as much -13.3% eight trading days earlier is far more telling. Ironically, you still read how the U.S. credit downgrade [...] Continue Reading...
Nearly every investor would like to believe that Tuesday’s 300-point Dow performance was meaningful. In fact, with the SPDR S&P Gold Trust (GLD) shedding more than 3% in the single session — with the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) falling close to 15% on the day – the Dow’s surge may have been legitimate. Still, you might not want [...] Continue Reading...
Like IPOs, freshly launched ETFs receive prodigious praise out of the trading gate. And like many IPOs, many struggle to live up to the hype. Consider the First Trust Cloud Computing Fund (SKYY). After 9 trading sessions, SKYY currently rests at its lowest close since its July 6 debut. And that’s after an enormous amount of positive press. In reality, [...] Continue Reading...
There are plenty of analysts who have questioned whether or not Google (GOOG) could sustain a double-digit growth rate going forward. Yet the tech giant’s 32% revenue burst in the current quarter not only quieted the naysayers, it sent share prices up 13% in a single trading session. Not sure about those annoying click-through links? The average [...] Continue Reading...
Get used to the term, “uneven recovery.” You’re going to hear it out of the mouths of nearly every CEO this earnings season. For instance, profits at Alcoa (AA) doubled from the year-ago period. In the year-earlier quarter, revenue surged a whopping 27%. Yet CEO Klaus Kleinfeld didn’t hold back from stating, “Although the economic recovery is uneven, [...] Continue Reading...
According to the folks at Fidelity Investments, the average frequency of a 10% market correction is once per year. However, we have not seen a pullback of this magnitude over the last 12 months (7/6/10-7/5/11), and we have yet to see it occur in 2011. In March, the Middle East uprisings coupled with Japan’s devastating earthquake certainly had the potential to [...] Continue Reading...
