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...
Last October, enthusiasm for Brazil had reached epic proportions. And why not? Not only had the iShares MSCI Brazil Fund (EWZ) risen 175% off its November 2008 lows, but the country constitutes one of the essential building blocks in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, China, India) fortress. Indeed, the country boasts the world’s 7th largest economy, a consumption-oriented middle [...] Continue Reading...
Abby Joseph Cohen of Goldman Sachs fame received rave reviews for her bullishness on stocks and the U.S. economy in the 90s. Yet, even in the final years of the decade, when signs of irrational exuberance were everywhere, Cohen stubbornly expressed upbeat forecasts. She viewed stocks as terrific buys in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002… heck, throughout the entire dot-com [...] Continue Reading...
It’s one thing to claim that the stock market is pricing in Armageddon… that emotionality is trumping rationality. It’s another thing to dismiss investor fears as silly or absurd. Along these lines, the researchers at Bespoke published a fascinating table of “technically oversold” ETFs. In Analystville, one may regard an ETF as oversold when its current price is more [...] Continue Reading...
Just three trading sessions ago, PowerShares NASDAQ 100 (QQQ) hit a multi-year high. So did iShares Morningstar Large-Cap Growth (JKE). It’s not that the markets were ignoring the debt deadlock. SPDR Gold (GLD) and CurrencyShares Swiss Franc (FXF) were registering records as well. It’s the fact that summertime traders were taking a barbell approach to risk allocation, loading up [...] Continue Reading...
How confident should you be about Democrats and Republicans reaching an accord on raising the debt ceiling? Confident enough. Don’t get me wrong. I always have my stop-limit orders protecting key ETF positions. It’s just that the bond market as well as the stock market both agree… a deal will get done. 10-year treasury yields are still offering a [...] Continue Reading...
Conventional commentary on Wednesday, 7/6/2011, described the trading as light and lackluster. Yet S&P SPDR Gold (GLD) climbed back above a critical trendline, PowerShares Developed Market Ex US (PXF) experienced 30x the normal trading volume and iShares DJ Transports (IYT) notched a new 52-week high. Beginning with the yellow metal, some surmised that the “risk-on” trade [...] Continue Reading...
Can you name the developed country that hasn’t experienced a recession in close to 20 years? It’s Australia. And not only did the land “down under” weather the dot-com disaster that ushered in the 21st century, the nation also made it through the global credit collapse of 2008. Equally worthy of note, Australia was the first developed world sovereignty to raise [...] Continue Reading...
