Throughout the year, I have pursued higher-yielding income. Energy partnerships, preferred shares, high yield bonds, emerging market bonds — it hasn’t mattered. The corresponding ETFs experienced capital appreciation; meanwhile, the 5%-8% annual yield presented extraordinary value up and above comparable treasuries. With that said, how can I completely knock U.S. treasury bonds? Or for that matter, how can anyone slam [...] Continue Reading...
Money has been flowing out of stock assets at a steady pace. Macroeconomic data has been decidedly weak. And unless you hopped aboard the gravy “grains” this past week, a Great White took a bite out of your portfolio. (Or maybe a brown bear is responsible for the mauling. I don’t think it was a brown bear, though. So let’s [...] Continue Reading...
Since the end of the 2nd quarter in June, The MSCI World Index is up roughly 5%. That’s not a bad start to the second half of the year for world stocks, in spite of the U.S. hitting new lows in the first week of July. Yet more noticeably, scores of foreign stock ETFs reached correction [...] Continue Reading...
Here on July 8, 2010, stock assets in the U.S. are looking to trumpet a third straight day of gains. Yet corporate earnings guidance for the remainder of the year will determine whether or not the ultimate developed world market can maintain upward momentum. The knock on developed world stocks isn’t that they aren’t cheap. It’s that [...] Continue Reading...
At the halfway mark of Tuesday’s trading (7/6/2010), the S&P 500 SPDR Trust (SPY) is down -7.5% over the last 6 months. This is… in and of itself… hardly surprising. After all, the majority of country ETFs are down sharply over the same time frame. That said, for those who have disowned any financial ties to Europe, one country [...] Continue Reading...
U.S. markets initially soared on the news that China would allow its currency to appreciate against world currencies. Yet the countries that will benefit the most from a yuan reevaluation are the neighbors throughout Asia. Erroneously, there are folks who believe that China is bowing to developed world pressure prior to the G-20 summit. Anyone who has spent enough [...] Continue Reading...
The first day of June sent stocks, commodities and high-yield bonds back within a stone’s throw of their closing May lows. A few days later, we may have witnessed the return of the “risk trade.” On Thursday, June 3, some of the most widely traded ETFs began distancing themselves from their intra-session troughs of May. Here’s how far they’ve come since [...] Continue Reading...
Since January, the SPDR S&P 500 Trust (SPY) has only breached a 20-Day trendline on the downside a single time. It appears that investors are very willing to buy SPY whenever it pulls back a mere 2%-3% from its high. “Buy America” enthusiasm has been nothing less than remarkable. The SEC charges the largest investment bank in the world [...] Continue Reading...
All investors like to think about discovering the “unknown” company. What if I had gotten in on Cisco before it became Cisco! What if I chose Google before the world became ”bam-googled!” Ironically, investors think a bit less about getting into an “untapped” country or an untapped region. Consider how well you might have performed over the last year if [...] Continue Reading...
Consistency could legitimately refer to more than a half dozen investing concepts. What I mean is… which funds produced positive returns over the last 5 days as well as 1-, 3- and 6-month periods. Granted, the first few days of February gave a quick boost to equities. Yet last 3 trading sessions in January were exceptionally unfavorable. It follows that [...] Continue Reading...
