The financial media continue to perpetuate a “risk trade on, risk trade off” myth. Yet a better representation of what’s taking place in market-based securities is “developed market risk off, emerging market risk on.” Is it true that nearly every U.S. Treasury Bond ETF has been hitting 52-week highs on a daily basis? Absolutely. Yet you shouldn’t [...] Continue Reading...
Even a devout follower of financial news may have missed it; that is, the real engine behind renewed bullishness is the continuation of the China growth story. Granted, there’s been a variety of exceptional earnings reports, including UPS, 3M, Apple, Qualcomm and Pepsico. However, plenty of others expressed ”unusual uncertainty,” such as Amazon, Google, Starbucks and Bank of [...] Continue Reading...
According to internal estimates in China, economic growth slowed more than investors had been hoping for. That idea renewed fears that China may be tightening its growth reins a bit too harshly. Zip-lining over to Europe, there are freshwater concerns about European banks. At present, they need to repay hundreds of billions in euros in emergency loans that they received, giving rise to panic about [...] Continue Reading...
The S&P 500 stayed above its 200-day exponential moving average for a second consecutive day. Chart enthusiasts (a.k.a., technical analysts) find this trend rather bullish for the popular large-cap indicator. Benchmarks for small- and mid-cap U.S. equities have also advanced the bullish cause. Both the iShares Russell 2000 Fund (IWM) and the SPDR MidCap 400 Fund (MDY) [...] Continue Reading...
The month of June hasn’t yet crossed the half-way point. Nevertheless, with the worst May outing for stocks since 1962, bearish pundits have been happily delivering eulogies for market-based securities. Is it really that bad fro the global economy? China’s trade activity suggests that credit tightening has slowed, but that it hasn’t not damaged global growth. U.S. manufacturing has remained [...] Continue Reading...
At the beginning of the month, the prices on the vast majority of sector ETFs rested comfortably above short-term and long-term trendlines. By the end of May 2010… the worst since May 1962… only the prices on a handful of economic segment ETFs managed to hold above respective 200-day moving averages. Here is the woeful tale of relative regression over 1 [...] Continue Reading...
In March, 2008, the collapse of Bear Stearns was thought to represent complete capitulation. Former “King James-of-the-bank-analysis-court,” Dick Bove, even called Bank of America (BAC) and Citigroup (C) ”generational buying opportunities.” Unfortunately, the bottom came a whole year later… in March of 2009. What’s more, the monstrous 178% gains for the KBW Bank Index Fund (KBE) off the true bottom, still leaves KBE 35% [...] Continue Reading...
The 5 best year-over-year performers? They’re all REIT ETFs. On the one hand, one has to marvel at any diversified investment that gains 80%+ in a 12-month period. Those returns have come in spite of a glut of commercial property; they’ve come in the wake of unresolved, unpaid and unsustainable commercial property debts. On the other hand, even if REIT ETF [...] Continue Reading...
What a difference a few years can make. It wasn’t that long ago that investors had written off Starbucks for dead. Fast food chains like IHOP were serving up free pancakes. And previous darlings like Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) had forfeited 70%+ of its market value. Yet recent upgrades to a number of food service giants may make PowerShares Dynamic Food [...] Continue Reading...
It didn’t take long for SEC fraud charges to send millions of Goldman Sachs (GS) investors running for the exits. From an intra-day high of $186 per share set on Friday, April 16, it has since closed at $159.58 on Tuesday, April 20. And that was after a blockbuster earnings report! Yet the investment community is divided over [...] Continue Reading...
