Morningstar used to be a one-trick pony. The company rated mutual funds… and they weren’t particularly good at it. For instance, in 1999, nearly every investment in the Janus stable held 4 or 5 stars. The primary reason? Janus products demonstrated superior performance on a relative basis in most stock categories over popular time frames (e.g., 1 year, 3 year, etc.). Did [...] Continue Reading...
On the first day of December, 2011, a number of brand name corporations hit new 52-week highs. Here are a few that caught my eye: McDonalds (MCD), Phillip Morris (PM), Diageo (DEO), Kraft (KFT) and Treehouse Foods (THS). Keep in mind, most of the media attention centers on the discretionary spending of the consumer (e.g., “Black Friday” widescreens, ”Cyber Monday” acquisitions of [...] Continue Reading...
The troubles in Italy, Portugal and Greece are shockingly serious. How serious? Many insist that these 3 little piggies will eventually succumb to disorderly bankrupties, causing Armageddon for world stock markets and the global financial system. For the doomsday crowd to be right, however, everything has to go wrong. Ev-er-y-thing! For instance, coordinated Eurozone plans for aid to Greece would have [...] Continue Reading...
The number “88″ means a lot of different things to different people around the world. For some, it expresses the notion that the universe is both infinitely large and infinitely small. Others see it as a message of eternal love. Meanwhile, Chinese culture recognizes “8″ as its luckiest number, with “88″ symbolizing even greater fortunes. However, 8/8 is a rather dismal date for the [...] Continue Reading...
Roughly one hour before bond and stock markets closed on Monday, 7/25/11, congressional Democrats expressed that the House Republican debt plan was a “non-starter” in the Senate. Wince! Six hours later, President Obama spoke to the American people about a potential catastrophe that could see interest rates on credit cards, mortgages and car loans skyrocket. [...] 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...
At the start of the week, analysts were wondering whether or not stocks could “hold the line.” Specifically, the bulls were simply hoping that the current price on the S&P 500 would stay above its 200-day moving average. However, the S&P 500 had little trouble holding the 1263 level. In fact, by Thursday, June 30, the U.S. stock [...] 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...
Many financial commentators believed that the stock market would continue managing the realities of record price depreciation in U.S. property, new lows in consumer confidence as well as ongoing debt uncertainty in Europe. Who could blame them for thinking that way? After all, didn’t the stock market surge 1% across-the-board on the last day of May? It’s not that the market’s resilience [...] Continue Reading...
On 5/26/11, U.S. stocks rose for a second consecutive day with the S&P 500 closing less than 3% away from multi-year highs. That’s not just a resilient… that’s downright defiant! Consider the macro-economic realities. Japan is fighting its way out of a recession. Europe is contending with stagflation as well as debt downgrades. The U.S. is facing a double-dip in housing and [...] Continue Reading...
