Earlier this week, I wrote about Alaska Air Lines (ALK) as an interesting stock, primarily because of the fact that it doesn’t have any of Boeing’s (BA) 737 MAX, the plane that has been grounded by governments across the world after two fatal crashes that left no survivors. The aftermath hasn’t been pretty for the […]
Read MoreWhen technical traders see a stock’s price pattern diverging from its industry or sector, the question becomes whether that divergence represents an opportunity, or a risk. The commonly held principle that “a rising tide lifts all ships” usually means that if a broad segment of the market, such as the Consumer Discretionary sector, is performing […]
Read MoreAs you start analyzing individual stocks as potential investing opportunities, one of the most logical steps to take is to analyze the stock’s industry. A strongly performing industry, more often than not should act as a positive catalyst to the stock you’re considering. In the same light, concerns about the industry can usually be expected […]
Read MoreThe last week of July has been a pretty significant one for the market, despite the fact that the summer months are traditionally seen as a period of decreasing volatility and price action. A large number of large cap, S&P 500-listed companies have been reporting their earnings this week, with more to come by the […]
Read MoreThe Consumer Discretionary sector has been one of the highest-performing sectors in the market year-to-date; as the broad market has pushed to new all-time highs, so has this sector, increasing about 24% year to date and more than 4% in the last month, as measured by the S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary Sector SPDR ETF (XLY). […]
Read MoreFor growth investors, stocks making new all-time highs are usually seen as the best kinds of stocks to buy. When new all-time highs happen at the top of a long-term upward trend, many of those same investors get even more excited, because traditional trend analysis usually suggests that those are among the highest-probability signals to […]
Read MoreThere is a common idiom that states, “a rising tide lifts all ships.” For investors, that saying suggests when the broad market is going up, most stocks should go up as well. On a more macroeconomic level, the same principle applies on a sector basis; if a sector is showing signs of strength, most investors […]
Read MoreOver the last couple of weeks, it seems like the market has finally started to look for storylines to help guide its direction other than trade. It’s as though the market has finally realized that tariffs and the ongoing debate between the U.S. and its trading partners, which has been going on for more than […]
Read MoreWhile the rest of the market has been pushing to a new set of all-time highs – as of the end of last week, the S&P 500 was up nearly 19% year-to-date – the energy sector has been struggling lately. As measured by the S&P 500 Energy Sector SPDR ETF (XLE), the sector is down […]
Read MoreIf you pay attention to the stock market, you inevitably become familiar with some of the personalities that take up space on market media to talk about it. On CNBC, for example, Jim Cramer is an ever-present commentator. Not only does he host his own “Mad Money” show in the afternoons on the network, you’ll […]
Read MoreOne of the most underwhelming sectors in this market this year has been Healthcare. As measured by the S&P 500 Healthcare Sector SPDR ETF (XLV), the sector is up just about 6.5% year to date, while the broad market hit a new all-time high earlier and is up a little over 19% since the beginning […]
Read MoreOne of the challenges about investing in the stock market is knowing where to look. With tens of thousands of different companies, in more than a dozen different sectors, hundreds of industries and even more sub-industries to consider, it can be pretty easy to throw your hands up in the air in desperation. How do […]
Read MoreThere are a lot of different ways that you can track the market and pull information to find stocks that might make attractive investment opportunities. One method that I find useful is to periodically check the movement of individual sectors versus the broad market. The saying, “a rising tide lifts all ships” for many is […]
Read MoreAt the beginning of May, I took a long look at Carnival Corp (CCL), the largest cruise operator in the world. At the time, the stock was up about 11% for the year, riding the broader market’s rally to that point to a short-term peak at about $55 that appeared to have the stock positioned […]
Read MoreIn the last week I’ve been focusing my attention in this space on a few of the biggest, most established names in the pharmaceutical space. It’s an industry that I think is becoming more interesting under current market conditions, as some of these names remain significantly off of multi-year, or even all-time highs even as […]
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