Since the beginning of 2018, the Materials sector has been one of the worst-performing sectors in the market. Despite an increase since the end of last year of a little more than 10%, the sector remains down more than 14% since January 2018. Concerns throughout the period about increasing commodity costs have been compounded more […]
Read MoreYesterday I highlighted General Mills (GIS) as a stock that could offer an interesting value proposition right now. The Consumer Staples sector is starting look like a market segment that smart investors should be paying attention to right now. The market has been moving nicely since the beginning of the year, but with indications that […]
Read MoreConsumer Discretionary stocks are interesting in any market conditions because so many of them are subject to cycles that don’t necessarily coincide with normal economic cycles. One of the sub-industries within the sector that I think fit this description is tax services. That is because, moving into the latter stages of winter towards spring, one […]
Read MoreWhen it comes to identifying stocks that might make useful investments, there are as many strategies as there are people. You can break these strategies into any different number of categories. I like to differentiate between strategies by thinking first about the amount of time I might actually plan to hold the stock in question, […]
Read MoreWatching the market bounce higher off of late-2018 drop that nearly pushed the major market indices to bear market levels means that it starts to get tempting to think that it’s a good time to start jumping back into stocks and get ready for the rally back to the next set of market highs. The […]
Read MoreOne of my favorite methods for paying attention to the broad market, and to track the ebb and flow of institutional interest is to pay attention to sector rotation. As economic data indicates one sector may be more favorably positioned than another, institutions like mutual funds and investment banks will often shift their assets into […]
Read MoreSometimes natural phenomena imposes its will on the world with force. Hurricanes in the South or along the Eastern seaboard, tornadoes in the Midwest and massive snowfalls in the North during the winter months are all examples of times when Mother Nature demands attention from the world – even the stock market. At the beginning […]
Read MoreSometimes natural phenomena imposes its will on the world with force. Hurricanes in the South or along the Eastern seaboard, tornadoes in the Midwest and massive snowfalls in the North during the winter months are all examples of times when Mother Nature demands attention from the world – even the stock market. At the beginning […]
Read MoreThe terms I tossed into today’s headline are good examples of what I’m talking about. If you’re an active investor, and you’ve invested time and energy into studying the markets in much detail, you’ve certainly across these terms before, because they are actually very descriptive of a couple of a very specific market conditions, each […]
Read More2018 has marked a very interesting year for the stock market. After a year of practically uninterrupted increases in stock prices in 2017, where every small dip in price provided a new opportunity to jump back in and made the market look like easy money, 2018 has been anything but predictable. Geopolitical concerns like Brexit, […]
Read MoreThe market has been on a wild ride over the past two months, with everything from trade to politics to weak corporate outlooks for the next year sending stocks tumbling lower. But Lindsey Bell, an investment strategist at CFRA Research, says there’s another massive market risk flying under the radar. Bell says that corporate debt […]
Read MorePolitics have been putting more pressure than normal on the stock market of late; after the Trump administration announced a preliminary agreement with China to halt imposition of any new tariffs at the beginning of this month following the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, the market seemed poised to rise a new wave of bullish […]
Read MoreOne of the challenges associated with mature bull markets is the fact that they generally reflect a healthy overall economic backdrop. Why is that a challenge? Because when investors begin to recognize the fact that the economy has been healthy for a long time, the natural next question starts become how much longer it can […]
Read MoreIn yesterday’s post, I wrote about the Materials sector as a segment of the economy that seems have started to attract the interest and attention to institutional investors. Sector rotation is an approach to market analysis that suggests that if you want to find good investments in any market, it’s a good idea to pay […]
Read MoreThe month of October put investors on notice that volatility in the stock market wasn’t going to go away anytime soon. I think it makes sense; investors are becoming more and more aware of the difficulty associated with extending an unprecedented period of economic expansion.
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