As the market pushes to a new set of all-time highs, more and more analysts seem inclined to shrug aside the volatility and uncertainty that defined practically all of 2018. In fact, the market has reclaimed all of the decline that pushed the market nearly to bear market levels. Most of the indicators of the […]
Read MoreA month ago, investors were put on edge by a rarely occurring phenomenon that most analysts, myself included, tend to view as a strong indication of a recessionary downturn. The spread between 3-month Treasury bills and 10-year Treasury bonds inverted, as the 3-month yield moved above the 10-year yield. It doesn’t happen very often, and […]
Read MoreIs the market’s recent surge to a new all-time high a fresh continuation signal of the long-term bull market that many thought had ended in the last quarter of 2018? It could be; the truth is that the market right now is anxious for a positive catalyst. GDP numbers released Friday morning indicated that national […]
Read MoreAnybody that follows the market with any kind of regularity knows who Jim Cramer is. After establishing a solid reputation as a money manager running his own hedge fund in the 1990’s, where he gained fame by posting only a single year of negative returns, Cramer retired from money management in 2001 and began running […]
Read MoreAre you old enough to remember the cola taste-test commercials from the 1980’s? Average people were blindfolded, and then given nondescript cups of Coco-Cola and Pepsi and asked to taste each one and identify the one they preferred. It was a great gimmick, setting off debates among youth and adults alike about which of the […]
Read MoreOne of the most cyclical sectors of the market, not surprisingly, is the Consumer Discretionary sector. This is because such a big portion of the sector is made up of highly individualized businesses that cater to a wide variety of consumer tastes. Apparel, footwear, electronics, restaurants, and so on – the disparity between many of […]
Read MoreAs an analyst, I take a lot of interest in trying to find reasons the market stages some of the moves it makes. The factors, geopolitical, economic, or emotional, that drives trends over any time period can be widely varied, and sometimes it’s interesting to see not only what is influencing the market today, but […]
Read MoreIt’s interesting to see how market dynamics affect different industries and sectors of the economy at different points in time. Historical trends and norms prompt us to categorize certain areas of the market as “defensive” or “cyclical,” “aggressive” or “conservative” simply because of the way the price activity those areas, or even individual stocks have […]
Read MoreOne of the challenges of watching the stock market on a daily basis is filtering out the noise of day-to-day market fluctuations. On Wednesday, for example, the market was up slightly for most of the day, but sold off late as investors shrugged off mostly favorable earnings reports and focused instead on selling off healthcare […]
Read MoreAs the market edges ever nearer to the all-time high it set late last year, the number of opinions about where the market will go from here are becoming increasingly divergent. The market has been pricing in the expectation of positive catalysts so far this year, like a trade deal between the U.S. and China […]
Read MoreIf you’ve been reading my daily posts for very long at all, you should be pretty used to seeing me evaluate companies throughout the market on the basis of both their fundamental strength as well as their value proposition. That’s because in the search for good investing opportunities, I’ve learned to rely on a few […]
Read MoreThis year has seen the broad market rally strongly to begin testing its all-time highs established in September of 2018. That rally has favored just about every sector of the market, including the Materials sector. As measured by the S&P 500 Materials Sector SPDR (XLB), the sector is up a little over 15% year-to-date. Normally, […]
Read MoreNo matter what current market conditions are, one of the biggest challenges for an investor is finding stocks that fit their investment preferences at any given time. The market ebbs and flows from high to low extremes, and those shifting conditions mean that investing strategies may offer up more opportunities in one environment, and fewer […]
Read MoreIn investing, there’s a natural tendency to be drawn to familiar names, an emotional comfort zone that comes from thinking about putting your hard-earned dollars into a company to which you feel you have a connection. It’s one of the reason well-known fundamental investors like Peter Lynch are known for suggesting idioms like “invest in […]
Read MoreConcerns about a slowing global economy have persisted for a number of months now, and while U.S. stocks have risen nicely through most of the year, in the last month or so their rally from a pre-Christmas low has seemingly been capped by persistent concerns about the slowing global economy. Indeed, it seems that the […]
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