Archive for June, 2010
Earnings Numbers the ‘Crash’ Pundits Are Ignoring
Spooked? Most investors are rattled following Tuesday’s 3% implosion, fueled largely by a sudden and unexpected dip in Consumer Confidence (more below), and an adjustment in China’s growth rate - as evidenced by a leading indicators index - for April (from 1.7% to 0.3%). The question is, is this cause for worry? Though the answer [...]
Nowhere to Hide at Sector Level, Though Some Industries Offered Some Shelter
Guess where the only place to hide last week was? No surprise here…. gold stocks continued their march. Once again though, gold is now going higher simply because it’s going higher - and that’s a rug waiting to be pulled out form underneath it. Energy was the big loser all week long, but the big [...]
S&P 500 Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place
There’s really not a great deal we can say about the S&P 500, other than the obvious…. As it stands right now, the SPX is under is 20, 50, and 200 day moving averages, which is technically bearish in all major timeframes. As such, the trend is bearish, but Friday’s rebound effort (fueled by the [...]
This Week’s Economic Calendar Full of Land Mines
As we mentioned a week ago, home sales and home price data would kick-off last week’s trading, and round out the picture of the real estate industry that first started being patient by the prior week’s building permits and housing starts. Bluntly, things continued to look bad.
Existing home sales fell from 5.79 million to 5.66 [...]
Stock Picks to Survive the Market’s Next Slaughter - CPL, TU, CMCSA, STZ, SYY, CCU
Which stocks are the best ones to own if this threat of a bear market is actually an omen of a double-dip recession? STZ, CMCSA, SYY, TU, CPL, CCU are a starting point.
Capacity Utilization, Productivity Up - Deny At Your Own Peril
We’ve mentioned before that two of the most accurate and helpful economic indicators are capacity utilization and industrial productivity…. both published in tandem by the Federal Reserve. And by ‘helpful’ we specifically mean ‘helpful to investors’, in that there’s a stunning degree of correlation between the market’s long-term trends and the economic data’s long-term trends. [...]
Building Permits, Housing Starts Down, But It Ain’t That Simple
Yep, just as the ‘experts’ figured, the end of the homebuyer tax credit was the beginning of the next real estate implosion, right? Building permits fell from 610K in April to 547K in May. Housing starts fell from 659K to 593K. Woe to all investors and real estate owners.
Before anyone starts banging the death drum, [...]
This Week’s Economic News, In Pictures, and in a Hurry
Last week’s economic news was not only minimal, what little we did get sent mixed messages.
Take consumer credit for example. Experts were looking for a $2 billion contraction in credit, but we actually saw a $1 billion increase in total credit levels. That’s good news, pointing to a better-equipped consumer. But.…
Retail sales were expected to [...]
New Leaders Emerging (& It’s Not the Old Ones Again)
We haven’t talked about it in a while, mainly because there was no need to. Things are changing now though, at the onset of what we hope/think will be the next leg (and less aggressive span) of the bull market. With this new wave though, it looks like we’ll see some new leaders.
Not that all [...]
Stop the Market, I Want to Get Off
Is that how you feel right now? You want to get off this crazy ride? If you’re like most investors, probably so. Here’s some perspective that will help you navigate through what is hopefully the last part of a volatile period (for better or worse).
First and foremost, know that a meltdown isn’t a forgone conclusions. [...]
