Sectors
Sector, Industry Trends Revealing Opportunities Again
Gold stocks were back on top last week, though the arena remains highly-speculative (i.e. risky) at this point - little consideration is being given to gold’s fundamentals, utility, and liquidity at these prices. The disparity among the other sectors, however, is revealing a few opportunities (both long and short).
Sector Performance
The fact that we saw some [...]
Small Cap Insurance Brokers Got It Goin’ On
They may not be the outright leaders for any timeframe, but they’re finishing in the top 20 for all timeframes. Like NASCAR, that sort of consistent strength is how you win the series, even without winning the race. Yeah, well, that’s precisely what I see the small cap insurance brokers doing right now…. doling out [...]
Q1’s Mismatched Earnings Results: Opportunity in Disparity
Think the market makes sense? In some ways it does; in a lot of ways it doesn’t. That’s not a complaint - just a reality we as investors have to acknowledge if we’re to have any hope at beating the market.
This idea surfaced again as the Q1 earnings data and numbers were being crunched on [...]
Sector Performance Means Little, Industry Results More Telling - 05/14
Don’t read too much into last week’s sector result - it was more about a dead-cat bounce, where the harder a sector fell, the firmer the short-term bounce was. The coming week’s results along with the four-week results at the end of the coming week will really be a more telling description of any bigger-picture [...]
Sector Rotation Waving a Small Red Flag… So Far
Nothing was all that dramatic last week on the sector front in terms of total gains or losses. Yet, it was a huge week in terms of the paradigm shift we saw unfold. How so? It’s just that the market’s biggest habitual losers suddenly because the biggest winner (relatively), and the market’s strongest sectors of [...]
Online Brokerage Firms Hit a Headwind
Schwab set the tone, and other online trading brokerage houses followed suit with pretty tepid first quarter results. Were it just one aspect of revenue-bearing business or another, it may be forgivable. Not much went right for these brokers last quarter though, and the foreseeable future (i.e. growth) doesn’t look [...]
Airlines See Ray of Light, Even Through the Ash Cloud
If the first quarter’s fiscal results along with March’s traffic reports are any indication, airlines may finally be investment-worthy again.
Delta kicked things off this week with a by reporting a quarterly loss of $256 million (or -$0.23 per share) – the smallest one in while. Revenue was up 2% as [...]
The New Shipping & Transportation ‘Make or Break’ Detail
The New Shipping & Transportation ‘Make or Break’ Detail
While total shipping volumes year-to-date are not yet back up to 2008’s (and prior) levels, they are well above 2009’s volumes at this point in the year. That’s true of trucking, rail, marine, and air fright - it’s all on the mend. [...]
Earnings Season’s Biggest Disappointments So Far
Though there have been more ‘beats’ than ‘shortfalls’ to kick off this earnings season, some of the downside surprises were not only disappointing, but may be red flags investors will want to keep in mind with related stocks this quarter, and the same stocks next quarter.
In no particular order, these [...]
Why Fertilizer Stocks Are the Market’s Biggest Habitual Losers
It’s hard to believe that any sector or industry could actually be in the red for the last twelve months, given the catapult-like action the market used to send stocks upward back in mid-March of last year. Yet, the fertilizer/agricultural chemical industry’s stocks are indeed in the hole for that time frame. [...]
