Stock Picks
Earnings Talk: Tech Rules, What’s on Tap This Week
You’ll see a noticeable change in the length of the earnings calendars from this point on, indicating we’re now past the heart of earnings season. There are still some game-changers in the lineup though.
As for how the market fared so far (with 80% of companies reporting), about 67% of companies topped their EPS estimates, and [...]
Reality Check: What’s Really Wrong With Homebuilder Stocks?
After yet-another disappointing building permits and housing starts update on Tuesday of this week, we were inundated with yet-another salvo of news commentaries stating the obvious…. with headlines such as Home Builders Continue to Struggle…”, and “Housing Starts Still Weak”. Fair enough.
The most amusingly-obvious (yet also irritating) story came from U.S. News & World Report [...]
Why the Market Does What it Does (& What It Will Do Next)
The S&P 500 managed to gain 4.5% last week, overcoming a big Wednesday pullback, and more than offsetting the previous week’s 1.2% loss.
So what happened in the meantime to turn investors back on again? Economy? No, the new unemployment claims figure is back in the ‘too high’ area, and real estate appears to be crumbling [...]
Investment-Worthy Trend: Road and Rail Proves All It Needs To
Are you one of the folks who thinks the economy is slowing down? Not that there’s not some evidence to that end, but to be fair, there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary. One such piece of evidence is railroad freight activity in the United States (as well as in Canada).
In June, the total rail [...]
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 [...]
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.
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 [...]
