Mid Term
March 9, 2022 | Daily JAM, Mid Term |
Consternation isn’t an investment strategy. Although I certainly understand that reaction to current stock market moves. The day to day volatility is that extreme. But if we focus on that volatility and on how confusing this market is, I think we’re in danger of overlooking the investable trends (up and down) in this market. So let me try, please remember that this is a work in progress and subject to revision, to tease out some of the longer trends that will drive stock prices in the medium term.
March 7, 2022 | Daily JAM, Mid Term |
If the Ukraine war drags on into May, how quickly will grain prices retreat to something like normal? To answer that question–and similar queries for fertilizer, for chip production, and other sectors–pay attention to the lags: how much time it will take to recover from current shortfalls and to introduce new production. How the lags play out in individual sectors will be a key determinant for what stocks rise and fall–and when.
February 24, 2022 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, Volatility |
Oil and other fossil fuels aren’t going to go quietly. And it’s extremely unlikely that the countries whose global power is predicated on oil are going to give up that power easily. From this viewpoint, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the first in the next generation of energy wars, as fossil-fuel powers fight to extend their power into a new global energy age.
February 21, 2022 | Daily JAM, Mid Term |
The People’s Bank of China increased its cash injections into the financial system via reverse repos to 100 billion yuan ($15.8 billion). That resulted in a net injection of 90 billion yuan. The PBOC had been draining cash in the last two weeks, which is routine following the Lunar New Year holiday.
February 19, 2022 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, You Might Have Missed |
Margin debt has dropped again in January, according to FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority). The month to month drop for January is a big 8.8%. Margin debt is a useful indicator of market direction and top and bottoms. It tends to peak near a market top and signal a coming retreat in the market as lower levels of margin debt means some buyers are moving out of the market. On the other hand, corporations are buying back their own shares at a record pace.
February 8, 2022 | Daily JAM, Mid Term |
America’s gross national debt topped $30 trillion for the first time last week. In January 2020, before the pandemic, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the gross national debt would reach $30 trillion by around the end of 2025. The question to me isn’t “Does this matter?” But “In what way does this matter?”
January 31, 2022 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, Videos |
I’m starting up my videos on JubakAM.com again–this time using YouTube as a platform. My ninety-fifth YouTube video “Trend of the Week: Supply Chain Chaos Continues” went up today.
January 28, 2022 | AAPL, Daily JAM, Mid Term, You Might Have Missed |
It’a always dangerous to construct a trend from Friday’s trading. Especially when the earlier part of the week has been so strong in one direction or another. (In this case, down, down, down.) Ahead of the weekend, stocks often reverse the trend from earlier in the week as sellers (in this case) decide that they don’t want to be quite so bearish until the market opens on Monday. So it’s not surprising that stocks gained today on nothing especially qualifying as news. But with all those caveats, I still found today’s action “interesting” and “perhaps” indicative of a future trend. Not only were stocks as a whole strongly higher–the Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 2.44% on the day–but technology stocks led the move to the upside.
January 24, 2022 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, Morning Briefing |
This morning the Standard & Poor’s traded more than 10% below its January 3 high. That puts this big market index in correction territory. As of 1 p.m. New York time the S&P 500 was down 2.99%. And that S&P 500 is one of the better stories this year. The NASDAQ Composite is off 17% from its November 19 high. The small cap Russell 2000 is down 20%, putting it on the edge of a bear market.
January 6, 2022 | Daily JAM, Dividend Income, Mid Term |
For 2021 the total return–that’s price appreciation plus dividends–came to 18.59%. That was a slight improvement on the 15.71% total return for 2020. The dividend yield for the portfolio in 2021 came to 3.13%. That was a slight drop from the 3.43% yield in 2020.
January 5, 2022 | Daily JAM, Mid Term |
Today, the Federal Reserve released its minutes from its December 15 meeting of its interest-rate setting body the Federal Open Market Committee. Investors and traders didn’t like what they thought they heard–a growing consensus on a first interest rate increase at the March meeting.
January 2, 2022 | Daily JAM, FXI, Mid Term, Perfect Five-ETFs, TCEHY, Top 50 Stocks |
In other years this would clearly be the time to jump into China stocks. What we have right now is a classic, tried-and-true set up for big gains from buying China stocks. With a “but” or two that suggests a cautious strategy. But I will be buying shares of Tencent Holdings and the FXI ETF on Monday, January 3.
