As I noted in my posts over the weekend, I think that along with all the general volatility and the rotation away from high moment and higher price-to-earnings ratio technology stocks, the last week or so saw a rotation into “safe” haven stocks such as utilities and Big Pharma. Which is one of the reason I’m adding Bristol-Myers stock to my Jubak Picks Portfolio as of December 7
But 2021 has been very, very good to the iPath B Bloomberg Coffee Total Return ETN (JO). A series of disruptions–weather in Brazil and Colombia, a shortage of shipping containers that curbed exports from Vietnam, a civil war in Ethiopia–sent coffee prices to a 10-year high on November 30. Despite the global Pandemic depressing demand from consumers who didn’t venture out of coffee shops during the worst of the virus outbreak. Now after a 73% gain for 2021 to date the question for investors after the is how much higher can coffee prices and this coffee ETF go?
The trend for the next year or two looks positive.
Analysts watching game revenue in Macao’s casinos are seeing just a bit of improvement after operators were walloped by Pandemic shutdowns, border closings with Hong Kong, and government restrictions aimed at high-rollers. JPMorgan has forecast that 2022 gross gaming revenue in Macao will rise to just above 50% of the pre-pandemic level seen in 2019 as a result of 70% recovery in mass market gaming and travel and a 24% recovery in VIP revenue. That’s a very slight improvement from JPMorgan’s previous outlook. Investment house Jefferies has also become incrementally more positive on the Macao outlook. Analyst David Katz says the Macao market could be close to bottoming with current local Covid-19 infections in China falling to single-digits and a partial China-Hong Kong border opening possible before year-end. My preferred stock to play Macao is MGM Resorts International
It’s tempting right now to say “To hell with diversification; let’s put everything into U.S. stocks. After all, they’re outperformed most asset classes for most of 2020 and for the year to date.” That’s exactly the kind of thinking, however, that gets an investor into trouble when an asset class is trading near a historic high. A time like this, like now, is exactly when you should be looking to make sure that you’ve got decent balance in your portfolio. And, to the degree you can, own stuff that will go up when other stuff goes down. Which is why I’m adding shares of the Van Eck Agribusiness ETF (MOO) to the Perfect 5 ETF Portfolio today
Today Microsoft (MSFT) closed up 2.08%. The NASDAQ 100 was ahead just 0.51% and the Standard & Poor’s 500 gained only 0.13%. The gains took Microsoft shares to a record intraday high of $297.35. Why the extra pop in Microsoft shares? Because today Microsoft raised the price of its Microsoft 365 productivity suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, Outlook and Enterprise Mobility) by as much s 20%, effective March 1. The price increase is the first since the launch of Office 365 ten years ago.
I posted Friday, June 11, that investors looking for a theme to buy in an expensive market had turned to Cyber Security stocks. Makes sense, I noted, with ransomware attacks running at a fast pace and forecast pointing to even more attacks on corporate and government systems in the months (years?) ahead. I wrote that in this sector I already owned Palo Alto Networks in my Jubak Picks Portfolio where the stock is up 79% since I added this position on June 27, 2019, and in my 50 Stocks Portfolio where it is up 50% since I added this position on January 21, 2020, and in my new Millennial Portfolio where the position is up 0.94% since I added it on May 21, 2021. And that I would be adding another Cyber Security stock, CrowdStrike Holdings, to my Jubak Picks and Millennial portfolios on Monday, June 14
Oil prices have bounced back big time and with them the prices on oil stocks. I still think the long-term trend is against oil producers as efforts to combat global warming lead to lower consumption of fossil fuels. And I’d prefer not to own any oil and natural gas shares–even in as “progressive” a company as Equinor. I’m going to take advantage of the rally in oil prices to sell these shares out of my Jubak Picks Portfolio with a small 0.9% gain since I established that position in May 2012.
The chip shortage that has hurt technology companies such as Apple (AAPL) and hammered auto producers continues to pay dividends to Applied Materials (AMAT), the dominant manufacturer of equipment used to make semiconductors. Yesterday, May 20, after the market close in New York, Applied Materials reported fiscal second-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.63 a share against 89 cents a share in the second quarter of the last fiscal year. Revenue rose to $5.58 billion from $3.96 billion in the second quarter of fiscal 2020.
Owners of AT&T (T) have been willing to overlook the company’s lack of growth, its “amusing” strategic plan, and its wandering goals because, hey, the shares paid 6.45%. That’s a dividend to make up for a multitude of corporate sins when the 10-year Treasury is yielding just 1.65%. But today owners discovered that as part of its deal to spin off and combine its Warner media assets with Discovery into a new company WarnerMedia/Discovry (AT&T shareholders will own 7%) AT&T will “reset” its dividend to 40% of free cash flow.
Wheat prices hit new highs at $7.46 a bushel at the end of April. That the highest since February 2013. Corn climbed to a new eight year high. The day soybeans rose for a tenth straight session to reach on eight year high.
When the prices of farm commodities climb, it’s tough times ahead at the grocery store for consumers. But it’s good times ahead for farmers and that means increasing sales of tractors and other farm equipment for Deere (DE). I’m adding the shares to my 12-18 month Jubak Picks Portfolio
Yesterday, April 20, after the market close Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) reported first quarter GAAP earnings of $3.51 a share, $1.47 a share above Wall Street estimates. Non-GAAP earnings of $3.52 were 89 cents a share above analyst expectations. Revenue for the quarter climbed to $1.3 billion, up 18% from the first quarter of 2020. In 2020 sales of the company’s robotic surgery systems, dropped to $4.4 billion from $4.5 billion in 2019 as hospitals halted elective surgeries during the pandemic. I added the shares to my Jubak Picks Portfolio on February 15, 2021 on expectations with in a post-vaccine global economy sales of its da Vinci Surgical Systems would rebound strongly. In the first quarter the company shipped 298 de Vinci systems versus 237 in the first quarter of 2020. As of 3:45 p.m. New York time today, Intuitive Surgical share were up 9.50% to $888.10. That exceeds my target of $860 a share and I’ll be looking to sell the shares sometime in the next couple of weeks after I’ve received the full benefit from a positive earnings season for BIG TECH stocks.
You could buy VWAGY, trading today, April 5, at $37.00, up 4.27% or you could buy VWAPY at $29.27, up 2.92%. (A search for VW ticker will discover another 21 symbols on various European exchanges but for U.S investors these two ADRs are the major choices. Both are ADRs (American Depositary Receipts) on Volkswagen’s German shares. But there’s a considerable difference between these two ADRs. For example, on April 5 VWaGY showed an average daily trading volume of 1.34 million shares. VWAPY, on the other hand, showed an average volume of just 232,327 shares. So what’s the difference?
