Volatility
May 14, 2021 | Daily JAM, Volatility |
I’d like to think that the volatility of last week is all over and a thing of the past. But I don’t think it is. This is a transitional market with sentiment moving toward value, cyclical, and post-vaccine stocks and away from technology momentum plays. And it’s also a market trying to figure out how to reprice all assets in light of a potential move to lower stimulus bond-buying and to raise interest rates at some point in the future. These kinds of transitions don’t occur smoothly and I think we can expect more volatility.
May 4, 2021 | Daily JAM, JJOFF, Volatility |
Researchers looking for a way to improve the tolerance of the Arabica coffee plant that accounts for 56% of global coffee production may have found their cuppa in Sierra Leone. Coffea stenophylla grows at a mean annual temperature up to 12.24 degrees higher than Arabica. And coffee tasters say, according to Bloomberg, it has a flavor similar to Arabica rather than to the more temperature tolerant Robusta coffee used now in instant and other bulk coffees. Global coffee production is threatened by rising temperatures
April 12, 2021 | Daily JAM, Dip-O-Meter, Mid Term, PYPL, RUN, TDOC, Volatility |
Looking at the recent performance numbers on the 20 stocks I’m tracking in my Dip-O-Meter as of the close on Friday April 9, I have to conclude that for most of these stocks it’s time to take a pause on any “buy on the dip” opportunities. What I’m seeing in this sample is a general weakening of the upward bounce on rally days from these stocks–and without a strong bounce on a good day there’s not much reason to buy on the dip.
April 11, 2021 | Daily JAM, Friday Trick or Trend, Long Term, Volatility, You Might Have Missed |
Based on existing analyst forecasts for earnings in all of 2021, the S&P 500 trades at almost 24 times estimates, among its highest valuations ever. To bring the multiple down to its long-term average of 16 times annual profits, companies in the gauge will have to make about 15% more than the equity researchers currently expect them to earn — in 2023.
April 7, 2021 | Daily JAM, Jubak Picks, Volatility, WH |
Today, I’m going to review the fundamental case for Wyndham shares (the reason I added it to Jubak Picks on March 17) and give you the details on the Call Option on Wyndham that I’ll be adding to my Volatility Portfolio tomorrow.
March 31, 2021 | Daily JAM, Volatility |
Shares of Chargepoint (CHPT) were up 15.40% as of 2:30 p.m. New York time today, March 31. Charging station competitor Blink Charging (BLNK) was up 8.69%. The big jump came on speculation that the Biden administration’s infrastructure plan with its emphasis on growing the number of electric vehicles in use would include incentives and money for expanding the woefully inadequate U.S. network of charging stations for electric cars.
March 28, 2021 | Daily JAM, Dip-O-Meter, Top 50 Stocks, Volatility, You Might Have Missed |
I’ve scrubbed through the 20 stocks in the Dip-O-Meter, with updated numbers as of the close on Friday, March 26, looking for the best three buy on the dip trades. (Why only three? Because I think the same volatility that has created these profit opportunities makes it hard to be certain of a trend and I don’t want to bet the farm with the current degree of uncertainty. My choices for trades that I’ll put on tomorrow in my Volatility Portfolio are SunRun (RUN), Teladoc (TDOC), and PayPal (PYPL). These are all going into my Volatility Portfolio
March 23, 2021 | Daily JAM, IWM, Volatility |
Tomorrow, March 24, I’m going to add another hedge against a drop in stock prices, one that’s a more general market hedge against a more general market decline. The hedge is the September 17 Put Option (which goes up in price as the share price goes down) on the small cap Russell 2000 Index using the iShares MSCI Russell 2000 ETF.
March 22, 2021 | Daily JAM, VIX, Volatility |
You’ve read this story before (in fact many times before) in the last month or so. Tech stocks rebounded after a day or two of selling. What was different (because it wasn’t a case of rotation but a continuation of a recent trend) was the continued drop in the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) to 18.88, a decrease of 9.88%
March 16, 2021 | Daily JAM, Volatility |
The market seems to be very complacent about the risk of heightened volatility over the next couple of months even as the actual track record on volatility shows that the odds of big short term moves are increasing. Which leads me to add the July 21 Call Options on the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) to my Volatility Portfolio today, March 16. The VIX, which measures how much investors and traders are willing to pay to hedge risk in the S&P over the next month or so, has dropped below 20 today to 19.59 at 1.20 p.m. New York time.
March 12, 2021 | Daily JAM, Volatility, WPM |
Before you get too excited by that headline, note that a 30% hike in the dividend at Wheaton Precious Metals (WPM) will bring the payout to just 13 cents for the first quarter of 2021. But that’s still, as my grandmother used to say, better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. At the least it’s a vote of confidence by the company’s board of directors that they see strong revenue and earnings growth in the year ahead. Wheaton Precious Metals doesn’t actually do any mining itself. Instead it purchases a stream of production from miners of precious metals and cobalt.
March 8, 2021 | Daily JAM, FXY, JD, Jubak Picks, VGIT, Volatility |
Let’s be clear. I don’t have any idea of when the current selling in technology and high-valuation growth momentum stocks will end. It does seem likely to me, even after the March 9 bounce, that the rotation into cyclicals, vaccine recovery stocks, and value stocks will continue for a while. From that perspective, I’m glad that I added Invesco KBWB Bank ETF (KBWB), Vulcan Materials (VMC), Caterpillar (CAT), MGM Resorts International (MGM) and Coca Cola (KO) to my Jubak Picks Portfolio since the middle of February. And that I added Dow (DOW) and Citigroup (C) to my Dividend Portfolio in Mid-December. (All those picks are in the black since my purchase date. You can check the online portfolios to see by how much.) But now that the NASDAQ Composite has dropped into an official correction–down 10% from its February 12 high–I’d like to be holding some more cash in case
