You Might Have Missed
January 10, 2018 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term, Volatility, You Might Have Missed |
Just what an already jittery bond market needs: reports that senior Chinese officials reviewing the country’s purchases of U.S. Treasuries have recommended slowing or halting that buying. It’s not clear from these reports whether the recommendation is based on fears of a China/United States trade war, on weakness in the U.S. dollar, on readings of rising supply as the U.S. deficit is set to expand or other factors.
January 9, 2018 | Uncategorized, You Might Have Missed |
2017 left investors with a huge challenge as we all move into 2018. After a 21.6% return on the Standard & Poor’s 500 stocks in 2017, do we let the money ride for 2018 or move it into other assets? Some stocks had almost unbelievable years in 2017. Amazon (AMZN) was up 56% for the year an Facebook (FB) climbed 53%. But those gains were left in the dust by the 96% gain on Alibaba (BABA) and the 115% racked up by Tencent Holdings (TCEHY). And even stocks seem to be standing still in comparison to biotech such as Madrigal Pharmaceuticals (MDGL), up 510% in 2017 or Sangamo Therapeutics (SGMO) ahead by 466%. For 2018 should you leave your money in those big winners from last year? Take some of it off the table and put it into laggards? Move some of it to cash?
January 8, 2018 | Uncategorized, You Might Have Missed |
The indexes set a tough benchmark in 2017 with the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index showing a total return (price appreciation plus dividends) of 21.64%. For the year the price gain on the 50 Stocks Portfolio came to 26.8%. The portfolio also showed a 1.28% yield for the year. The total return for the portfolio was 28.1% in 2017.
January 3, 2018 | Daily JAM, You Might Have Missed |
If you try to interpret the minutes released today from the Federal Reserve’s December 12-13 meeting without factoring in the departure of key players at the central bank, I think you’ll get the meaning of that meeting exactly wrong. On the surface, the minutes seem to show a Fed with strong reservations about raising interest rates. The presidents of two regional Federal Reserve banks, Neel Kashkari of the Minneapolis Fed and Charles Evans of the Chicago Fed dissented from the decision at that meeting to raised the Fed’s benchmark Fed funds rate by another 25 basis points.
December 27, 2017 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, Volatility, You Might Have Missed |
Black swan events in the financial markets are terrifying. By definition they’re extremely rare and extremely difficult to predict. Which wouldn’t be so scary if their effects weren’t so catastrophic. A 10% drop in the Standard & Poor’s 500 would certainly be painful–but it doesn’t rise to the category of a black swan. Neither does a 15% drop in the price of Bitcoins. Or a 20% drop in the price of Apple (AAPL). All these are relatively normal negative events. They’ve happened before. They happen relatively frequently. And in some cases–that of Bitcoin or the S&P 500, for example–they’re absolutely statistically normal for the market or a part of the market or a specific asset. No, the label “black swan’ is reserved for things like the 2008 global financial crisis that almost brought the world’s financial markets and its real economies to their knees. Or the Dot.com crash of 2000, which saw corporate giants such as Nortel Networks disappear from the economic landscape. Or the oil price crash of 2008 that saw oil soar to a high of $147 a barrel in July and then plunge to $32 by December. Given how devastating to a portfolio a black swan event can be, it seems, at first, surprising that most lists of “bad things that could happen in the year ahead” pretty much ignore this type of financial event.
December 7, 2017 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term, Volatility, You Might Have Missed |
The Standard & Poor’s 500 finished up 0.29% today. The tech- and bank-heavy NASDAQ Composite was up 0.54%. The Small Cap Russell 2000 was ahead 0.79%. Always good to finish to the upside, of course, when you’re looking for the end of a dip (and assurance that it was just a dip.)
But the better news for the market as a whole came from individual stocks.
December 5, 2017 | Daily JAM, INCY, Stock Alerts, You Might Have Missed |
Today MacroGenics (MGNX) announced that it had closed on its previously announced (October 25) Â license agreement with Incyte (INCY). For an upfront payment of $150 million and up to $420 million in milestone payments Incyte gained the exclusive global rights to...
December 3, 2017 | Daily JAM, Friday Trick or Trend, Short Term, Volatility, You Might Have Missed |
Lot of action last week worth paying attention to. But not a lot of clarity, yet, on what all the action meant. It’s too early to say that last week was a pivotal week for the market but it’s sure time to start thinking about the possibility. The Standard & Poor’s 500 saw a huge surge. In the options market the implied volatility for the index began the week at plus/minus $21, Don Kaufman of Theo Trade noted this weekend. The move for the week turned out to be twice that at $42. At the same time the NASDAQ, and especially the big tech stars of the recent market–Amazon, Alphabet, Google, etc.–broke to the downside. The financial and energy sectors moved up on the week by more than enough to offset the drop in technology, however.
December 1, 2017 | Daily JAM, You Might Have Missed |
Back on July 11 I argued that for investors at least it was better to buy robotics stocks than to try to fight the global trend toward automation. I added two robotics stocks, both Japanese companies, to my long-term 50 Stocks Portfolio that day. Since then Fanuc (FANUY) is up 27.92% and Nidec (NJDCY) is ahead 34.23%. Now one of the reasons that I prefer individual stocks to ETFs in the robotics sector is that I want to take advantage of not just the growth in robotics and automation, but also want to get the benefit of a falling yen, which increases sales for Japanese automation companies. But the evidence is that a lot of investors want to own a piece of the sector but would be prefer to use an ETF to give them broad exposure to the sector. Launched in 2013, Global Robotics and Automation Index ETF (ROBO) how has nearly $2 billion in assets under management. Global X Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Thematic (BOTZ) moved above $1 billion in assets back in August.
October 19, 2017 | Daily JAM, Perfect Five-ETFs, You Might Have Missed |
In some markets deciding how much money you’re going to put into any asset is as hard as picking the assets themselves. In some markets, I’d argue, it’s even harder. Unfortunately, the current market is one of those markets. The reliable guide for allocation assets in a portfolio, history, isn’t much help right now. That’s why, when it comes to deciding on the asset allocations for my new Perfect 5 ETF Active Passive Portfolio, I’m going to use a somewhat more active approach
September 6, 2017 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Volatility, You Might Have Missed |
Please extend the greeting of your choice to the U.S. Congress, back in “action” today after a long August recess. This morning Democrats said they would vote for disaster relief for victims of Hurricane Harvey if Republicans attached the measure to a three-month extension of the debt-ceiling. If Congress doesn’t raise the ceiling on the amount of debt that the U.S. Treasury can sell, the government will not be able to pay at least some of its bills after September 29. House Speaker Paul Ryan ridiculed the proposal
July 31, 2017 | AMZN, Daily JAM, FB, Morning Briefing, Short Term, Volatility, You Might Have Missed |
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