Z-SYMBOLS
May 3, 2023 | Daily JAM, MSFT, NVDA, Videos |
Today’s topic is Is This the End of Momentum? One Last Momentum Blowout. This has been a great market for very specific stocks. We’re seeing a very narrow momentum market. A few stocks are overperforming the index and propping it up. An example is Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META), formerly known as Facebook. Meta is up 102% this year and it’s up about 14% in the last month. The S&P is up 9.5% year to date and just 1.5% in the last month. We’re seeing a large divergence between the index and a narrow group of a few rallying stocks, like Meta, Netflix, Microsoft, and Nvidia. These stocks are outperforming the index, but they’re up based on very recent history. Meta’s recent earnings jolted the stock upwards, but it’s still a company that is bleeding money to develop its virtual reality products, with billions of dollars ($13.7B in 2022) lost by its Reality Labs program. The company had staked its future on the Metaverse but has yet to create a viable product from the project. As the momentum of these few stocks starts to slow, Meta could take a big hit because of these fundamental factors. In my opinion, we’re near the top of this momentum market and it’s time to start taking profits from companies like Meta, Microsoft, and Nvidia.
May 2, 2023 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, MMM, Videos |
This week’s Trend of the Week is The Pain is Spreading. By pain, I mean layoffs. It started with technology companies as we saw job cuts from companies like Meta Platforms, Amazon, and Alphabet. Then recently announced cuts of 7,000 employees. Now, layoffs are spreading to other areas of the market. 3M (NYSE: MMM), a generally reliable blue chip stock, announced they’d be cutting 2,500 jobs back in January and have now added 6,000 more jobs to the chopping block- about 10% of their total workforce. This is in reaction to slowing sales and the potential for losses from liability lawsuits. In the most recent quarter, organic sales were down 4.9% (better than the expected 6.9%) with a guidance of a 2% sales decline for 2023. While 3M is trying to cut costs with layoffs, Wall Street remains skeptical. 3M hasn’t seen the rally other blue chip stocks have seen recently. The company has so many products out there, it is representative of the market as a whole. And this one example plays into the bigger picture of the slowing economy, greater job losses, and, possibly, a recession.
May 2, 2023 | Daily JAM, SCHW, Short Term, Volatility |
I’m closing this position on Schwab (SCHW) in my Volatility Portion at a slight loss–I bought these Put Options on March 28 at $3.70 and they traded at $3.50 today May 2–that’s a 5.4% loss. But with the expiration date on these options approaching, I am concerned that the price of the option will fall with time decay.
May 2, 2023 | Daily JAM, KRE, Morning Briefing, Short Term, Volatility |
Yes, it’s a volatile market. Yesterday, May 1, the take from the Wall Street talking heads and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon was that the banking crisis (or at least this stage of it, to be fair to Dimon) was over. Today, May 2, the fear is that the crisis isn’t over. Regional bank stocks have plunged again with Western Alliance Bancorporation (WAL), for example, down 17.12% for the day as of 3 p.m. New York time. The regional bank ETF, the SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE) is down 6.61%. That all means that the August 18 Put Options with a strike price of $41 that I bought yesterday at $2.55 are selling at 3 p.m. today at $4.72. Counting a slight gain from yesterday’s action after the buy, these Puts are up 85% in a day. I’m taking that gain today and selling this position out of my Volatility Portfolio
May 1, 2023 | Daily JAM, KRE, Special Reports, Volatility |
JPMorgan Chase’s (JPM) deal today, Monday, May 1, to acquire First Republic Bank (FRC) after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) regulators seized the bank certainly puts an end to the First Republic chapter of the banking crisis. But there are lots of chapters to go in this banking crisis. So my second short for this market is to buy Put Options on the SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE).
April 27, 2023 | Daily JAM, IWM, RWM, Short Term, Special Reports |
I’m expecting modestly positive economic news in the next few days. Which will, in my opinion, create a low-risk opportunity to make big gains by going short this market in order to profit as stock prices fall. I’m looking to put the first of those shorts in place right now. With the rest to go into place in the days after the Federal Reserve meets on Wednesday, May 3. In this Special Report, I’ll explain this perhaps initially counter-intuitive call on short-term market direction and give you the details on five of my favorite shorts for profiting in this market. With the first short pick today
April 26, 2023 | Daily JAM, Jubak Picks, Morning Briefing, MSFT, Top 50 Stocks, Volatility |
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April 24, 2023 | Daily JAM, ISRG, Long Term, Stock Alerts, Top 50 Stocks |
Last week Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) surprised everybody, including, apparently, management. Intuitive Surgical’s first-quarter revenue grew 14% year-over-year to $1.7 billion. (Wall Street was expecting $1.6 billion.) Surgical procedures performed using the company’s da Vinci system, rose 26% year-over-year, well above expectations for 15% growth. And the company raised guidance for global procedure growth to 18% to 21% from the prior guidance of 12% to 16%.
April 24, 2023 | Daily JAM, DIS, Mid Term |
Layoffs aren’t just for technology companies right now. Disney (DIS) has begun the second round of a projected three rounds of job cuts that will add up to a total reduction of 7,000 employees this year.
April 20, 2023 | Daily JAM, Jubak Picks, NEM, Videos |
Today’s Quick Pick is Newmont Corporation (NYSE: NEM). Newmont is the world’s largest gold miner but the stock hasn’t benefited very much from the recent rallies in gold. Unlike Barrick Gold, Newmont is not a low-cost miner, but it does have huge reserves as well as promising joint ventures–including one with Barrick in Nevada. The company is growing production and produced about 2.2 million ounces of gold in 2022, with production going up to a forecasted 2.7 million by 2027. Newmont likely hasn’t seen a huge rally yet because of the cost of energy. Mining gold takes a lot of energy and with recently higher gas/diesel prices, costs of mining and production have gone up and margins have been squeezed. However, looking forward to mid or late 2023, those margins will, in my opinion, start to look a lot better. If we hit a recession while inflation remains relatively high and energy prices come down, Newmont will benefit from lower costs and recession gold rallies. I would call Newmont my second choice gold stock to Barrick. Morningstar rates Newmont at 10% undervalued right now. This is a good time to buy and look for it to outperform in the second half of 2023.
April 19, 2023 | BABA, Daily JAM, FXI, JD, Videos |
Today’s topic is China’s Economy is Back. On April 18, China reported 4.5% year-over-year GDP growth for the first quarter. While it wasn’t the 5% growth rate that the Chinese government has set as a target, it was better than the 4% forecast by economists. This growth rate comes on the heels of a 4th quarter with only 2.9% year-over-year growth. Other numbers showed strength too. For example, retail sales rose 10.6% year-over-year beating forecasts of 7.4%. But the economy isn’t cooking on all burners: Industrial production was up only 3.9%, just missing the forecasts of 4%. The iShares China Large-Cap ETF (FXI) is a good way to buy into China’s economy. There was a big rally from November to December as investors anticipated China’s economy speeding out of its Covid slump. But that rally was followed by a drop as the Chinese economy struggled with a resurgence in Covid cases. Now we’re seeing that drop start turn around. Individual stocks like Alibaba (BABA) and JD.com (JD) show charts with a similar pattern and can be expected to start to climb as the economy continues to pick up.
April 19, 2023 | Daily JAM, TSLA |
With the company due to report first-quarter earnings after the market close on Wednesday, April 19, yesterday, April 18, Tesla (TSLA) cut prices of its Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles again.
