February 8, 2024 | Daily JAM, EWY, Mid Term, Perfect Five-ETFs, Stock Alerts |
I try not to argue with cash flows. Especially when I’m making asset allocation decisions. And right now global cash is heading for India. A number of reasons. Portfolio managers looking for diversification need emerging markets exposure and India looks like the best bet. Going long India is, in effect going short China since much of the new India money is essentially old China money fleeing what looks like an economy set to struggle for a while. And there is an India fundamental story based on an economy headed for 7% growth. For all these reasons I’m added the Franklin FTSE India ETF (FLIN) to both my Perfect 5 ETF Portfolio as rep
July 10, 2023 | Daily JAM, Videos |
Today’s Trend of the Week is India is the New China–in investing terms. Companies are looking to India for better prices and as a means of side-stepping the China and U.S. technology trade wars. For example, Apple is openly looking for suppliers in India, or asking suppliers to move from China to India, and other companies are following the path as well. Moody’s forecasts India’s GDP growth at 6% to 6.3% this year. I have two suggestions to get in on this trend. The first is the iShares MSCI India ETF, (INDA), which is up 5% year to date, but up 10-11% in the last three months. The other option is HDFC Bank, (HDB), much more volatile that the ETF, but also up 5% year to date and up 8% in the last three months. HDFC Bank is the biggest credit card issuer in India, with 28-29% market share. As wealth in India grows, more and more consumers are getting credit cards for the first time. HDFC also offers alternative platforms and payment technology that will also let the bank ride the technology wave in India’s financial sector. I don’t feel overly enthusiastic about investing in India as a whole. The country has an incredible, increasing reliance on coal, and the economy is riddled with special deals that favor family-run conglomerates with ties to the government. Buying the whole Megillah makes me a little leery, but I like INDA and HDB to get in on sentiment that sees India as the new China for investments.
March 1, 2023 | Daily JAM, EUM, FXI, Perfect Five-ETFs |
China’s manufacturing activity recorded its highest monthly improvement in more than a decade in February, while services also showed stronger-than-expected performance. Home sales rose for the first time in 20 months. Which has helped push Chinese stocks higher–along with the belief that the annual People’s Congress meeting that begins on Sunday will produce new stimulus measures from the central government.
January 19, 2023 | Daily JAM, Perfect Five-ETFs, Videos, Volatility |
Today I posted my two-hundred-and-twenty-sixth YouTube video: Quick Pick Sell UUP. This week’s Quick Pick: Sell UUP–the dollar ETF. I had the Invesco DB US Dollar Index Bullish Fund (NYSEARCA: UUP) in my portfolio through 2022 while the dollar was doing well but the dollar has recently taken a turn South and I’m now saying: Sell. UUP was going up while expectations were that the Fed was going to continue to raise interest rates, but now that the market believes (rightly or wrongly) that the Fed will be slowing their rate hikes, we’ve seen it move down by about 1.22% for 2023. This will likely continue to be the case as other countries maintain steady interest rates or even raise them to fight inflation (Watch the European Union) and as we edge closer to the debt ceiling cliff. U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen thinks the government can shift things to cover us through June, but after that, if the debt ceiling isn’t raised by Congress, the United States will not be able to borrow enough money to meet all of its obligations. I think we’ll walk right up to that cliff, but I sincerely hope we don’t go over it. For now, I’m selling UUP and I’ll be looking for a gold ETF to replace it. More on that to come!
July 26, 2022 | Daily JAM, Dividend Income, Jubak Picks |
With Walmart (WMT) shares down 7.74% as of noon New York time today, July 26, on the company’s warning yesterday about falling revenue, the pool of safe consumer stocks continues to shrink. Which is bad if you owned Walmart or Dollar General (DG), also down today (by 1.88%.) But good (so far) if you owned Coca-Cola (KO) or McDonald’s (MCD), which on the evidence of today’s earnings report are surfing the recession in decent shape. Shares of Coca-Cola were up 1.58% and shares of McDonald’s (MCD) were up 2.51% as of noon.
August 23, 2021 | Daily JAM, Perfect Five-ETFs, Stock Alerts |
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
August 4, 2021 | Daily JAM, FXI, Perfect Five-ETFs |
It’s the problem that won’t go away if you’re looking to build a diversified portfolio of ETFs (or any other asset) to manage the risk that some one asset class will implode unexpectedly. Given the continued outperformance of U.S. stocks, How do you diversify toe manage risk without giving up too much in current performance?
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.
June 25, 2020 | Daily JAM, Stock Alerts |
A while back I sold the Invesco Currency Shares Japanese Yen ETF (FXY) out of my Perfect Five ETF Portfolio because I was looking for more diversification in that limited five ETF portfolio. (I replaced it with the iShares Large Cap China ETF (FXI) on April 20, 2020....
June 11, 2019 | ALB, Daily JAM, FQVLF, Short Term, SQM, Volatility |
I think the strong move in commodities stocks today has more to do with continued weakness in the U.S. dollar than it does with any renewed faith in growth in the global economy. After all the U.S.-China trade war doesn't look any more settled today than it did last...
June 2, 2019 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, Stock Alerts, VGIT, Volatility, You Might Have Missed |
Today I sold the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) out of my Perfect 5 ETF Portfolio. And today I'm replacing it in that portfolio with the Vanguard Intermediate Term Treasury ETF (VGIT). Now obviously a Treasury bond ETF isn't in the same asset class as an...
June 2, 2019 | Daily JAM, EEM, Perfect Five-ETFs, Stock Alerts |
In an ideal world, I would have finished my Special Report on the Crisis in Global Capitalism On my subscription JubakAM.com site by now so I could place this sell--and the coming buy of a Treasury ETF--in the context of that crisis. But this isn't an ideal world....