The Standard & Poor’s 500 closed up 0.65% today and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.53% to set new record highs. Technology stocks rebounded from recent weakness with the NASDAQ finishing ahead by 1.05%. But the big impetus for the continued gains in the big indexes came from a sense that the economy is returning to normal.
Last time, way back on February 23, when I posted on an everything is down market, I said that I didn’t think we were yet at buy on the dip time, but that I was doing a little selective nibbling at stocks such as Applied Materials (AMAT) that had extraordinarily strong 2012 growth stories. Well, I’ve been doing a little nibbling today–again I’m not buying everything on the drop since I can’t tell where the bottom might be.
Back on February 23, I wrote a post with the headline “Everything is down today” and added that while I wasn’t buying everything on the dip I was doing some selective nibbling. Today’s market looks almost exactly the same–if a bit more so because this drop is coming after recent weakness.
I’m starting up my videos on JubakAM.com again–this time using YouTube as a platform. The twelfth YouTube video “5 Picks for the Next Six Months” went up today.
Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell didn’t take all worry off Wall Street’s plate, but he did downsize the portion.
Yesterday tech tumbled but utilities, commodities like copper and even gold, and many “vaccine recovery” plays gained. Today almost everything is down.
Which to me is a sign that this now 6-day downturn is getting closer to an end. Right now, as of 1:30 a.m. in New York the NASDAQ is off another 2.32%. The brings the drop from the mid-february high to 6%. A little more than half way to a 10% correction. I don’t think we’re at the bottom yet. But I am looking for growth stories–which is not the same as “momentum growth stocks”–where the selling has created an opportunity.
2021 is shaping up as an especially challenging year for investors. Much, much more challenging than 2020. I don’t think we can count on this rally running uninterrupted through the year. That would be simple, wouldn’t it? We’d all know how to profit from that scenario. And I don’t think the market is about to drop off a cliff from its current record highs. That would be traumatic. But, still, we do know how to protect a portfolio in that scenario. And even how to profit from a prolonged plunge–if we can bring ourselves to place those short and Put Options bets. Instead 2021 is likely to be one of those years with a Rally Stage and then a correction (or “something”) to be followed by a last quarter of 2021 that is, at this moment, close to completely unpredictable. That would make 2021 one of those years that gives investors a chance to be wrong several times over, to botch timing on the upside and the downside, and to let emotions power some really bad investment moves. I don’t pretend that I’ve got this year’s market stages down perfectly–although I think the outlines for the first two stages for 2021 are pretty clear. I don’t imagine that I’ve got the timing for navigating these stages clocked perfectly–although I do think I understand “generally” when the market is likely to switch gears. And that lets me lay out for you a likely pattern for 2021 and to suggest stocks and ETFs to use to navigate this year. Part of the point in getting as specific as I can at this point isn’t that I expect that I’ve got everything right, but to lay out concrete markers that will let you and me adjust portfolios as the year progresses. I’m dividing this Special Report into three parts.
I’m taking advantage of today’s drop in shares of MGM Resorts International (MGM) after yesterday’s earnings report to add these shares to my new Millennial Portfolio. The stock dropped on bad pandemic performance from the company’s Las Vegas casinos and resorts and a slide in revenue from its Macao operations. But revenue from online betting soared. And that business is the future of MGM–and the reason that investors with long-time horizons would want to own this stock. (And it won’t hurt at all, when revenue picks up from Las Vegas operations once the pandemic is in the rear-view mirror.
I’m starting up my videos on JubakAM.com again–this time using YouTube as a platform. The ninth YouTube video “Trading Rationally in an Irrational Market” went up today.
U.S. GDP growth slowed in the fourth quarter, gaining just 1% from the third quarter. For the full year the U.S. economy contracted by 3.5%. That makes 2020 the first time that the economy has contracted for a full year since 2009 and the Great Recession. At the bottom of that recession that economy contracted by 2.5%. 2020 is also the worst year for economic growth since 1946 when the economy shrank by 11.6% as the country demobilized after World War II. Consumer spending slowed in all 15 categories tracked by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The sectors that had powered the recovery in the third quarter–restaurants and hotels, for instance–reversed. The growth in spending on cars and health car also slowed from the acceleration in the third quarter. So why is this good news as far as the stock market is concerned?
I’m starting up my videos on JubakAM.com again–this time using YouTube as a platform. The seventh YouTube video “5 picks for after the pandemic” went up today. Please watch and subscribe to my YouTube channel. And like my video.
Stock have moved up so strongly that the Put Options I own in my Volatility Portfolio are no longer providing any significant downside protection against a market downturn. Especially since two of the three–the Puts on MGM Resorts International, and Vale l expire on December 18. The last Put, the one on American Airlines, expires on January 15, 2021, but I’m closing that position as well. I’m also selling my two Call Options on Barrick Gold, and the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF since they also expire on December 18 and they are also so far out of the money the holding is pointless. Those Calls on gold were also added as protection against an outbreak in market volatility that never arrived.
