Anybody still think that conferences, especially biotech conferences, don’t move stock prices? Shares of Nektar Therapeutics (NKTR) are up 7.65% today to $61.79 as of noon New York time on the company’s appearance at this week’s J.P. Morgan biotech conference. The slides from the company’s presentation today are in circulation but CEO Howard Robin doesn’t actually present until 2 p.m. New York time today.
Yesterday Moody’s Investors Service raised Argentina’s credit rating one level to B2 from B3. I added Grupo Financiero Galicia (GGAL) and Global X MSCI Argentina ETF (ARGT) to my Volatility Portfolio on my expectation that President Mauricio Macri’s macroeconomic reforms would gradually revive the economy and lead to upgrades in the country’s credit rating (and a drop in runaway inflation.)  The two picks are up 69.12% and 7.29%, respectively, since I added them to this portfolio. Argentina is on track, Moody’s said in its upgrade, to turn in two years of economic growth in a row in 2017 and 2108, which would be the first time that’s happened since 2011. Moody’s projects that the Argentine economy will grow by 3% this year and 3.5% in 2018.
You don’t have to do anything now–but come January 2018, if 2017 finishes the way I outlined in my last post on this momentum market and end of the year selling/window dressing I think rebalancing a portfolio will be a very smart way to begin 2018. Rebalancing–selling winning positions and adding to losing positions until all the holdings in a portfolio are equally weighted–will automatically take profits in the biggest winners of 2017 and redistribute some of that cash into stocks that have been sold down in 2017 but that look set to rebound in 2018.
I’ve named the five ETFs in this portfolio. Explained my ideas on allocation money among those five ETFs and their associated asset classes. And discussed the importance of knowing what index an ETF follows. Now it’s time to explain one last thing to complete the set up of this new portfolio: Why I’ve positioned it next to my Volatility Portfolio on JugglingWithKnives.com and JubakAM.com.
Brazil’s President Michel Temer has once again escaped a trial for corruption after an effort to send charges against Temer to the Supreme Court failed to get the necessary 2/3 majority in Congress required before a sitting president can be forced to stand trial.
