The price of copper has been an indicator of the state of world economic health because it is vital to so many industries. The price of copper has declined by 50% over the last 5 years. Another indicator of ecomomic health is the price of oil since it is also a vital part of the economy. The ETF which follows the price of OIL is USO. USO started trading at $68 when it opened in April 2006. It is now trading for under $12 or a decline of 80%. USO traded at $114 in 2008. I do not know what the drop in almost every commodity price is saying about the future of the world economy, but it does not look good. It nice to see oil decline and pay lower gas prices, but oil companies are probably the biggest investment positions in most major retirement funds.
I was talking with a couple from Brazil a week ago. They indicated since Brazil is dependent on commodity prices and also has serious political corruption (sound familiar?) the country is a depression. When I went to Brazil 8 years ago the Brazilian Real was worth $0.50 and now is worth $0.25. The couple indicated I should visit Brazil again because everything is so much cheaper than when I was there before. I did not mention I had a very small gain in BZQ (ProShares UltraShort MSCI Brazil Capped ETF) during the year.
So I talked to Fidelity last week and they had no solution for their failure to report distribution. The price of a fund is automatically reduced by the value of a distribution. So with major distributions not being reported today, I apent 90 minutes on the phone to Fidelity. Last week the agent said I could not look at fund details to see the distributions because they are not updated until Monday. This week the agent said I should look at the fund details to see distributions. I suggested looking at details for 100 funds was not practical. So Fidelity does not produce an accurate way to determine the exact price change of a fund. This is nothing new, it is just worse. I have complained for years about the problem which takes place every December. Somehow they just fail every December (and probably during the year, it is just not as obvious).
I used an estimate of the distribution for many of the funds and will be correcting it on Monday (Fidelity claims it will be fixed then). I do not plan to send out a new list, just include the correct numbers next week.
IBD TBP’s Market Pulse is “Market in Correction” as of 12/13/15 – Not a time to buy.
My current investments:
IRA#1 and IRA#2
SRetailing has a price of 104.39, a sell price of 103.24, a rank of 01, and is a Hold. (ETF – XLY)
IRA#2
SITServices has a price of 40.01, a sell price 39.98, a rank of 08, and is a Hold. (ETF – XLK)
SSoftware&ComputerServices has a price of 122.87, a sell price 121.89, a rank of 02, and is a Hold. (ETF – MTK)
SConsumerDiscretionary has a price of 34.45, a sell price of 34.44, a rank of 18, and is a Hold. (ETF – FDIS)
STechnology has a price of 116.53, a sell price of 115.61, a rank of 06, and is a Hold. (ETF – IGM)
I am happy (I think) and surprised that none of the funds declined below their sell price.
My portfolio changes this weekend:
IRA #1 – None
IRA #2 – None
My portfolio market exposure after this weekend’s changes:
IRA #1 – 100% invested
IRA #2 – 100% invested