Month: May 2014

http://www.marketwatch.com/column/michael-sinceres-longterm-trader – Michael Sincere has is own web site where he reviews some of the technical indicators which say “This is how bear markets begin” – www.michaelsincere.com.
Consuelo Mack in her weekly WealthTrack show for 23May14 featured Steven Romic who in his latest annual report to investors pointed out that the stock prices as a percent of US GDP is 200%. That is about the same value it hit at the peak of the dot com market bubble in 2000 and higher than the “great recession” bubble of 2007.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOFt2sWHas8&list=UUW9B1PJwennxYi5Fk_94Lew
Investors Business Daily’s The Big Picture changed their Current Outlook to “Confirmed Uptrend” Tuesday night. I have no idea which way the market will go, but just try to follow the trend.

I paid a $1 to see all the information for a month at Zacks.com. They produce several news letters and stock ratings. I even received a call from their wealth management people. He wanted know if I was a short term or long term investor. I said I did not care, I just wanted to be invested in what was going up and not is what was going down. Then he asked about how much diversification I had. I gave the same answer. Then after several more questions to which I gave the same answer, he decided I would not be a good candidate for their wealth management program. However, you may want to spend a dollar to review their offerings at Zacks.com.

Charles Payne is going to have his own show on Fox Business News starting 02Jun14 at 6pm. He has been on Fox Business News since the network started and has his own investment firm – “Wall Street Strategies”. It will be worth watching.  http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2014/05/20/fbn-to-debut-making-money-with-charles-payne-june-2/

I discovered a new news channel on my Uverse cable service. Channel 208 is One America News Network. If you can, give it a view. It seems to be all news with no bias.

This was a good week in the market. The S&P500 was up about 1.5% and the Nasdaq was up about 1.9%. Both of my funds were up for the week.

IBD TBP’s Current Outlook is “confirmed uptrend” – time to invest.

My current investments:
Nordic has a price of 48.84 a sell price 46.40, a relative rank of 03, and is a hold.
SAirTransportation has a price of 65.13, a sell price 61.87, a relative rank of 04, and is a hold.
SElectronics has a price of 72.81, a sell price TBD, a relative rank of 01, and is a buy.

My portfolio changes this weekend:
IRA #1 – invest 100% in SElectronics
IRA #2 – invest 20% in SElectronics

My portfolio market exposure after this weekend’s changes:
IRA #1 – 100% invested
IRA #2 – 60% invested

MarketWatch, www.marketwatch.com, sends out a Personal Finance Daily email. On 20May, one of the articles listed 5 dividend stocks which may be safer than treasury bonds. Treasury bonds are paying less that 3% interest, which is taxed at ordinary income rates, and all 5 of these stock are paying more than 4% dividends, which are taxed at the lower capital gain rates. Capital gains, if you are in the 15% or less tax bracket, are taxed at 0%. The stocks are CenturyLink (CTL 5.71%), AT&T (T 5.04%), Altria Group (MO 4.79%), Peoples United Financial (PBCT 4.65%), and Verizon Communications (VZ 4.42%). The same email contained an article about the worst cable company in America – Time Warner Cable. I always thought it was Comcast, but Comcast is really only the second worst cable company in America.

Looking at stock charts of the big movers over time has always shows these big movers making one new high after another. It seems to me that watching new highs could be a way to find winning stocks. I have looked, but failed to find a service which provides that information. If you know of a service which provides that information let me know.

Earlier this month on Chuck Jaffe’s show, MoneyLife, Greg McBride of Bankrate.com discussed High-yield checking. Seems you can get higher interest if you follow some rules. You can check it out at Bankrate.com. I use one of my brokerage accounts as my checking account. Since I have an investment or two in the account and keep an amount in cash, having it a margin account, prevents bounced checks (as long as the check is written for a reasonable amount).

This was a good week in the market. The S&P500 was up about 1.3% and the Nasdaq was up about 2.4%. Both of my funds were up for the week. It is still “Sell in May and go away” time. Next week should be good because it is month end.

IBD TBP’s Current Outlook is “Market in Correction” – not time to invest.

My current investments:
Nordic has a price of 48.22, a sell price 45.81, a relative rank of 03, and is a hold.
SAirTransportation has a price of 64.05, a sell price 60.85, a relative rank of 05, and is a hold.

My portfolio changes this weekend:
IRA #1 – None
IRA #2 – None

My portfolio market exposure after this weekend’s changes:
IRA #1 – 00% invested
IRA #2 – 40% invested

Previously I have mentioned some other investment methods I have been trying and I have the results for the there months ending in April.
My standard #1 IRA portfolio (1 fund) lost 1.37%.
My standard #2 IRA portfolio (5 funds) gained 1.41%.
My PDP, PIE, PIZ, DWAQ momentum portfolio lost 6.05%. I would have lost more except I had an 8% stop loss on each position and I’ve now decided to invest only when IBD TBP CO is “Uptrend”.
My TQQQ investment based on IBD’s ETF trending system lost 13.04%. I did not have any stop loss orders in on this position but will in the future. Currently the system says stay in cash.
My TQQQ/SQQQ investment based on IBD’s ETF trending system lost 24.39%. In this system instead of selling half of the TQQQ when IBD TBP CO says “uptrend under pressured”, I sell it all and when IBD TBP CO says “Market in Correction” I buy the SQQQ. Like the TQQQ investment, I did not have any stop loss orders in on this position. When I finally put some in, I was stopped out of the SQQQ and now am invested in cash. I’m not sure if I want to continue with this method or change to investing in the 15 new DWA Momentem ETFs of which over the last 13 weeks PXI is up 14%, PUI is up 7%, PYZ is up 6%, and PIE is up 5%. Either way I think I will wait until IBD TBP CO says “Uptrend”.

I received a advertisement from Mark Skousen telling me how I should send him money to follow his investments. In the advertisement he had an interesting fact: Since the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) is keeping interest rates low we are paying $250B in interest on the government debt. If interest rates to up to 5% the interest will be $1T, if interest rates go up to 10% (like the 80s) interest will be $2T, and currently total tax revenue is only $2.5T.
A guy is walking along a beach when he comes across a lamp partially buried in the sand. He picks up the lamp and gives it a rub. A genie appears and tells him he has been granted one wish. The guy thinks for a moment and says, “I want to live forever.” “Sorry,” said the genie, “I’m not allowed to grant eternal life.” “OK, then, I want to die after the government balances the budget and eliminates the debt.” “You crafty little bastard,” said the genie.

This was sort of a dull week in the market. The DJIA and S&P500 were down about 0.5% and the Nasdaq was down about 1%. Not sure why both my funds were up for the week. However more and more market charteristics, which happen only at the top of markets, are happening. I’m not sure the next move is down – but that is the way I would guess.

IBD TBP’s Current Outlook is “Market in Correction” – not time to invest.

My current investments:
Nordic has a price of 47.74, a sell price 45.35, a relative rank of 01, and is a hold.
SAirTransportation has a price of 62.80, a sell price 59.66, a relative rank of 04, and is a hold.

My portfolio changes this weekend:
IRA #1 – None
IRA #2 – None

My portfolio market exposure after this weekend’s changes:
IRA #1 – 00% invested
IRA #2 – 40% invested

I received a couple of smails last week from two pension plans I have. Seems there is a new method for calculating minimum funding requirements – called MAP-21. Instead of using the last two year rate of return (low return years) as the basis for determining funding requirements, companies now can use the last 25-year period (higher return years). Therefore, if you have a pension, the funding requirements are now much lower and thus the stability of the plans lower and bankruptcy risk much higher. One of the plans reported in the smail was 80% funded under the old requirements and under the new requirements is 102% funded. One of my tax clients was in a bankrupt pension plan which was taken over by the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (US gov org) and now gets about 1/3 of his previous pension amount. The bottom line is that only you can provide for the stability and reliability of your own retirement funds.

Consuelo Mack’s Wealthtrack show of 02May14 featured Professor of Finance Andrew Lo of MIT’s Sloan School of Management and head of its Laboratory of Financial Engineering which is working on a program to protect investors from themselves. Their latest project, called artificial stupidity, is trying to simulate realistic investor behavior to see where the behavior produces investment mistakes so they can do the opposite. They have identified 11 behaviors which produce bad investment performance. The number one bad behavior is failure to get back invested in the market after having sold to avoid increasing losses.

It was a not good week in the market. Funds invested in overseas (except China), real estate, fixed income, and energy are still looking strong. Most of the growth related funds are doing worse. SBiotechnology which was on my top 20 list for months is now the 128 best fund out of the 131 I follow. On my web site, I publish a top 20 fund list based on deviation from a 78 week exponentially smoothed moving average (vs 39 in this email) and SBiotechnology was on that list for more than two years. The longer the number of weeks in the average, the lower the volatility.

IBD TBP’s Current Outlook is “Market in Correction” – not time to invest.

My current investments:
Nordic has a price of 47.60, a sell price 45.22, a relative rank of 01, and is a hold.
SAirTransportation has a price of 62.73, a sell price 59.14, a relative rank of 03, and is a hold.

My portfolio changes this weekend:
IRA #1 – None
IRA #2 – None

My portfolio market exposure after this weekend’s changes
IRA #1 – 00% invested
IRA #2 – 40% invested

As I mention in my first email, I went to work for 3 days at Disney in Orlando and failed to take the data to update my numbers. I did have time to note that my two investments were both up and yes, as some of you pointed out, I had a miss-quote last week for Nordic. I will try to remember my data next time this happens. I felt sorry for those who came from far away for their Disney vacation on Friday (it was a monsoon), and Saturday (it was raining most of the day), although Sunday was beautiful.

It was a good week in the market. Not good enough week to change IBD TBP’s Current Outlook, but then it was also month end. Month end is almost always an up market since there are many things a fund manager can do to make his performance look better. For example, if a fund manager has $1M in cash at month end, he can leave it in cash, he can buy a good stock which may go up or down, or he can buy another $1M of a stock he already owns (which may increase the price for every share he owns making his performance better).
Every 5 years or so, I ask all those receiving this emall to send me an email listing their name and email address to update my distribution list. Please do this by the end of May. I’m sure there are some of you who receive this email are no longer interested.

IBD TBP’s Current Outlook is “Market in Correction” – not time to invest.

My current investments:
Nordic has a price of 47.32, a sell price 44.95, a relative rank of 02, and is a hold.
SAirTransportation has a price of 62.25, a sell price 59.14, a relative rank of 07, and is a hold.

My portfolio changes this weekend:
IRA #1 – None
IRA #2 – None

My portfolio market exposure after this weekend’s changes
IRA #1 – 00% invested
IRA #2 – 40% invested