Month: September 2015

last week the Federal Reserve Board (fed) decided to not raise interest rates and the market went down. So last weekend 3 fed governors came out and said they would raise interest rates soon. This week the fed chariman said we would raise rates. They figured perhaps rasing rates would help the market go up since not rasing rates caused the market to go down. The fed had used qualitative easing (qe) #1, qe#2, operation twist, and qe#3 to cause the market to go up. When the fed stopped its qe, other nations started and the market continued up. This week the market went down. Perhaps the market is trying to tell the fed something.
We are in the window dressing period. Portfolio managers report on the end of a month and end of a quarter. A portfolio manager with 1M to invest has a choice of buying a new stock and hope it goes up, or buying more of a stock he owns to push the price up on every share he owns. So the quess is next week will be an up week – at least through Wednesday.

Returns for the month of August were probably the worst I’ve ever had. September and October are suposted to be the bad months.
In August IRA#1 -16%, IRA#2 -7%, PDP PIE PIZ DWAS -3%, QQQ -3%, SPY/RSP -6%, Power4 -4%.
For the last 3 months, IRA#1 -25%, IRS#2 -8%, PDPetc -4%, QQQ new -5%, SPY/RSP new -7%, Power4 -4%.
August portfolio changes:
IRA#1 – Sold SBiotechnology on 08/24.
IRA#2 – Sold SmallCapGrowth, SHealthCare, SPharmaceutical on 08/24.
PDP PIE PIX DWAS – sold DWAS on 8/21.
QQQ – sold remaining QQQ on 8/21 – second month for this portfolio.
SPY/RSP – Purchased SPY on 08/21 – second month for this portfolio.
Power4 – Sold PTH on 08/12, PTF on 8/20, PEZ on 8/21.
All my portfolios lost money, but the portfolios invested in ETFs lost less because you can enter a stop loss order to sell at any time (I limit the loss to 7% from a previous close high). Mutual funds can’t be sold until the close of the market for a day, require minimum holding periods, charge extra fees for early sales, and have higher management fees. ETFs do cost $8 to buy and sell. Except for my 401k, which is restricted to mutual funds, I plan to invest in ETFs from now on. I did ask Fidelity, my 401k custodian, to motivate my company to move into the 21st century and allow me to buy ETFs in the 401k.

IBD TBP’s Market Pulse is “Market in correction”. Not a time to buy.
Obviously not every IBD TBP’s Market Pulse call of “Confirmed Uptrend”, such as the call on 08Sep, results in an up market.

My current investments:
IRA#1
None
IRA#2
None

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 – 00% invested

An interesting email I get each week is The Felder Report. The subscription to his weekly report is free. You can also read his report at http://thefelderreport.com/blog/. He thinks we are in a bear market.
Prank Curzio has an interesting podcast I listen to weekly. He is currently talking about how now is the time to invest in Europe. I feel with the cost of the influx of refugees will put Europe into a recession at best. He is into natural resources such as Gold Standard Ventures. He also favors KKR which has a dividend of 9%.

IBD TBP’s Market Pulse is “Uptrend under pressure”. Not a time to buy.
The Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC on finance.yahoo.com, $COMPQ on StockCharts.com) looked like it was slowly improving since 24Aug but on Friday closed below its 50 and 200 day moving average. Not a good sign. By the way, the charts on StockCharts.com are the most accurate I’ve found. They adjust the prices used in the charts by any distribution. Yahoo will show a 5% loss in a stock/fund if there was a 5% distribution.

My current investments:
IRA#1
None
IRA#2
None

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 – 00% invested

As you listen to experts on the market and economy, I urge you to review the quotes by the experts on the crash of 1929. http://www.gold-eagle.com/article/1927-1933-chart-pompous-prognosticators. An interesting event took place in 1933. On the chart it is event #20. “All safe deposit boxes in banks or financial institutions have been sealed… and may only be opened in the presence of an agent of the I.R.S.” – President F.D. Roosevelt, 1933. Currently Greek cannot use the money stored in their safe deposit boxes.

Ed Slott was on the 09Aug15 podcast Retire Secure by Jaome Lange. Ed is also on PBS a couple of time a year. He is the expert on IRAs and has some interesting idea on IRAs and the use in financial planning.

IBD TBP’s Market Pulse is “Uptrend under pressure”. Not a time to buy.
On Tuesday the Nasdaq went up 2.7% and the S&P500 was up 2.5%. The Market Pulse was changed to “Confirmed uptrend”. On Wednesday The Big Picture (TBP) said “The stock market got smacked with a nasty reversal…” and changed the Market Pulse to “Uptrend under pressure”. Obviously not every “Confirmed uptrend” indicates the start of a new bull market. Perhaps the best idea is to wait a week after a “Confirmed uptrend” to see if it remains unchange.

My current investments:
IRA#1
None
IRA#2
None

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 – 00% invested

Cash Reserves, a money market fund, paying 0.01% is the number 3 fund on my list. I am sure the only reason it is yielding anything is that Fidelity is forgoing management fees to subsidize the yield to prevent it from going negative.

This weekend’s Wealthtrack show which Consuelo Mack presents on PBS features Mary Beth Franklin. You can hear it on itunes or wealthtrack.com. Ms. Franklin is a retirement expert and the expert on Social Security. She presents many lesser known ways to take Social Security which could increase your monthly benefit significantly. So many people I meet have failed to maximize their Social Security based on her ideas and only take it as soon as they can. She also discusses Medicare part B premium which costs about $105/month per person but could cost as much as $335/month per person based on income. The formula for Medicare premiums is changing and will cost more starting in the next two years.

An interesting ETF is CROC. It is not a time to buy stocks, but this ETF is a double short on the Australian Dollar. Australia seems to be in a deep recession since it has a minerals based economy and the use of minerals – iron, coal, copper, etc. – is decreasing because the world’s economic growth, if there is any growth at all, is slowing. The same can be said for Brazil – BZQ. http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.php?CROC,BZQ,$COMPQ – double left click on the “200 days” at the bottom of the chart and change it to 90 for a shorter term view. These ETFs are not a buy and hold investment and there are other similar ETFs, these are just two I happened to notice. Both have been making new highs over the last couple of months.

IBD TBP’s Market Pulse is “Market in Correction”. Not a time to buy.
My only investments are a very small number of shares in Block’s and Disney’s employee stock purchase plan – not easy to sell quickly.
The week before the plunge on 24Aug, Gary Kaltbaum was on a Fox Business Network show where he said he was in all cash and one of the other participants suggested he was Chicken Little. One thing to remember about the big brokerage firms – they get a lot of money from companies to push new stock, push additional stock, and write favorable analyst reports. They will never tell you to sell – it hurts their income. They will not even say we are in a bear market. For them, we are in a bull market or have increased volatility.

My current investments:
IRA#1
None
IRA#2
None

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 – 00% invested