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iShares Silver Mining ETF Allocation Increased
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ViacomCBS Re-initiated
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Rich Bernstein Negative on Tech as Rates Rise
Rich Bernstein, CEO and CIO of Richard Bernstein Advisors, warned...
- Posted March 18, 2021
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Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF Allocation Reduced
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Gold and Silver Mining ETFs Allocation Increased
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ViacomCBS Sold
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iShares Silver Mining ETF Allocation Increased
The price of silver has been declining due to...
- March 30, 2021
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Rich Bernstein Negative on Tech as Rates Rise
Rich Bernstein, CEO and CIO of Richard Bernstein Advisors,...
- March 18, 2021
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Is the Retirement Crisis Really a Crisis?
PBS Frontline recently presented a documentary called “The Retirement...
- April 25, 2013
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Alarming Chart of the Stock Markets of 1987 and 2012-2013
Several days ago I posted a chart showing the...
- May 22, 2013
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Bill Ackman Thinks Diversification is for the Lazy
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- March 4, 2010
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T.T.S. Fear Index
Based on a scale of 1 (major complacency) to 10 (extreme fear):
Current and Selected Past Readings:
Date | Index | SMA Comment |
1/20/2021 | 2.3 | Massive stimulus and Fed support have nearly eliminated fear |
3/23/2020 | 7.0 | Coronavirus and oil price war panic investors to the highest level of fear since October 2011 |
12/26/2019 | 2.3 | Lowest level of fear in nearly two years (January 2018) |
12/21/2018 | 6.7 | Raised fears likely setting up a buying opportunity |
1/11/2018 | 1.8 | Unusually low fear could mean we're near the top in valuations |
1/13/16 | 6.3 | Terrible start to 2016 raised fears |
10/3/11 | 8.5 | A good tradable bottom (S&P 500 @ 1,085) based on lots of nonsense |
3/9/09 | 7.0 | Market bottom (S&P 500 @ 666); end of the world was nigh |
10/27/08 | 8.8 | Market had dropped 28% in 5 weeks, Paulson pulled out all stops to save Wall Street bankers |
10/12/07 | 3.2 | Market top (S&P 500 @ 1,562); worldwide housing bubble pricked |
Year-to-Date Performance as of February 24, 2021
Stock Market Advantage (SMA) Porfolio Versus Major Indices
Index/Portfolio | YTD % |
SMA Portfolio | 18.7% |
S&P 500 | 4.8% |
U. S. Small Caps | 12.2% |
Total U. S. Stock Market | 6.0% |
Total Int'l Stock Market | 6.0% |
Total U. S. Bond Market | -2.4% |
Jeffrey Kleintop: Gold and Oil Are Buys on Renewed Chinese Growth
Jeffrey Kleintop, chief financial strategist at LPL Financial and author of Market Evolution: How to Profit in Today’s Changing Financial Markets
, still thinks it’s to early to get into stocks. So said Kleintop in an interview on CNBC this morning.
Kleintop also commented on the Spanish bailout announced yesterday. He characterized it as a victory of Spain over Germany and a positive. Kleintop added that just asking for the bailout caused Spain’s borrowing costs to drop from 7 percent to 6.2 percent. It allows the banks to hang onto a little more Spanish debt and even buy some more. It buys them more time, but not a lot, and with Italy and Portugal needing bailouts later this year this will not be off the front burner for long, according to Kleintop.
There is slowing growth in the U. S. with the end of Operation Twist, slowing growth in China and geopolitical risks with deal with Iran coming up and coming to a head here soon makes it still too early to buy back stocks in Kleintop’s view.
Kleintop believes Bernanke is on the side of the dovish academics at the Fed as the biggest concern going forward is deflation with the pullback in food and energy prices along with declining wages and slack in the economy; the only defense against which is QE3. Kleintop doesn’t believe we’ll get deflation, but since the Fed wants to put a firewall against it we’ll probably see QE3 around the corner, he added.
Regarding China, Kleintop said it looks like the moves there lately have been relatively effective in slowing the pace of decline. The Chinese have used crude policy tools which have been remarkably effective. Kleintop said China appeared to be bottoming out and might experience growth again later this year.
Given the backdrop he sees, Kleintop said it probably makes more sense to buy gold and oil here rather than stocks, since China will be consuming the two commodities.
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