All Entries Tagged With: "S&P500"
Wall Street 2011 in Review – A Year of “Sturm und Drang”
There is an old saying on Wall Street that “bull markets climb a wall of worry.” It means that the higher the market goes, the more fearful investors become that the market will drop and their gains will be lost. It’s the age-old dilemma of an investor with a profit: “Do I take my profit [...]
Market Rallies on Hopes for Fed Intervention?
On Tuesday, markets in the U.S. rallied. The Dow Jones, Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 all showed big jumps. Curiously, data reported on Tuesday did not seem to support a rally, rather it may have confirmed ongoing fears that the U.S. economy has entered a double dip recession. New home sales were below expectations by [...]
Did the S&P 500 Gain 20.7% – or Just 1.8%? Depends on Your Currency
After writing my recent post on the price of gold in euros, I saw this article on Bloomberg that explained how Europeans who invested in US stocks got their “best returns in a decade.” The S&P 500 index, up 12.8% in 2010 was up 20.7% in euro terms. The article mentions a 23% return in [...]
The January Effect: How Will It Play Out in 2011?
In his Striking Price column in this week’s issue of Barron’s, Steven M. Sears writes about a “market that Sartre would love.” That would be Jean-Paul Sartre, of course, the French existentialist philosopher. Sears says “Wall Street’s most sophisticated stock investors are experiencing existential angst.” The final weeks of the trading year are messing with [...]
Resistance Ahead? Bumping Up Against 2007 Highs
If you’ve been watching long-term charts of some of the major indexes and averages, you might have noticed that some of them are actually getting close to their 2007 highs, while others are still lagging. So, as the year draws to a close, I thought I’d look back over the past ten years or so [...]
Diversification: Timing Is Everything (At Least Sometimes)
I took a look at Doug Short’s chart on the “break even” level for the S&P 500, showing that if you invested in that index at the nominal all-time closing high on March 24, 2000 (just before the tech bubble burst), you’d now be just breaking even (commissions not factored in the calculation). But what [...]
The Safe Haven Movement Could Stay With US Dollar
It seems there are almost no signs left that would cause Wall Street to believe that the improved course of the economy will continue. Just to mention two recent reports: Jobless claims rose to a six month high and Cisco indicated that its global business was subject to a choppy recovery. The signs and signals [...]
The Index Effect: Potential Trading Opportunities?
At the investing blog “Value Uncovered,” there’s an analysis of what investors sometimes call the “index effect” – changes in stock prices when they’re added to the S&P 500 (or other indexes). Large-cap mutual funds and ETFs must buy certain stocks when they are added to the index so they can maintain the proper weighting. [...]
An ETF Deep Dive: Inside THD (iShares MSCI Thailand)
A few months ago, the news was filled with disturbing reports of violent street battles in Thailand. At some points, various areas of the country were operating under a state of emergency. At the time, I thought that there would be panic in Thailand’s stock market. But I was wrong – at least in terms [...]
Halfway Through 2010: Biggest S&P 500 Winners and Losers
On July 2, MarketWatch published two articles covering the “10 biggest winners” and “10 biggest losers” among S&P 500 stocks for the first half of 2010. Because these articles are presented as slide shows, let me save you the trouble of clicking through all 20 slides. Here are the top winners and losers that MarketWatch [...]
