For the first two months of the year, the SP 500 is about 75 – 100 bp’s. A lot of volatility but not much of an overall change in market levels. Here is some fast facts from Bespoke’s weekend newsletter, that we think is a must read every weekend. Bespoke Research is very reasonable too in terms of the cost. If you aren’t a subscriber you should be:<\/p>\n
Sector P.E’s and % of sector stocks above 50-day moving average:<\/p>\n
Data courtesy of Bespoke<\/p>\n
Only Energy has less than half of the stocks in the sector trading below their 50 day m\/a’s. What struck me is that with the SP 500 closing at an all-time high\u00a0on Friday, Feb 28th, I thought the percentages would be higher for each sector. Technology and Financials account for about 1\/3rd or 35% of the SP 500’s total market cap, hence the importance of those sectors as market leaders.<\/p>\n
Another good article by Jeff Carter of pointsnfigures here in Chicago. Wonder how long it will take Chicago politics to muck this <\/a>up ?<\/p>\n Barry Ritholz via Josh Brown: focusing on process over outcomes: so important <\/a>to long-term investors.<\/p>\n Another great<\/a> article by Josh employing the Callan table of asset-class returns. This is great work for those that like to rotate portfolios, and re-balance.<\/p>\n The 1929 analogy is still floating around: Jeff Kleintop at LPL takes it <\/a>apart. The October ’13 Crash never happened and\u00a0the discussion\u00a0has been pushed into 2014.<\/p>\n Jeff Miller in his weekly “A Dash of Insight” talks <\/a>about Friday’s Employment Report. One of the best blogs we read week in and week out. Jeff writes it every Saturday. Hard to believe he can pump all this out in a few hours. There is a ton of good info and sources in every one of his blog posts.<\/p>\n JC Parets of AllStar Charts on the USA vs EM <\/a>in terms of relative performance. Have to start talking to clients about EM exposure.<\/p>\n JC also with his corn chart<\/a>: has to make a difference for Deere (DE). Small position now in DE, want to increase it.<\/p>\n Our Treasury short has hurt balanced account returns\u00a0year-to-date, which is why we use the TBF vs the TBT. I expect Treasuries to rally on the Ukraine news Monday morning, 3\/3. Might be time to add to the TBT. The TLT or +20-year Treasury ETF is 6.5% ytd as of 2\/28\/14.<\/p>\n From Norm Conley (@JAG_Norm), the market breadth <\/a>supports the all-time high for SP 500. Also, from Norm, consistent with our technology overweight, is this chart<\/a> on tech’s relative strength. Our only tech sale this year has been SNDK, but we are still long INTC and MU, plus a little TXN.<\/p>\n I tell clients regularly that if there is a long-run problem in the stock market, it should show up in the corporate bond markets first: not so far, but AcrosstheCurve.com via Bob Brinker raises a yellow flag here <\/a>from last Tuesday, 2\/25 ? Both the junk bond and the high-grade corporate credit markets here in the US, don’t yet indicate a problem.<\/p>\n Todd Salamone from Schaeffer’s on “3 Supportive Signs<\/a> for the Bulls”. It is tough to say what happens Monday morning and this week with Ukraine, but the market’s technical underpinnings remain solid.<\/p>\n Per Gary Morrow at Yosemite Asset Management and “This Week on Wall Street” blog<\/a>, the TLT is trading right where it was about 6 months ago, although the long bond is above its 50 and 200 day m\/a’s.<\/p>\n