One Man’s Opinion: “I’m Not Really Sure How Much More Of This I Can Take”

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Submitted by Albert Edwards via ZeroHedge

Man

Earlier this week we described the personal come to non-GAAP Jesus moment of trading commentator Richard Breslow, who confessed in no uncertain terms that he has had it with endless central banking intervention: “a portfolio built to only withstand stress thanks to central bank intervention is one destined to blow-up spectacularly. The embedded flaw in this new logic is that central banks give investors perfect foresight. And nothing can go wrong… You don’t need to be a Taleb or Mandelbrot to calculate that we have been having once in a hundred year events on a regular basis for the last thirty years.”

Today it is another famous skeptic, SocGen’s Albert Edwards who has had enough and says he feels “utterly depressed” because he has not “one scintilla of doubt that these central bankers will destroy the enfeebled world economy with their clumsy interventions and that political chaos will be the ugly result. The only people who will benefit are not investors, but anarchists who will embrace with delight the resulting chaos these policies will bring!”

As he openly warns his readers:

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New ETFs On The Block: Principal Shareholder Yield Index ETF (PY)

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InvestingPrincipal Financial, the Iowa-based retirement and mutual funds specialist, recently expanded its exchange-traded fund offerings with the launch of two new so-called smart-beta funds. Principal is one of the biggest asset managers in the US, yet it was largely missing from the ETF landscape with just one actively-managed product to its name.

The Principal Shareholder Yield Index ETF (PY) targets US companies that return value to shareholders. The passively managed PY tries to reflect the performance of the Nasdaq US Shareholder Yield Index, which in turn, is a subset of mid– and large capitalization US companies within the broader Nasdaq US Large Mid Cap Index. Shareholder yield is a measure that quantifies the amount of cash returned to shareholders through buybacks, dividends and debt reduction.

The three components of the so-called ‘shareholder yield’ is a good metric of shareholder friendliness and the new fund is the only product that targets all the three factors. Most funds focus on one component, such as buybacks or dividends, but not both. PY’s investment strategy helps investors target companies that have the ability to support share prices through buybacks and have a history of dividend growth and debt reduction.

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ETF/No Load Fund Tracker Newsletter For April 22, 2016

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ETF/No Load Fund Tracker StatSheet

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https://theetfbully.com/2016/04/weekly-statsheet-for-the-etfno-load-fund-tracker-newsletter-updated-through-04212016/

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Market Commentary

MIXED END TO MIXED WEEK

Fri pic

[Chart courtesy of MarketWatch.com]

1. Moving the Markets

U.S. stocks closed the week mixed Friday as earnings misses last night from Microsoft (MSFT) and Google parent Alphabet (GOOG) gave Wall Street’s optimism a punch in the face. Before the opening bell though, the Dow got a push from strong earnings report from McDonald’s (MCD).

The mediocre finish to the end of the week on Wall Street has some investment pros wondering if the market’s strong run from the lows in early February has run its course while worrying about the recurring theme of the past that April cheers could bring May tears.

We heard a solid earnings report from McDonald’s (MCD) today. The maker of burgers, fries, and breakfast meals posted an earnings beat and rise in same-store sales of 5.4% versus a year ago, boosted by the success of its all-day breakfast initiative.

Despite the market’s two-day relapse, the earnings situation has improved, if you can call it that. With 132 companies in the S&P 500 having reported earnings, the Q1 profit contraction has been decreased to “only” -7.1%, which is better than the nearly -8% estimated drop a few weeks ago. Sure, that should push the major indexes to new highs in a hurry.

Let’s see how the next week of earnings reports will impact markets.

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Weekly StatSheet For The ETF/No Load Fund Tracker Newsletter – Updated Through 04/21/2016

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ETF/Mutual Fund Data updated through Thursday, April 21, 2016

TOC040716

If you are not familiar with some of the terminology used, please see the Glossary of Terms.

 

1. DOMESTIC EQUITY MUTUAL FUNDS/ETFs: BUY — since 4/4/2016

TTI

Our main directional indicator, the Domestic Trend Tracking Index (TTI-green line in above chart) has recently crawled above its long term trend line (red) and finally generated a new “Buy” signal effective 11/3/15. The market subsequently dropped, and we exited again on 11/13/15. As of today, the TTI has just moved above its trend line by +1.82%. As of Monday, April 4, 2016 a new Domestic Buy signal became effective as posted on the blog.

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Snapping A 7-Day Winning Streak

Ulli Market Commentary Contact

Thur pic

[Chart courtesy of MarketWatch.com]

1. Moving the Markets

Many investors were laying in waiting to see what the ECB’s decision was going to be in regards to raising interest rates. As expected, the ECB stood pat on rates earlier Thursday and began the implementation of its larger asset-purchase program, which now totals 80 billion euros a month. However, President Mario Draghi did not rule out future rate cuts to fight low inflation and stagnant growth in the eurozone.

In earnings news, Microsoft (MSFT) reported a drop in revenue and earnings amidst trying to steer the corporate direction from desktop PCs to the modern age of emerging portable technologies. The tech giant dropped 5% in fiscal Q3 revenue to $20.5 billion and earnings fell from $5 billion to $3.8 billion. Shares dropped 4% on the day.

As I have been anticipating, SunEdison (SUNE) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization today. Foul accounting practices were cited as the reason that the company came under scrutiny over the past year. They also had piled up debt totaling $16 billion in liabilities. The stock is now at $0.34 a share.

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Markets Continue Their Rally; Fast Food And Oil Up

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Wed pic

[Chart courtesy of MarketWatch.com]

1. Moving the Markets

The stock market rally continued modestly here in the U.S. today, driven higher by a rebound in oil prices on negative news and solid earnings reports from international Yum Brands companies.

Yum Brands (YUM), the parent company of fast food giants KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, handily beat first-quarter earnings expectations, mostly driven by growth in China. The company reported earnings of $391 million for Q1, up 8% from $362 million a year ago. Earnings per share came in 8 cents above estimates at 95 cents a share. The report pushed Yum shares up 4.1% in after-hours trading to $85.95, up $3.42. Increased performance was due to a 42% boost of sales in China, according to CEO Greg Cred.

Wall Street is in the heart of the corporate earnings season. As I have discussed in previous articles here, many analysts were predicting a 7-8% decline. The results, thus far have been slightly better than expectations, but it is nothing to go crazy over. If you simply set the bar low enough, anybody can beat expectations, which is the goal of this earnings season.

Heading into Wednesday’s session, profits for S&P 500 companies have reported contracting 7.5% in Q1. That is bad news, so the markets will likely follow the theme of the last year and move higher…

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