Equities Continue To Climb On Positive Earnings Announcments

Ulli Market Commentary Contact

Tue pic

[Chart courtesy of MarketWatch.com]

1. Moving The Markets

Stocks continued to move higher today, driven by continued positive earnings announcements. The major indexes climbed as the chart shows but the Nasdaq led with a gain of 0.73% on the day.

Notable corporate earnings announcements, that exceeded analyst expectations included Merck & Co (MRK) and Sprint (S). Q1 profit growth for S&P 500 companies is at 3.7% compared with a forecast for 2.1% at the beginning of the month. This bodes well for those who are looking to capitalize on those corporate earnings announcements left in the pipeline. This is another big week for earnings announcements with 135 companies in the S&P 500 reporting.

Looking ahead, the Federal Reserve ends its two-day meeting Wednesday with the release of its closely watched policy statement, while the U.S. government will release its April jobs report on Friday.

In international news, Chrysler’s shot at a significant slice of sales in China, the world’s largest auto market, has taken a major step forward with a deal to build three Jeep SUVs there in a venture with Guangzhou Automobile. Production of SUVs in China is expected to rise to 6 million by 2020, nearly twice the 3.15 million produced in 2013.

Our 10 ETFs in the Spotlight gained with 2 of them making new highs today while 9 of them are now in the green YTD.

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Market Sways—But Closes In Positive Territory

Ulli Market Commentary Contact

Mond pic

[Chart courtesy of MarketWatch.com]

1. Moving The Markets

The market swayed back and forth today, but finished in positive territory across the board with the exception of the Nasdaq. And, despite today’s intraday volatility and chaotic price action, many major market indexes are not far from all-time highs.

Although markets ended up for the day, there was a notable selloff in big name social media stocks such as LinkedIn (LNKD), Facebook (FB), Yelp (YELP) and the Chinese social media company that went public earlier this month Weibo (WB).

In M&A news, takeover talks remain the buzz as Pfizer (PFE) reaffirmed its commitment to its potential $100 billion bid for AstraZeneca (AZN), while General Electric (GE) is reportedly attempting to buy Alstom’s (ALSMY) power turbines business.

We are still in the midst of Q1 earnings season announcements, with Twitter Inc (TWTR) and Nokia Corporation (NOK) among the high-profile names with earnings announcements coming up tomorrow. Amazon (AMZN) took a blow today after its sub-par earnings report. The stock continued its slide from Friday falling 3.1% on the day. Overall though, the majority of corporate earnings announcements have been exceeding reduced analyst’s forecasts.

Our 10 ETFs in the Spotlight inched higher with 3 of them making new highs today while 8 of them are remaining in the green YTD.

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ETFs/Mutual Funds On The Cutline – Updated Through 04/25/2014

Ulli ETFs on the Cutline Contact

Below are the latest ETF Cutline reports, which show how far above or below their respective long-term trend lines (39 week SMA) my currently tracked ETFs/MFs are positioned.

The first report covers the ETF Master List from Thursday’s StatSheet and includes 398 ETFs, of which currently 351 (last week 365) are hovering in bullish territory.

The second report includes only High Volume ETFs. To clarify, High Volume (HV) ETFs are defined as those with an average daily volume of $10 million or higher.

These ETFs are generated from my selected list of some 97 that I use in my advisor practice. It cuts out the “noise,” which simply means it eliminates those ETFs that I would never buy because of their volume limitations. 77 ETFs (last week 80) have managed to remain in bullish territory after the recent market volatility.

The third report covers Mutual Funds on the Cutline. There are currently 601 (last week 652) above the line and 248 below it out of the 859 that I follow.

Take a look:

1. ETF Master Cutline Report     

2. ETF High Volume Cutline Report

3. MF Cutline Report

In case you are not familiar with some of the terminology used in the reports, please read the Glossary of Terms.

If you missed the original post about the Cutline approach, you can read it here.

One Man’s Opinion: Could China Be The Biggest Market Threat This Year?

Ulli Market Review Contact

92835431The asset-allocation rotation that was witnessed over the past few weeks seems to be over now and the question whether that presaged something more broadly in the market investors really needed to worry about, no longer seems to be the case, said Dan Morris, global investment strategist at TIAA-CREF.

It did seem to be concentrated in the stocks that had done quite well as the big momentum reversed, but it didn’t tell much about the broad market, and the fundamentals remain quite solid, he added.

Asked to explain the strong economic fundamentals, Dan said it has been a benign market for equities. Inflation has been pretty low while GDP growth has been slow but steady, which is good. There’s no imminent threat to the macro-economic environment, be it from Europe or the US Fed. So, US corporations can really focus on increasing profitability since they are good at it, which in turn will drive equity prices through out the year, he observed.

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New ETFs On The Block: ALPS Emerging Sector Dividend Dogs ETF (EDOG)

Ulli Emerging Markets ETFs, Income ETFs Contact

105487691Exchange traded fund issuer ALPS launched a new emerging market-focused fund, the ALPS Emerging Sector Dividend Dogs ETF (EDOG), to expand its so-called dividend dog suite of funds.

EDOG, like its predecessors ALPS Sector Dividend Dogs ETF (SDOG) and ALPS International Sector Dividend Dogs ETF (IDOG) launched on June 2012 and June 2013 respectively, is based on the famous “Dogs of the Dow” theory, which encourages investors to buy the 10 DJIA stocks with the highest dividend yields.

Dividend dog strategy theorizes that companies that pay high dividends tend to be fundamentally healthy and the high dividend yields are an outcome of their depressed prices, which makes them attractive.

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04-25-2014

Ulli Newsletter Archives Contact

ETF/No Load Fund Tracker Newsletter For April 25, 2014

ETF/No Load Fund Tracker StatSheet

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THE LINK TO OUR CURRENT ETF/MUTUAL FUND STATSHEET IS:

https://theetfbully.com/2014/04/weekly-statsheet-for-the-etfno-load-fund-tracker-newsletter-updated-through-04242014/

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Market Commentary

Friday, April 25, 2014

POSITIVE CORPORATE EARNINGS, INTERNATIONAL TENSIONS LEAVE MARKETS MIXED FOR THE WEEK

Fri pic

[Chart courtesy of MarketWatch.com]

1. Moving The Markets

Stocks were little changed on the week, as the Ukrainian-Russian conflict came back into focus lover the past few days, ending a six-day winning streak.  After the slight pullback in early April, the S&P 500 is up about 1% on the year and just 1% below record highs as markets continue to receive support from some improving economic data points and better-than-expected earnings reports.

The major indexes ended the week lower as the above 5-day chart shows.

We saw a mix of positive and negative reports on the economic front this week. Durable goods orders rose strongly, up 2.6% in March from February.  This was better than expected and the strongest increase in four months. US consumer confidence rose in the period ended April 20th to its second-strongest level since January 2008. However, new home sales fell sharply, down 14.5% in March from February to the slowest pace since last July, and the number of US initial jobless claims rose by 24,000 to a seasonally adjusted 329,000.

It will be an extremely full upcoming week for economic data and the busiest for first-quarter earnings season.  Highlights include the initial reading of first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) and an interest rate decision by the Federal Reserve (including potential further tapering of bond purchases).  If corporate earnings trends continue to top analyst estimates, as they have over the past two weeks, markets should react positively and continue trending upwards.

Our 10 ETFs in the Spotlight offered a mixed picture with 2 of them making new highs today while 8 of them are remaining in the green YTD.

2. ETFs in the Spotlight

In case you missed the announcement and description of this section, you can read it here again.

It features 10 broadly diversified ETFs from my HighVolume list as posted every Monday. Furthermore, they are screened for the lowest MaxDD% number meaning they have been showing better resistance to temporary sell offs than all others over the past year.

In other words, none of them ever triggered their 7.5% sell stop level during this time period, which included a variety of severe market pullbacks but no move into outright bear market territory.

Here are the 10 candidates:

MaxDD

All of them are in “buy” mode, meaning their prices are above their respective long term trend lines by the percentage indicated (%M/A).

Year to date, here’s how the above candidates have fared so far:

YTD

To be clear, the first table above shows the position of the various ETFs in relation to their respective long term trend lines (%M/A), while the second one tracks their trailing sell stops in the “Off High” column. The “Action” column will signal a “Sell” once the -7.5% point is taken out in the “Off High” column.

3. Domestic Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs)

Our Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs) slipped and but remain above their respective long-term trend lines by the following percentages:

Domestic TTI: +1.86% (last Friday +2.26%)

International TTI: +2.74% (last Friday +3.20%)

Have a great week.

Ulli…

Disclosure: I am obliged to inform you that I, as well as advisory clients of mine, own some of these listed ETFs. Furthermore, they do not represent a specific investment recommendation for you, they merely show which ETFs from the universe I track are falling within the guidelines specified.

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READER Q & A FOR THE WEEK

All Reader Q & A’s are listed at our web site!
Check it out at:

http://www.successful-investment.com/q&a.php

A note from reader Don:

Q: Ulli: When I subtract the dividend for an ETF from the high close for sell stop purposes, the sell stop is sometimes considerably less than it would be if I deducted the 7.5% from the high close. Am I right to use the high close less the dividends to compute the sell stop?

A: Don: Yes, when the price of an ETF is reduced by the amount of the dividend paid, you need to adjust the former high price by the same amount. Otherwise, your sell stop discipline is out of whack.

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Do you have the time to follow our investment plans yourself? If you are a busy professional who would like to have his portfolio managed using our methodology, please contact me directly or get more details at:

https://theetfbully.com/personal-investment-management/

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Back issues of the ETF/No Load Fund Tracker are available on the web at:

https://theetfbully.com/newsletter-archives/