ETF/No Load Fund Tracker Newsletter For Friday, January 31, 2014

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ETF/No Load Fund Tracker StatSheet

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

https://theetfbully.com/2014/01/weekly-statsheet-for-the-etfno-load-fund-tracker-newsletter-updated-through-01302014/

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Market Commentary

Friday, January 31, 2014

A BEARISH END TO A NOT SO FRUITFUL MONTH

Fri pic

[Chart courtesy of MarketWatch.com]

1. Moving The Markets

This week was filled with ups and downs in the market, as you can see from the above weekly chart. Various corporate earnings reports, as well as strong Q4 2013 growth data, were released this week that entailed an overall bullish sentiment for the U.S. economy. However, worries pertaining to emerging markets trumped the positive sentiment for U.S. Growth, which resulted in losses across the board for the major U.S. indexes this week and for the month of January respectively.

In January, the Dow fell 5.3%, the S&P fell 3.6% and the Nasdaq ended the month down 1.7%. This was the first time that the S&P ended January in the red since 2010.

Global equity markets have been rattled by the outlook for emerging markets, including slower growth in China, while the Federal Reserve’s decision this week to keep withdrawing its monetary stimulus added to worries. Now that the Fed has decided to cut back on its bond purchases, many Investors are selling off their share emerging market investments mainly because they are no longer as attractive.

For those of you living in a winter wonderland of snow over the past month, it has been hard not to notice the bullish performance that natural gas has experienced. Recently, the price of natural gas passed $5.00/mmbtu, up from $3.50/mmbtu three months ago. In Friday’s trading, UNG (which we have no holdings in) surged more than 8%, which is a 52-week high. However, some speculate that there a continued increase is not sustainable and are thus looking to secure gains and sell. It will be interesting to see how Mother Nature treats the U.S. over the next month and subsequently how the natural gas market responds.

Our 10 ETFs in the Spotlight slipped but 9 of them are remaining on the bullish side of their respective trend lines as the table below shows.

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Weekly StatSheet For The ETF/No Load Fund Tracker Newsletter – Updated Through 01/30/2014

Ulli ETF StatSheet Contact

ETF/Mutual Fund Data updated through Thursday, January 30, 2014

Table of Content082312

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 10/25/2011

TTI

Our main directional indicator, the Domestic Trend Tracking Index (TTI), broke through its long-term trend line generating a Sell for this area effective 8/9/2011. Over the recent past, we’ve seen the TTI hovering slightly below and above this dividing line between bullish and bearish territory. The clear break to the upside occurred on 10/24/11 and, effective 10/25/11, a new Buy signal for domestic equities went into effect.

As of today, our TTI (green line in above chart) has bounced off its long term trend line (red) by +2.58%.

To avoid a potential whip-saw, a Sell signal to move out of all domestic equity positions will be generated once we have clearly pierced the line to the downside. Be sure to tune in for the latest updates.

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Equities Bounce Back, Gold Takes A Dive

Ulli Market Commentary Contact

Thur pic

[Chart courtesy of MarketWatch.com]

1. Moving The Markets

It was a lively day in the stock market today with equities making a major rebound from the disappointing performance so far this week. In fact, the major indexes nearly regained all of the losses since the start of the week. Until today, the markets were subdued by emerging market turbulence alongside the fact that the Fed announced it would further reduce its bond-buying stimulus by $10 bil. Investor sentiment changed today though as new economic data emerged that showed solid U.S. growth in the fourth quarter of 2013. European stocks also rebounded today in accordance with the strong data on U.S. growth.

Facebook (FB) shares jumped 14% today, hitting an all-time high after they announced a big jump in revenue from mobile advertising. This seemed to have a bullish effect on mobile-ad revenue oriented companies as Twitter (TWTR) gained 7% and LinkedIn (LKND) gained 4%. Other notable gainers in the tech world included Amazon (AMZN) and Google (GOOG).

The rally for equities today had a negative impact on gold as the Direxion Daily Gold Miners Bull 3X Shrs (NUGT) closed 6.6% lower. This is not surprising in that we have seen equities and gold trading in opposite directions for the better part of the year. In addition, the dollar strengthened today which also fueled the decline in gold prices.

Our 10 ETFs in the Spotlight shifted into high gear and followed the major indexes higher with one of them now moving back into the green YTD.

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Equity Markets Drop Again; Gold Glitters

Ulli Market Commentary Contact

Wed pic

[Chart courtesy of MarketWatch.com]

1. Moving The Markets

The Fed announced today that it will reduce its monthly bond buying plan by an additional $10 billion, despite signs of turmoil across emerging markets recently. The announcement added volatility to the markets today and thus global and domestic equity markets fell accordingly as the chart above shows.

Boeing Co. (BA) led the pack of the DJIA losers today, down 5.15% following a disappointing report for the company’s 2014 outlook. Taking the number two spot in the DJIA loser column was Coca-Cola (KO), down 2.5% as the consumer goods sector took a beating across the board today.

Facebook (FB) was back in the news today. Its shares gained 10% in after hour trading as the company released its Q4 2013 report that showed a revenue jump of 63%, which beat Wall Street’s target. Facebook is cashing in on mobile ad sales big time, which is predicted to continue accelerating growth given that mobile ads represent about 50% of its total advertising revenue.

In the ETF world, the Direxion Daily Gold Miners Bull 3X Shrs (NUGT) experienced the largest amount of trading volume of major ETFs and ended the day up 9.04%. Overall, Gold and Silver ETFs performed well amid the broader market drop today and the gold mining space is one of few sectors that are positive for the year thus far, up about 4%.

Our 10 ETFs in the Spotlight kept sliding with the indexes with 2 of them now having slipped below their respective long-term trend lines, as you can see in the chart below.

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Bouncing Back

Ulli Market Commentary Contact

Tue pic

[Chart courtesy of MarketWatch.com]

1. Moving The Markets

Markets made a soft rebound today after closing in the red yesterday. The Dow was up 0.57%, The S&P up 0.61% and the Nasdaq up 0.35%

Apple (AAPL) took a big hit today falling 8% after it released its Q4 numbers. AAPL volume was nearly triple the daily average as investors did not take too kindly to hearing that iPhone sales in Q4 fell short of expectations. The company also announced that it is forecasting 2013 Q1 revenue of $42-44mil, which also falls short of Wall Street’s projected $46mil. Overshadowing the news of Apple’s Q4 shortfall was the revelation that Karl Icahn bought $500mil more AAPL shares today, which gave the stock a slight bump, but nothing substantial.

Visa Inc. (V) was another mover of the day, closing up 2.19%.  If you didn’t catch the news of the economy today, consumer confidence climbed to a 5-month high. The index advanced to 80.7 from a revised 77.5 in December. Let’s hear it for optimism! As we know, higher consumer confidence often bodes well for credit card companies such as Visa, which subsequently benefited from the optimistic news today.

You may remember our discussion regarding investor uncertainty in emerging markets. Well, the topic remained hot in the news today as investors continue to pull funds out of emerging markets such as Brazil and India. The trouble is that relatively safe emerging markets tend to get lumped in with the unstable ones. Consider the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM).  This ETF, which is down 5%, has exposure to Brazil and India, but also in more stable economies like South Korea and Mexico. So, you should keep a close watch on holdings that are in allegedly “safe” emerging market investments in the days to come.

Our 10 ETFs in the Spotlight recouped some of the recent losses and all are back on the bullish side of their respective trend lines.

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Developing Country Worries? Never Fear, The U.S. Is Here!

Ulli Market Commentary Contact

Mon pic

[Chart courtesy of MarketWatch.com]

1. Moving The Markets

There was not much good news from the markets today, but not much terrible news either.  It seems that fearful investors are selling off equities worldwide due to shaky economies and plunging currencies in the developing world. While the sell-off in the U.S. has not been as notable as in Europe or Asia, investors are definitely retreating. This continued sell-off pushed the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq lower today. Remember, the turbulence was set off last week by a report from China on a downturn in its manufacturing, which many believed to be indicative that the world’s second-largest economy is slowing.

The U.S. Federal Reserve is adding some icing to the troubled developing world cake. By cutting back the stimulus, money that was formerly invested outside the U.S. in search of higher returns is now making its way back given that domestic rates here are expected to rise. While all of this may seem scary, let’s remember that the IMF expects the global economy to grow 3.7% this year, which is up from 3% last year. Because growth is picking up in the developed world again (U.S., U.K. and Germany) we are in a much better position to pick up the slack of a slowdown in developing countries such as China. The U.S. housing market has rebounded, American consumers are paying down debts, and we have seen decent corporate earnings thus far in 2014.

What is important to remember is that the S&P 500 gained almost 30% last year, which is just unfathomable to many. Because many investors realized tremendous gains there are many who are on edge waiting for the market to correct itself. So, any news that smells kind of funny will make them pull the trigger to sell in order to protect these gains. So let’s try not to get too over-reactive on every piece of news coming out of the developing world, because things are not looking so bad here in the U.S.!

Our 10 ETFs in the Spotlight slipped with the indexes, and I am tracking the pullback closely. None of the featured ETFs has triggered its trailing sell stop, but one just slipped below its long-term trend line.

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