"Shiller's P/E" is a straightforward valuation concept. Take Tuesday's price (S&P 905) and divide it by the last 10 years of earnings results.

According to the team of Arnott and West at Research Affiliates, the historical valuation level for this metric is 16.4; today's Shiller P/E is not far off at 15.8. (Back in March, the same measure had dipped as low as 11.2.)

Well that didn't last long.

Less than two weeks ago, each of the 10 major sector ETFs of the U.S. economy had climbed above the almighty 200-day moving average. Some folks viewed the activity as confirmation of a new, bull market uptrend.

Assuming for this discussion that the 200-day moving average of a security could be called its primary trend, let’s see how the prices of a round-the-world selection of 60 diverse fund types (and 6 transport indexes) stack up to their primary trend, and whether their primary trend is up or down.

The first observation is that nearly all are in a primary down trend, based on the 200-day (40-week or roughly 10 month) average. In this batch of fund categories, only aggregate US bonds, intermediate US Treasuries, the Dollar index and the Japanese Yen are in primary up trends, but the price of the Treasuries fund and the Dollar index fund have fallen below their primary trend line. That leaves only two where the primary trend is up and the price is above the primary trend line — US aggregate bonds and the Japanese Yen.

After 10 years in which Symbian never supported CDMA or any Qualcomm (QCOM) chipsets, why did Qualcomm join the Symbian Foundation last week? As the EE Times reports, the other shoe dropped this morning:

BARCELONA — Both ST-Ericsson and Qualcomm Inc. have revealed partnership programmes with Nokia (NOK) based on round reference platforms that will use the Symbian Foundation's software.

By Murray Coleman

As stock markets took a beating in 2008, so did assets in most niche-focused sector exchange-traded funds.

Verizon (VZ), which is supposedly not even focusing on its wireless business as much as it is on TV and FiOS, noted how profitable Smart phones are and will be. From Verizon Communications Inc. Q408 conference call:

The S&P 500 index is not currently behaving in an attractive manner. How are the separate sectors performing relative to the index?

The following charts are four-month plots of the price of the sector divided by the price of the S&P 500 (proxy SPY) and expressed in percentage change, along with a 20-day moving average to help visualize the trend.

"Big Joe" Clark has his wish list for 2009. And it includes some exchange-traded funds that even Santa Claus might find useful as stocking stuffers.

At the top are corporate bonds. In the coming year, the Anderson, Ind.-based advisor is expecting investment-grade corporates and high yield debt markets to perform like stocks do in more-normal times.

"Big Joe" Clark has his wish list for 2009. And it includes some exchange-traded funds that even Santa Claus might find useful as stocking stuffers.

At the top are corporate bonds. In the coming year, the Anderson, Ind.-based advisor is expecting investment-grade corporates and high yield debt markets to perform like stocks do in more-normal times.

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In addition to the previously mentioned dividend investing opportunities in tobacco stocks, the accompanying table includes the 10 largest companies by market cap among 74 total included in the ETF Innovators [ETFI] Global Telecom Services Dividend Index, which is comprised of companies with market caps over $1B U.S. Dollars and dividend yields of at least 2%.

These tables show the 1-week, 4-week, 13-week, 26-week and 52-week returns for a wide spectrum of asset types.

They, and other tables, are updated each Saturday morning on our site. These tables are for the week ended November 21, 2008.

YUM Restructuring

We’re living in lean times in which everyone is scaling back and rethinking their old strategies; food and beverage ETF components are no exception.

Although not completely immune from the current global economic slowdown, many telecom services companies are currently yielding higher amounts than tobacco companies and the Utilities Select Sector SPDR (XLU). Although many of the foreign telecom companies included in the ETFI Global Telco Services Dividend Income Index issued special one-time dividends over the past year which inflates their trailing 12-month yield; both Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T) are currently yielding over 6% each while trading at multi-year lows.

August ETF Numbers

The National Stock Exchange [NSX] has released the August numbers for ETFs and ETNs.

When we discuss portfolios with our clients, we use the type of information provided in the tables below, and other information, as background to provide wide perspective on the current state of the markets.  You may find them useful in your own deliberations.

The first table is a list of representative funds for major categories:

Currently, just 14% of stocks in the S&P 500 are trading above their 50-day moving averages.  While this is extremely oversold, the number got down to 8% last August and 11% in January.

Financials and Industrials are the sectors struggling the most.  Each of them have just 2% of stocks trading above their 50-days.  Consumer Discretionary isn't far behind at 5%, however.  The two sectors that look the best at the moment are Health Care and Utilities.  Health Care has 42% above their 50-days, while the Utilities sector sits at 39%.