QVM Group

12 S&P 500 Stocks with Bullish Character in a Bearish Realm

IMPORTANT: Nothing in the article is a "call" or recommendation for any listed stock. The point of the article was to show how few companies are in bullish price movements. No reference whatsoever is made to the fundamental basis of such moves. Providing the names of the companies is to show where that limited strength lies. We do not own any of those companies, have no opinion on any of those companies and do not plan to own any of those companies. Our purpose is to show the state of the markets and the location of price strength as minimal as it is -- nothing more.

12 S&P 500 Stocks with Bullish Character in a Bearish Realm

BlueOkie, I probably should have left Wyeth out of the list. Thanks.

An ETN Primer: Buyer Beware of Even Good Credit Ratings

kcmo:

Moody's provides credit ratings to registered users.

How Do the China ETFs Compare?

Neb,

If you are small, volume is less important, but you do want to use funds that have some volume all the time (check the minute charts to see if their is volume in each minute).

Limit order are OK for getting in, but if you use stops, when they are triggered they turn into market order to sell. If you use a stop/limit, and a low volume fund, you could find your stop fired, but your order never executed and the price fell and stayed below your limit.

I think good volume is always important.

Three Year History of Industrial Input Commodities

Auto44:

Yes, they are definitely working to build coal reserves and may well be doing similar things in private and public entities for other materials. It would seem to be a rational economic act to buy raw materials now at low prices, instead of Treasuries at low yields, if the cost of carry is perceived as less than the opportunity cost (or risk of capital loss in overbought Treasuries)

The Real Crisis: Collapsing Capital Accumulation Process

Very interesting.

How all that might play out over a longer period of time in terms of winners and losers in stock markets is worthy of considerable thought.

Where the boundaries are between state protectionism and state recovery programs, and between state bailouts of distressed industries versus state funded competition will take decades to sort out. Who will be able to say when the lines have been crossed -- when recovery has occurred and continued state roles are anti-competitive instead of being crisis survival necessities.

In the meanwhile, plenty of international wrangling between governments and plenty of investment related implications may lie ahead for an extended period of years.

How Do the China ETFs Compare?

CrazyCanuck:

I don't have a view to offer today on CAF.

It is a closed-end fund, and this article focused on ETFs (as the term is narrowly applied to mean those with creation unit functions to arbitrage away premiums and discounts that are characteristic of closed-end funds -- closed-end funds are also exchange traded funds, but are thought of differently than those called "ETFs").

CAF may well be a reasonable China investment, but I have not prepared a view on it at this time.

Emerging Markets: Mind the Timeframes, Parse the Headlines

Aalan,

You missed the point of the article. If you read it, rather than trashing it, you may see the point.

Relative Performance of BRIC Countries

Kotika98:

Thanks but not dizzy here. In the revenue recognition cycle, purchase of inputs occurs before sale of products using those resources. The orders and movements for resources will precede the evidence of exported finished goods and investors are likely to recognize the resource exports first, without need to know which final products the inputs support.

I maintain my argument as stated.

What Are You Being Paid for Your Bonds?

Prudy:

There are different types of bond yield, including "coupon", "current yield" (of which 30-day SEC yield is a standardized version for funds), "yield to maturity" and "distribution yield".

The coupon is merely the amount of money paid annually on the bond. The current yield is the coupon divided by price. The yield to maturity is the current yield, plus gains or losses as discounts or premiums vanish as the bond approaches maturity. The distribution yield is the trailing 12-month payments, which could include gains or even return of principal.

Yield-to-maturity is at a point in time. The SEC yield is a 30-day average.

You would probably find disagreement among advisors on which to use, however, I would probably use the yield to maturity, because it is more inclusive of value considerations that current yield, but I would not argue with anyone who thinks the SEC yield is a better measure.

Quoted rates on Treasuries assume the Treasury to be at par. The yield to maturity approach adjusts the yield back to a the equivalent of buying a bond at par. For that reason yield to maturity seems to make more sense to me.

Stimulus Packages: Conceptually Flawed and Historically Unproven

Rakesh, makes an excellent point. Since it took decades to recover losses incurred in the Great Depression, and since WWII took place during the recovery period; how much of the recovery came from domestic recovery policies not related to war, and how much came from the effects of the war?

What Are You Being Paid for Your Bonds?

Jade Queen:

CA, NY, FL and TX are the states with the most weight in most muni portfolios. CA is the heaviest and CA is in the worst shape.

You can avoid CA by purchasing single state funds that are not CA which would have a similar tax level compared to a national muni fund, depending on where you live.

The issue perhaps not so much what states are in the portfolio, as how much of a fund is local as opposed to state bonds, and how much is revenue bonds versus GO bonds, and how much of the revenue bonds are for essential services (such as water and sewer) versus services that may fail economically (such as hospitals or parking lots).

There are furhter break-downs within GO's, and big city local bonds may be safer than small town local bonds, but maybe not.

Our view is that state level GO's and perhaps some large city GO's would be in the "too big to fail" category that has been used to bail out insurance companies, banks, and soon car companies. The devastation of a default by CA, for example, might be worse than the failure of Citi or AIG.

The Bullish Case for U.S. Stocks

kelm:

good point. that was the topic of my Jan 8 article "Asset Allocation Diversification Didn't Work in 2008"

seekingalpha.com/artic...

An End to the Era of Declining Interest Rates

notsosmart:

I did not say that rates will rise immediately. Of course, they are down now and likely to stay that way for months, and maybe years; but the multi-decade decline from the teen's to today's level cannot be repeated from here. Therefore, that kind of boost to the market cannot be repeated in future until rates have gone back to high levels, whenever that happens. If rates hover at these low levels and do not rise for some long time (e.g. the Japan model), there will still be the absence of the boost we had in the past due to declining rates.

An End to the Era of Declining Interest Rates

ROLEX18K:

You have a good point, that rates may stay low for a long time. Whether rates stay low and flat or rise, the markets will not have the lift factor provided in the past due to years of declining rates. In addition, to rates not going down much, there is the prospect of less loan money available and more stringent lending standards. That would reduce the total level of leverage in the markets. Past leverage in combination with declining rates provided a boost to earnings and stock prices. That boost will probably be absent in the next few years or longer.