Bank Stocks and ETFs – Time to Buy?

The Editor-in-Chief of well-respected publisher ETF Stream, Tom Eckett, published a rare editorial Friday March 24 saying the big selloff in banks due to fear of contagion was close to over.  He said at these levels, bank ETFs were at rarely seen low levels compared with earnings expectations and should not be thrown off too … Read more

Which S&P 500 Stocks Are Currently Most Attractive?

Those of you who follow ValuEngine’s weekly lists of top-rated, (5 rated on scale of 1 to 5), Strong Buy stocks may have noticed that most of these stocks tend to be in the lower half of the market cap spectrum.  This is a function of the fact that our scores are tied to our … Read more

Déjà vu – Will Tech Stocks and ETFs Crash Again?

Watching tech stocks lead the market resurgence in the first six weeks of Q1 2023, I was hit with a flash of déjà vu. Just six months ago, the market slaughter of the first six months of 2022 was led by a strong upsurge in the first six weeks of 2022 by beaten-up growth stocks.  … Read more

AI, ETFs and Stock Picking

Artificial intelligence (AI), the concept that a machine created brain could outperform the human brain, has fascinated and terrified humans since the days of Jules Verne.  Real life examples such as Deep Blue defeating Chess Grandmaster Gary Kasparov and IBM Watson defeating Ken Jennings at Jeopardy intrigues us even more.  Machine learning techniques, expert algorithms … Read more

5 US Stocks to Consider Now for Conservative Portfolios

Looking at this week’s list of stocks rated 5 (Strong Buy) from ValuEngine for year-ahead performance, I note that there are a number of relatively well-known large cap and midcap stocks that meet my minimum criteria as appropriate for conservative institutional-quality portfolios. As we will see, all five are in popular large cap and midcap … Read more

Rotating Regimes – What to Plan For in 2023

In general, the 2022 US Stock Market was a conflagration that wiped out almost everything in its path with the exception of a few industries and ETFs.  The ETF reports on ValuEngine for ETFs that follow market benchmarks provide a side benefit in writing market analyses.  They are a window to implicit forecasts for 3-, … Read more

Stock Analysis Inspired By Alternative Data Signals & A Tribute

I have spent 40 years helping to develop, research and market quantitative investment products with new twists. The advent of alternative data including the use of web-gathered information introduced new products in that regard. This has led to published papers in refereed journals such as “Using Alternative Research Data in Real World Portfolios” using data … Read more

Is It Time to Get Back to Basics?

I feel deluged lately by webinars and events touting investments in gold and precious metals. One theory pushed to support investment in these industry groups is that 1974 is here again.  They claim it is inevitable that the market will tank further as the economy plunges into stagflation, a deeper recession accompanied by huge inflation … Read more

How Much Runway Room Remains for the Aerospace/Defense Sector?

This year Aerospace stands out as one of the few industry sectors with a positive return other than energy and utilities.   For example, the iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF (ITA), the largest ETF by assets representing the industry, returned 15.2% over the past twelve months in contrast to the -13.6% return posted by … Read more