The US Stock Market, led by technology, has outperformed most expectations this year. Going into Memorial Day weekend, SPY, the most popular S&P 500 ETF, has risen more than 10%. That’s a very impressive number in the face of many of the best-known strategists predicting a down year for the major index in 2023. As … Read more
In January, we published “Rotating Regimes – What to Plan For in 2023.” At that time, we recounted that 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. At that time, we reported that two Benchmark ETFs we track, … Read more
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
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
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
In 2022, the majority of stocks and stock ETFs that have outperformed their peer groups were classified as value, high income, or both. That may or may not continue into the future. Last week, a colleague who prefers investing in stocks to ETFs asked me if I knew any stocks that the ValuEngine model ranked … Read more
An excellent ETF.com article was posted on September 22. “NYC Comptroller: Blackrock ESG Standards Alarming” highlighted a very public effort by Brad Lander to shame Blackrock into being more environmentally conscious. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander demands the company bolster its climate disclosures and publish a plan that establishes its commitment to net-zero greenhouse … Read more
In 2018, the General Industry Classification System (GICS) that defines the sector and industry groups of the S&P 500 made major changes to better reflect the changing global stock market environment. The primary change was the creation of the Communications Services sector and elimination of a separate Telecommunications Services Sector. All of the approximately 5,000 … Read more
According to Investopedia, the industry that is best equipped historically to deal with a rising interest-rate environment is banks. Generally, higher rates have led to wider spreads which in turn have led to higher profits for regional and money center banks. Therefore, we looked through Bank ETFs to see which ones our models found attractive … Read more
Six months ago, I discussed ways that investors could stay invested with one eye squarely on wealth preservation in a risk-on environment. We are still in a risk-on environment where the choices we reviewed in March are still relevant. One half of the list included five stock-based ETFs without derivatives that focus on stocks with … Read more