Our last blog discussed safe harbors amidst the current storm of market volatility. The idea presented was to investigate the strong buy stocks with the lowest betas. This week we home in on a sector that is typically low volatility and low growth. Currently we find fairly competitive earnings growth in this sector. We look … Read more
Market volatility last week was the highest it has been in 2025. While it sent a portion of investors heading for the exits, many more looked to shift assets from large-cap technology stocks and cap-weighted ETFs into less volatile investments. For example, low beta stocks and low beta ETFs have seen increased interest as investors … Read more
I will often feature stocks rated buy or strong buy in highly rated sectors. This one is a departure. The healthcare sector is most commonly represented by the Select Sector SPDR Healthcare ETF, XLV. It faced a challenging year in 2024, underperforming the S&P 500 Index by a staggering 22.4%. This massive performance shortfall resulted … Read more
Conversations about Trump’s tariffs, despite two of them being placed on hold for now, continue to dominate market discussions. Although it could be different this time, historically these announcements cause volatility in the short run. But by about the time they become reality, if not before, their effects are absorbed by the market with barely … Read more
As classified by ETF Database (etfdb.com) by VettaFi, there are currently 92 dividend focused US ETFs with nearly $460 billion under management. If you are seeking dividend income from your ETFs, which should you take a close look at? That’s the objective of the analysis in today’s research blog entry. All 5,200+ stocks US and … Read more
The third quarter of 2023 is now history. The September effect overwhelmed mildly positive returns in July and August to submerge all six benchmark indexes we monitor quarterly into the red. Although the order of best to worst varies among the six indexes, one commonality is having September as the worst historical month, both in … Read more
Throughout my career, I’ve heard professional investors assert that index funds are fine for bull markets but in volatile-to-down markets, active management will outperform. SPIVA (S&P vs. Global) published research available from S&P Global has demonstrated that this was not true for actively managed mutual funds for 2022, and less true for the 2020-2022 period. … Read more
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