The month of March followed the old aphorism nicely from a weather and climate perspective. For most of the country, it went in like a lion with harsh weather conditions while the month ended like a lamb with relatively mild weather. The stock market, however, was another story altogether. It came in with hopeful trepidation … Read more
Typically, the first full blog of the year reviews returns of benchmark index ETFs and opines on what prevailed in the past year through five years, then provides analysis that could provide insights into the future for US equities and other asset classes. This year is no different in that respect. Financial Advisory Services based … Read more
U.S. equity markets entered the first trading days of the new year on a mixed footing, with weakness concentrated in mega-cap growth and technology while selective strength appeared across small caps, energy, and industrial sectors. Dividend-oriented and defensive exposures also showed relative resilience. The dispersion in sector and factor performance underscores an ongoing rotation theme … Read more
Following on last week’s top 10 list, this week’s blog focuses on ETFs related to the stocks in the list. We begin with lots and lots of data in the form of several tables, and end with our written analysis. Skip to the end if you prefer to jump to the conclusions we make on … Read more
Last year, I was asked by a local investing club to provide a list of ValuEngine’s top 10 stock picks for 2024. I screened our list for top-rated stocks with at least $10 Billion in Market Capitalization and excluded ADRs and stocks not ranked by any analysts according to our data feed. This top 10 … Read more
Despite expectations for weak-to-negative returns in 2024 because of an anticipated recession that never happened, 2024 has been a very strong year for the market and its major benchmark ETFs. The S&P 500 has been in a relentless uptrend since rebounding from the lows of the bear market of 2022. The Nasdaq-100 has been even … Read more
“The Magnificent Seven” was the most popular sobriquet among stock market strategists, portfolio managers and reporters in 2023. Stocks such as Google, Nvidia, Tesla, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Apple dominated performance and volume charts. Almost unnoticed, Broadcom pushed its way to 4th in Market Cap in the Nasdaq and more than doubled in price last year … Read more
Farewell and thank you to 2023 which exceeded almost everybody’s expectations after a dismal 2022 and predictions of a dire recession. This blog was more positive than most, projecting a 5% to 10% gain for the S&P 500 vs. the actual price gain of 23.9%. Now it’s on to 2024. Let’s start with our quarterly … Read more
Approaching 2023, the experts were in near unanimity that the fourth quarter of 2022 was little more than a dead cat bounce and that once the inevitable recession hit, the bear market would quickly take the S&P 500 Index to new lows. Instead, the first six months have seen the Nasdaq-100 ETF, Invesco QQQ rise … 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