Hedge Funds Squeezed With Shorts Beating S&P 500 – Bloomberg 01-07-13

Salient to Investors: The 20 stocks with the highest short sales in the S&P 500 rose an average of 5.1 percent in December versus 0.7 percent for the Index, the widest performance gap since January 2012. Equities tend to rally when companies with the most short interest outperform – like in

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Birinyi Odds Favor S&P 500 Record as Individuals Return – Bloomberg 12-31-12

Salient to Investors: Laszlo Birinyi at Birinyi Associates expects the fourth and final stage of the bull market to take the S&P 500 to a record high in 2013, driven by capitulating bears, individual investors piling in, US housing continuing to expand, and markets rallying in Europe. Birinyi said this 4-year bull market resembles the bull markets in the

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Best Rally in Decade May Slow as Obama Faces Congress – Bloomberg 11-07-12

Salient to Investors: Brian Jacobsen at Wells Fargo Advantage Funds and Bruce Bittles at RW Baird said Obama will continue to support the Fed’s interest-rate policy. Bittles said Obama’s victory will make the fiscal cliff more difficult to deal with. Jacobsen said Bernanke will serve another term because his academic writings recognizes that

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U.S. Stocks Top All Other Assets for First Time Since ’95 – Bloomberg 10-22-12

Salient to Investors: The S&P 500 is up 14 percent in 2012, beating Treasuries, corporate bonds, commodities, the dollar and equities in Asia and Europe for the first time since 1995. The S&P 500 earnings yield is 6.9 percent versus 2.7 percent on investment-grade US corporate bonds – the spread of 4.2 percent compares

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U.S. Stocks Rally to Highest Since 2007 Amid Fed Stimulus – Bloomberg 09-14-12

Salient to Investors: Russ Koesterich at BlackRock said the rally was due to policy makers delivering a bit more than expected. Bank of America expects U.S. stocks to hit a record in 2013. Savita Subramanian at Bank of America is bullish longer term on sentiment and fundamentals, predicts S&P 500 at 1600 by year-end 2013 on record profit growth. Tobias

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S&P 500 10% From Record as Birinyi Sees Bears Capitulate – Bloomberg 09-06-12

Salient to Investors: The S&Ps 500 Index is closer to a record than any other major stock market. Laszlo Birinyi expects more gains as bearish investors give up excuses of no volume and the belief that earnings aren’t going to be good, and start buying.  Birinyi is surprised by the market’s strength and breadth. Byron Wien at Blackstone said everybody

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S&P 500 Climbs to Four-Year High as ECB Details Bond Plan – Bloomberg 09-06-12

Salient to Investors: S&P 500 Index at highest since 2008. The Dow at highest since December 2007. Dan Veru at Palisade Capital Management said we are peeling away the uncertainties little by little, and Draghi is serious about putting Europe on a positive path. David Pearl at Epoch Investment Partners said the U.S. data is moving positively and we’re

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Earnings Matter Most for U.S. Stocks as Economic Obsession Fades – Bloomberg 09-03-12

Salient to Investors: Profits are moving U.S. equity prices more than any time since the bull market began 3 1/2 years ago. Bloomberg data show: S&P 500 companies rose or fell an average of 4.4 percent the day after releasing results since July. Daily swings in the index narrowed to 0.4

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Oil Stocks Biggest Losers With Valuations Lowest Since 2009 – Bloomberg 06-25-12

Salient to Investors: The MSCI World Energy Index is down 9.6 percent in 2012, more than any other group, and is up 45 percent since the market bottom in 2009, less than any other industry with earnings tied to economic growth. U.S. energy stocks are at the cheapest levels relative to the

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Wien Unbowed by U.S. Shares Slump Joins Birinyi Seeing Rally – Bloomberg 06-11-12

Salient to Investors: Bloomberg reports 64 percent of 108 S&P 500 companies had analyst ratings lowered in the past week. Investment Company Institute say American equity mutual funds had $7.2 billion of outflows during the week ended May 23 versus $178 billion of outflows in the previous 12 months. Predictions: Blackstone Group’s Byron Wien says it’s safe to

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