Salient to Investors: Jeffrey Hirsch at the Stock Trader’s Almanac writes: Three main seasonal and cyclical patterns have stood the test of time: the 4-year Presidential Election/Stock Market Cycle, the Best 6 Months Switching Strategy and January’s basket of indicators and trading strategies. Caveat. History never repeats itself exactly. 1.
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Bob Rice at Tangent Capital writes: Despite negative headlines, sophisticated institutions keep adding to their $2 trillion invested in hedge funds. Benjamin Graham devised a way to make money regardless of market direction by buying a stock he liked, and simultaneously selling short one he didn’t. Over the
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Joseph Tanious at JPMorgan Funds said everyone is trying to figure the Fed – strong data reinforces the Fed message of the past few weeks and justifies the tapering of QE, while weak data makes people think the Fed is going continue QE a bit longer, with
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: David Stockman said: The baby boom generation has unfairly benefited from bubble-finance, a 30-year explosion of debt which created temporary but unsustainable economic prosperity, and a financialization of the system through lower and lower interest rates that has massively rewarded speculation but not real investments. $60 trillion
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jonathan Golub at UBS recommends overweighting consumer-discretionary stocks. Golub said consumer strength will have a positive impact on a host of industries, whereas businesses remain hesitant to put cash to work. Golub is neutral on industrial and tech stocks. The consumer-discretionary index is the top performer among the S&P 500’s
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: US balanced funds received record inflows of $35.2 billion from January to April, the most in any four months, showing easing individuals’ reluctance to join the record-breaking rally in the S&P 500 Index. Inflows into hybrid funds reached records in February 1994 in the middle of a 417 percent gain
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Bruce Stout at Aberdeen Asset Mgmt says: Optimism is too high for stocks and bond yields are too low His fund’s fixed-income holdings are at the lowest level in 25 years. The main problem is trying to get yield in a world where there is no yield, but
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jeffrey Kleintop at LPL Financial said US companies announced $275 billion of repurchases this quarter, the highest in more than 5 years. 79 percent of buyback orders at Goldman Sachs corporate trading desk were active yesterday, the most in 2013. Jim Welsh at Forward Mgmt said the overall buy-the-dip
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Hedge funds continue to be an overpriced, middling asset class. Goldman Sachs found that hedge funds returned an average of 5 percent in 2013 versus a 15 percent gain in the S&P 500, while only 5 percent of the funds beat the S&P and more than 1
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Craig Erlam at Alpari says if the markets believes Bernanke indication the Fed will scale back in three months then we could see a bigger sell-off, but if they believe this is just a threat with no follow through expected for six months then this is a buying
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