Salient to Investors: Brian Jacobsen at Wells Fargo Advantage said the Fed didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know, but sometimes it doesn’t take a lot to push prices around. 73 percent of the S&P 500 companies so far reporting have beaten profit estimates, The S&P 500 trades at 14.97 times
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Amanda Sneider and David Kostin at Goldman Sachs said: Net long exposure to stocks in hedge funds rose to 52 percent in Q4 2012, matching the 10-year high reached in Q1 2007. AIG became the most-held position, Apple fell to third place. Hedge funds notably reduced holdings of Apple and gold
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Mark Andersen at UBS said the FOMC minutes may have started an adjustment process for the markets, with realism setting in with investors. Anderson said you can’t have both stronger growth and ever-expanding balance sheets at central banks, so their members are starting to consider the longer-term
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Bloomberg and Pavilion Global Markets report 12 stock-sale announcements over the past 3 months for every purchase by insiders at S&P 500 companies, the highest ratio since January 2011. Pavilion said readings above 11 historically preceded average declines of 5.9 percent over the following 6 months. The ratio of sales
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Tim Hartzell at Sequent Asset Mgmt said the Fed’s comments took a little excess out of the stock market as equities had gotten ahead of themselves in the belief there’s always going to be $85 billion come into the market from the Fed. 72 percent of the 427
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Brian Barish at Cambiar Investors said it doesn’t take much imagination to know where the next potential source of weakness or worry is going to be – when the Fed steps back from QE. 71 percent of the 413 S&P 500 companies so far reporting have exceeded profit estimates, 66
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: David Einhorn said long positions exceeded shorts 29 percent as of Jan. 31 versus 39 percent on Jan 1, 2013, and has become less enthusiastic as the market rises while the US has slowed – GDP went negative in Q4 2012 and earnings growth has come to a virtual
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Michael T. Snyder writes: The US economy is slowing down – freight volumes and expenditures are way down, consumer confidence is down sharply, major retail chains are closing hundreds of stores, the sequester threatens to bring austerity. gas prices are rising rapidly, corporate insiders are dumping massive
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jim Rogers says: Central bank printing unlimited amounts of money is spreading even to Japan and Germany and Europe and has never been good for anyone. Printing money is artificial and ends eventually. Germany will have a lot of good news ahead so that Merkel can win
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Average daily price moves for the S&P 500 have seen the steepest decline since the 1930s – the last time the annual average was this low was 1995, when the S&P 500 rose 34 percent and doubled in the next four years. Going back to 1928 shows stocks gain
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