Salient to Investors: David Stockman writes: The bull market is dead, yet stock option addicted corporate executives are buying their own drastically over-priced shares hand-over-fist. Corporate stock buybacks and dividends are back to late 2007 levels of all of net income, lured by 80 months of ZIRP and $3.5 trillion of debt monetization by
READ MORE... →Don’t Worry About the Bull Market; Worry About the Dollar: Richard Bernstein – ThinkAdvisor 06-22-15
Salient to Investors: Richard Bernstein at Richard Bernstein Advisors writes: The bull market is intact. Markets rise after the Fed starts raising as earnings trump rising rates, and there is no end of cycle behavior, like excessive leverage or a big buildup in inventories except for energy. The MSCI European
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Matt McCormick at Bahl & Gaynor says investors are bracing for more volatility on the basis that the economy and market are not as strong as they thought. Raymond James said equities are vulnerable to losses. Citigroup is concerned about a severe pullback. Christine Lagarde at IMF
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Chad Morganlander at Stifel Nicolaus said the market is fairly valued at best and will require an improving economic and earnings outlook well above where we stand. S&P say the S&P 500 has not fallen more than 10 percent since October 2011, the longest stretch without such
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Since 1976, the S&P 500 has risen 11 percent on average in the 12 months following a government shutdown versus an average return of 9 percent over 12 months. There have been 17 shutdowns since 1976, with 5 occurring within 3 months of each other – in
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The S&P 500 is at 15.3 projected earnings, the highest in 3 years. 72 percent of the 449 S&P 500 companies so far reporting have beaten earnings estimates, 56 percent have beaten sales estimates. Rick Fier at Conifer Securities said earnings are pretty much done and tapering is on the way
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Michael Vogelzang at Boston Advisors said the tone from central banks is that the economy is a little better but not yet at escape velocity without monetary support, and as long as there is strong accommodative policy, the market can go up a lot, driven by Fed
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Banks, brokers and insurance companies make up 16.8 percent of the S&P 500, almost double the level from 2009 and versus tech companies at 17.6 percent. Banks were the largest US industry during the bull market that began in 2002, and financial firms grew to 18.8 percent of the index in
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The S&P 500 Index’s advance to a record last week coincided with highs in the Russell 2000, the Dow Jones Transports, the S&P 500 Financials and Morgan Stanley’s gauge of economically sensitive equities. During the 4 biggest bull markets of the last 25 years, peaks in those indexes have come before the S&P
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Earnings: 73% of 103 S&P 500 companies so far reporting have beaten estimates 53% have beaten revenue estimates. 80% of S&P 500 financial companies have beaten estimates by an average of 8.7%. Banks and insurers are predicted to report earnings growth of 26% this quarter. Excluding financial
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