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- PCs and their makers trying to morph to more - mobile, pads, storage, what next? More M&A - http://bit.ly/aFGWAK $DELL $GOOG $MSFT $AAPL
- Launching The Thematic Investor newsletter - take a look here http://bit.ly/bLO1H7 $KOPN $EQIX $CSCO $CL $K $PG $AAPL $NFLX $RIMM $SVVS $T
- Tune in to Chris Versace on America's Morning News....http://bit.ly/cta0IQ #economy #investing #politics
- $KOPN: Solid 2Q10 Lays the Ground for a Better 2H10 http://bit.ly/bPNFIU
- Getting ready for the July employment report http://bit.ly/aadu2D
- $IIVI Bookings for the quarter increased 120% to a record $125,985,000 compared to $57,245,000 in the fourth quarter of last fiscal year
- Big Lots 2Q revenue comparison rises http://bit.ly/cSdVvJ $BIG
- Smartphone demand drives 54% year-on-year growth in Kopin’s III-V revenue in Q2 http://bit.ly/cGKhkB $KOPN $SWKS
- Commented on: "Universal Display: Showing a Less Than Promising Future" http://soc.li/k0PiaxO $PANL
- Since when does #SmarTrend call EPS upside? showing consensus # is not the same as calling for upside http://bit.ly/9QMdoe $PANL
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Posts Tagged ‘stock market’
Chris Versace, the Thematic Investor and Think 20/20’s Director of Research, will be on America’s Mornings News this Monday (August 9th) morning to talk the economy, the employment situation, double dip prospects, the stock market and investing, and whatever else hosts John McCaslin and Amy Holmes can cook up.
What a difference a week or so makes. July was a pretty good month for stocks and capped off a strong rally that began in mid-May. I say capped off because so far in August, the market, as measured by the Standard & Poor’s 500 index, is down 1.5 percent as I type this. The movement in recent days has been fast and furious, ignited by the growing realization that the economic recovery is losing steam. Hardly news to a regular reader of this column, but the number of concurring data points has grown over the past several days.
Consider the following:
Last week’s July employment report of 131,000 jobs lost was worse than expected.
Non-farm business productivity for the second quarter came in at an unexpected -0.9 percent. This not only marked the first decline since the fourth quarter of 2008, when productivity fell by 0.1 percent, but also was in sharp contrast to the metric for the first three months of the year, which was up 3.9 percent. As I have said many a time, perspective is key, so some context and a quick thought…
Chris Versace, the Thematic Investor and Think 20/20’s Director of Research, will be on America’s Mornings News this Monday (August 9th) morning to talk the economy and the employment report, the stock market and investing, and whatever else hosts John McCaslin and Amy Holmes can cook up.
Chris Versace, the Thematic Investor, will be on America’s Morning News this Monday, August 2, to talk the economy, budget deficits, , housing, unemployment, investing, other financial topics and whatever else hosts John McCaslin and Amy Holmes want to talk about.
Like many people, I woke up Thursday morning and, as I scratched my head, realized we are halfway through 2010.
The halfway point, at least for me, tends to be a time to consider where I’ve come from and what lies ahead for the next half. This is true for exercise, long drives like the one to Hilton Head, S.C., last week, or investing and the stock market.
Through the markets’ close on Wednesday - June 30, the last day of the year’s first half - the major indices continued the roller-coaster pattern I have described over the past year - a drop into early February followed by a steady climb into late April and then a series of drops through the end of June.
The net effect is that all the major indices are down by percentages in the mid-single digits for the first six months of 2010, with the largest drop posted by the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, which was down 6.2 percent. It will be a few weeks until data from Morningstar and other fund-tracking sources are available and shed some light on how mutual funds and hedge funds have performed for both the second quarter and first half of 2010.
The pullback in the stock market is something I have been warning about for more than a few weeks as more data points have emerged to call into question the strength and sustainability of the economic recovery.
The roller-coaster stock-market ride continued this past week amid worries over Europe and the euro early in the week followed renewed concern over the state of the economy asrevised gross domestic product (GDP) and weekly jobless-claims data became available.
Concerns over the ability of Europe to solve its debt-related problems and for the eurozone to eventually recover lifted when People’s Bank of China issued a statement dismissing “groundless” reports that the State Administration of Foreign Exchange was evaluating its investment in eurozone debt.
The People’s Bank of China went on to say it was committed to long-term investment in Europe. With People’s Bank of China holding more than $600 billion, the support for Europe lifted the euro and fueled a strong reversal in the stock-market indexes. As I discussed several weeks ago, volatility gives way to opportunity for prepared investors.
A week ago, I along with the vast majority of investors were staring down one of the worst trading days in recent history. For those not familiar with what I am describing, on May 5 the three major stock indexes - the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite - were down several percentage points before free-falling for 30 minutes to down more than 6 percent for the S&P 500 and nearly 7 percent for the Nasdaq.
As quickly as it happened, those indexes whipsawed back to close the day being down “only” 3.2 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively. This left many scratching their collective heads as to how this happened, how could it happen again and of how can it be prevented from happening again. Concerns over Greece and more caused the markets to contract another 1.5 percent to 2 percent last Friday.
Think 20/20’s Chris Versace will appear on America’s Morning News hosted by John McCaslin to talk on recent stock market trends and economic data to decipher what it means and how investors both individual and professional should think about it.
While many investors kept one eye on the Greek financial crisis and what might have been done by Germany, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund to stave off any meltdown, the other eye was on the plethora of corporate earnings both this week and last.
Assembling and understanding what so many companies report can be daunting even for the professional investor and money managers, particularly when trying to gauge the underlying strength of the domestic economy. Based on company earnings, the majority of which have beaten Wall Street expectations, it would appear that things are getting better. I can say the majority because as of the end of last week 172 of the 500 companies that make up the S&P 500 had reported their earnings and, according to Thomson Reuters, a record 83 percent of those 172 had beaten Wall Street expectations (typically 61 percent of firms exceed expectations).
What that may or may not mean about analyst expectations is fodder for another day. The real question is whether or not companies beating Wall Street expectations means that things - the economy in general, the industry in which a company competes, or that company’s position - are getting better.
The quick answer is “maybe; maybe not.”
To say a company beat its earnings makes for a good headline but, as we know, we have to dig deeper to understand how a company gets such a “beat.” There are several items we as investors need to watch out for - a gain or loss that is nonrecurring in nature, like the sale of a business or product line; an unexpectedly low tax rate that is not sustainable; ongoing cost containment that masks tepid revenue growth, and so on.
What it comes down to is breaking down a company’s income statement and understanding the moving parts that compose its revenue line, cost structure above the operating income line as well as those parts between the operating income line and net earnings. Understanding these parts lets us understand the quality of a company’s earnings.