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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
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- 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
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Posts Tagged ‘stocks’
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.
One of the more frustrating aspects of investing, from my perspective, is when the stock market and investors fail to see what I do. I suspect at least a few reading this think to themselves, “What an overconfident ….”
Not true. Well, not entirely.
Rather, what I am addressing is common to many investors - what to do when you become frustrated by an investment, particularly if it’s in a stock that you yourself have selected.
On one hand, you begin to question your judgment and the underlying data, whether you should have ever bought the stock to begin with or if you should just exit the position.
On the other, we have to acknowledge that sometimes it takes time for the stock market and other investors to catch on and recognize what initially attracted us to build that position in the first place.
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…
All eyes over the past week have once again turned toward the job picture. A surprise? I think not for several reasons. The least of which was the weekly jobless claims number released on Thursday showed higher than expected initial claims. The real driver of renewed interest and pundit positioning on jobs is the monthly employment report for July, which arrives on Friday. This will be the latest score card for not only the health of the economy but also for how effective the current administration and its stimulative efforts have been.
Per Briefing.com, consensus expectations call for an unemployment rate of 9.6 percent in July, up slightly from 9.5 percent in June. The uptick reflects the shared view that the economy shed 70,000 jobs in July. Economists estimate that the private sector created 100,000 jobs but government employment fell 170,000, as more temporary census jobs disappeared.
The notion that private-sector jobs were created in July was backed up by the ADP employment report for July. That report showed the sixth straight month of job gains in the private sector. Thats the good news. The bad news is that the increase was only 42,000 jobs for July and the six-month average is 37,000. Both of those figures are a far cry from not only monthly job losses but also pale in comparison with new weekly unemployment claims.
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.
The debate between corporate earnings growth and the economy raged this past week as companies such as FedEx Corp., Equinix Inc. and E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. delivered significant earnings growth year on year and compared with Wall Street’s expectations.
A notable characteristic of this earnings period thus far is the relatively low number of negative disappointments on the earnings front. The key phrase in that prior sentence is “thus far,” but more on this later. At face value, positive surprises when it comes to earnings are good, but as I have said many a time, we need to dig deeper, below the headlines, to understand what is really going on.
Upon closer examination, more than a few companies delivered better than expected performances for the June quarter on what we would call in-line or only slightly better than forecast revenues. Connecting the dots, this means we need to look at the cost side of the equation - raw materials, services and labor - that has improved for companies. Said another way, companies are reaping the benefits of productivity gains from not only technology but also squeezing incremental productivity from the existing work force.
Corporate earnings continued at a fast and furious pace this week, and we started to hear from a wider variety of companies.
Again, however, it was a mixed bag. Solid earnings and outlooks from the likes of Apple Inc., Qualcomm Inc., Morgan Stanley and eBay Inc. were offset by disappointing earnings, outlooks or both by Yum Brands, Starbucks, IBM, Goldman Sachs Group and others. This resulted in a topsy-turvy stock market, which should be expected. Not only is that one of the trials and tribulations of any earnings season, but it is amplified by where we are in the domestic economic recovery.
Or not.
While some may cut to the quick and ask, “How can he say that?” I would quickly point to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s semiannual report to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on Wednesday. At the heart of Mr. Bernanke’s testimony, he stated that the Fed continues to forecast moderate growth for the domestic economy this year despite a “somewhat weaker outlook.”
Mr. Bernanke went on to pronounce the outlook as “unusually uncertain.”
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.