Entries for July 2012

The market’s pattern YTD in 2012 resembles the market’s action in 2011 while a number of key issues continue to hang over the financial markets. In our second quarter 2011 Investor Letter, we discussed the debt ceiling debate in Washington and Standard & Poor’s subsequent negative outlook and downgrade of U.S. government debt. We also wrote about serious weather related issues that greatly influenced the commodity markets. As was the case last summer, the Euro Zone crisis continues to be an issu...  Read more...

The market’s pattern year to date in 2012 resembles the market’s action in 2011. A number of the issues impacting the market this year are similar to those that impacted the markets in 2011. Last year investors had to digest the impact of the debt ceiling debate in Washington and S&P placing the government’s debt on negative watch (and subsequently issuing a one notch downgrade), weather related issues influenced commodity markets with flooding in a number of countries around the globe, includi...  Read more...

The American Association of Individual Investors reported investor bullish sentiment fell over eight percentage points this week. The AAII Investor Sentiment Survey measures the percentage of individual investors who are bullish, bearish, and neutral on the stock market for the next six months. The bullish sentiment reading of 22.19% was the lowest level since August 26, 2010 when the bullish reading was reported at 20.74%. In August of 2010 the S&P 500 Index was trading at 1,055.33. In the subs...  Read more...

The market's recent pullback certainly seems warranted given the lack of positive news flow both economically and fundamentally. The euro zone continues to struggle in dealing with its debt issues, corporate earnings reports for the second quarter have been less than exciting and policy uncertainty out of Washington is weighing negatively on consumer and business sentiment. This seems like a replay of last year. In spite of these headwinds the S&P 500 Index remains higher on the year by 7.9%. Fr...  Read more...

The current low level of CD and bond interest rates has resulted in retirees allocating more of their investment dollars to higher yielding equity and lower quality bond investments. President Obama's pledge to increase taxes on the rich ($250,000 and above in income) will likely have a negative impact on retiree incomes after 2012.The 2013 top marginal rate for qualified dividends increases from 15% to 44.6%.The tax on interest, rents, royalties, etc., increases from 35% to 44.6%.Long term capi...  Read more...

Investors and consumers will face a number of key issues in the second half of 2012 that are likely to impact their confidence level due to the influence these issues will have on the markets. One impact is potentially higher equity market volatility and this will not be a positive to investor confidence. Some of the issues and the respective dates investors need to keep an eye on are:September 2012: Debt Ceiling Debate: The market's response to the debt ceiling debate last year: it started a si...  Read more...

With the hurdles facing many of the countries in the Euro zone, strategist have been tossing around the idea that the U.S. economy may in fact be decoupling from the rest of the economies around the globe. This is certainly an intriguing thought and would be supportive of better equity returns in the U.S. Better equity return doesn't necessarily mean positive returns though.One recently cited data point is the strength of the U.S. PMI (Purchasing Managers Index) relative to other country PMIs. T...  Read more...

Both aggregate dividend payments and buybacks for companies in the S&P 500 Index declined in the first quarter of 2012. The decline in dividend payments is not unusual as first quarter payment amounts have been lower in Q1 versus the prior Q4 in ten out of the eleven first quarter periods since 2001. The pattern for buybacks is more mixed as aggregate buybacks have declined in six of the eleven first quarter reports since 2001. On a year over year basis, dividends are up 14.2% while buybacks act...  Read more...

One thing investors experienced and seemed to have learned was their mistake of piling into the stock market at the top of the technology bubble in 2000. As the below graph indicates, investors allocated significant dollars to equities, based on monthly mutual fund flows, just prior to the technology bubble bursting in early 2000. However, since that time, investors seem to be timing their market moves correctly. At the bottom of the tech bubble in 2002, investors began investing funds into equi...  Read more...