A significant reason retailers opened their doors on Thanksgiving was an attempt to limit the impact of online sales on that day. ComScore reported e-commerce sales increased 32% YOY to $633 million on Thanksgiving. E-commerce sales on Black Friday increased 26% YOY to $1.042 billion, the first time surpassing the one billion dollar mark.From The Blog of HORAN Capital AdvisorsBricks and mortar retailers had a respectable showing in the sites most visted by online consumers.From The Blog of HORAN...  Read more...

In this week's Barron's an article, Beware the Buyback ETF Strategy ($), appears stating "there's precious little evidence that share repurchases do much for long-term investors." In fact, this could not be further from the truth. One of the more popular buyback ETFs is the PowerShares Buyback Achievers Portfolio (ticker-PKW.) I have written articles on this index as recently as October of last year. In that article, Companies Buying Back Shares Are Outperforming, the buyback index was significa...  Read more...

Since November 15th the S&P 500 Index has managed to gain over 4% in spite of the rhetoric surrounding the consequences of going over the fiscal cliff. Finding a "balanced" solution to the budget issues in Washington is more than a near term issue. As the below chart shows, total credit market debt to GDP has been on an increasingly higher growth trajectory. A contributor to this debt increase is the growth in debt at the U.S. government level due to the significant budget deficit from year to y...  Read more...

It goes without saying the most cited market topic every day of late, but I will mention it anyway, is the discussion about the fiscal cliff. The anticipated negative impact on the economy, and hence the market, of going over the cliff is significant. At the end of the day Congress and the administration in Washington, D.C. need to address the mismatch between revenue and expenses of the federal government. The stumbling block at the moment seems to be what additional revenue sources will be on ...  Read more...

One aspect of the new healthcare law (The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)), and commonly called Obamacare, is the requirement that employers with more than 50 employees must provide healthcare to those employees working more than 30 hours per week. A number of companies, especially in the retail and fast food industries, have stated they will reduce employee hours to below 30 hours per week in order not to be required to provide healthcare to the employee as required under the...  Read more...

In reading a number of strategists' take on the current market technicals, it seems many believe the market is oversold and due for a bounce.Don't Jump Off The Fiscal Cliff - ForbesMarket Rally Soon? - Extreme Oversold Levels - MTR Investors Group23 of 30 Dow Stocks Oversold - Bespoke Investment GroupUse Dip To Buy Global Growth Stocks - Deutsche Bank's David Bianco As Tiho Brkan notes on his website, The Short Side of Long, "when it is obvious to the public, it is obviously wrong." As the below...  Read more...

The Tax Foundation released a report today showing the tax impact on a median four person family for each state if Congress and the President allow the country to go over the so-called "fiscal cliff." New Jersey would see the largest tax increase of $6,933 or 6.82% on median family income of $101,682. The smallest tax increase would be experienced by the state of Washington at $3,362 of 4.12% on median family income of $81,582. The Tax Foundation's report, How Would the Fiscal Cliff Affect Typic...  Read more...

The equity put/call ratio has been in an uptrend since mid September when the put/call ratio fell to .53. Not too coincidentally the S&P 500 Index hit 1,465, the high for the year. As noted in May's prior post, Equity Put/Call Ratio Approaching 1.0:"The equity P/C ratio tends to measure the sentiment of the individual investor by dividing put volume by call volume. At the extremes, this particular measure is a contrarian one; hence, P/C ratios above 1.0 signal overly bearish sentiment from the i...  Read more...

As the below chart shows, QE3 has not had the positive impact on "risk on" asset price performance since its implementation unlike in prior QEs.From The Blog of HORAN Capital AdvisorsJust looking at prior QE's impact on the S&P 500, the following chart does show the positive impact on the index. However, each successive QE/Twist program has been less effective.From The Blog of HORAN Capital AdvisorsSource: Schwab  Read more...

An interesting post has been published by Political Calculations noting the rise in the recession risk indicator. Additionally, the article notes other factors, specifically, dividend cuts, that are signaling increased risk of a recession in the U.S.From The Blog of HORAN Capital AdvisorsAs noted in the post, The Reformed Broker's Joshua Brown states:"Do you see the percentages on the left side of the chart? 20% is the line in the sand. We've never hit that level and NOT had a recession. In 2006...  Read more...