An investment strategy some investors follow at the beginning of each year is investing in the Dogs of the Dow. As noted in prior posts, the Dow Dog strategy consists of selecting the ten stocks that have the highest dividend yield from the stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Index (DJIA) after the close of business on the last trading day of the year. Once the ten stocks are determined, an investor would invest an equal dollar amount in each of the ten stocks and hold them for the entire year. ...  Read more...

The weak jobs report was cited as a reason investors sold stocks on Friday. More importantly though is answering the question why the jobs report was so weak. Expectations for the employment report were for payrolls to increase in excess of 190,000 and the employment report from BLS reported only 88,000 jobs were created in March.As soon as the number was reported, nearly all commentators cited sequestration as the primary cause of the weak report; however, only 7,000 government jobs were lost l...  Read more...

One aspect influencing the economy and the markets is the Federal Reserve's stimulative monetary policy via its Quantitative Easing (QE) programs. A concern for market participants is the impact on inflation resulting from the QE programs. Current CPI data shows little inflationary impact; however, is there a point in the future where inflation takes hold? If so, how should investors position their investment portfolios. First though, below are several charts confirming the Fed's influence on so...  Read more...

At HORAN Capital Advisors, we do believe the market ultimately trades on fundamentals. One difficult part with today's market is the Fed's seemly unlimited intervention with its ongoing Quantitative Easing (QE) programs. This QE activity is anything but a fundamental factor. Global central banks have also jumped on the QE bandwagon with Japan being the latest to announce their QE program. For investors then, it is advantageous to look at short term technical factors in order to provide additiona...  Read more...

Standard and Poor's reports preliminary buyback activity for the fourth quarter of 2012 fell 4.4%. On a year over year basis, buybacks are up 13.2%; however, for the year 2012 buybacks declined 1.5%. On the other hand, dividends in Q4 increased nearly 15% compared to the third quarter and were higher by 21% on a year over year basis. Howard Silverblatt, Senior Index Analyst for S&P Dow Jones Indices noted in the press release,"For 2013, S&P Dow Jones Indices anticipates that companies will conti...  Read more...

I just returned from a well rested week's vacation. It is always good to step away from the market from time to time in order to refocus one's perspective. A tough part of taking the week off is giving up the view of the sunset I had each day. The fishing off the dock was good, but shrimp bait was in tight supply as the water temperature was on the cold side. Some of my younger relatives were not too fond of baiting the hooks with live shrimp and they found hot dogs, chicken and bread worked jus...  Read more...

The Employee Benefit Research Institute recently released their 2013 “Retirement Confidence Survey.” The results are not positive – Americans are not doing a good job preparing for their future. The percentage of workers confident about having enough money for a comfortable retirement is essentially unchanged from the record low numbers of 2011.  13% Are very confident 38% Are somewhat confident 21% Are not too confident 28% Are not at all confident   ...  Read more...

I recently attended a social security training seminar and the presenters recommended an article by PBS News titled “34 Social Security 'Secrets' All Baby Boomers and Millions of Current Recipients Need to Know”.   I’ve read many of these types of articles, but this one may be the most comprehensive I’ve seen.  For example, below is the type of “secret” you will learn: Secret #16 “If you take retirement, spousal, or widow/widower benefits early and lose some or all o...  Read more...

This week's market chart from Chart of the Day is suggestive of a further market advance if history is any guide. Chart of the Day states:"Today's chart illustrates rallies that followed massive bear markets. For today's chart, a 'massive' bear market is defined as a decline of greater than 50%. Since the Dow's inception in 1896, there have been only three bear markets whereby the Dow declined more than 50% (early 1930s, late 1930s until early 1940s, and during the recent financial crisis). Toda...  Read more...

Much has been made about investors turning on the equity buying spigot since the beginning of the year. As the below chart shows, however, investors appear to be allocating as much of their investment dollars to bonds as they are to stocks. As noted in earlier posts, this allocation decision seems to be based on investors redeploying cash that was held taken out of the market in the run up to the presidential election and the fiscal cliff.From The Blog of HORAN Capital AdvisorsThe downside to th...  Read more...