As a followup to Saturday's post I wanted to outline some ideas for building a dividend tranche for a portfolio where someone might have different buckets within a portfolio. So high yielders might be one bucket, themes another, core another and so on. I could see where it might be easier for some people to think of their portfolio this way. Although not my preference it is perfectly reasonable.

In one of the rarest occasions, next week's blog will be MIA, as I shall be incommunicado on vacation at Lake Tahoe, playing the real casino instead of the stock market. I'll have my trusty Droid to keep up with the markets, but will not be able to post Sentiment results.

Today's large drop only validates the Sentiment signals blaring out since the first of the year (see previous blogs). We have yet to break to a new high greater than February's and remain in a Trading Range.

Another gap and trap day where stocks weren’t able to hold the gains seen at the opening of the day.  Gap and traps aren’t bullish movements, but bearish ones and today’s move came with increased volume on the NASDAQ as volume slide on the NYSE.  A few mergers in the morning helped boost the mood of traders, but sellers were able to wrestle control away from the bulls.  Continued bearish action on the NASDAQ with AAPL stock leading the way certainly has put a dark cloud over the market. 

The wave of anti-government demonstrations moved is way into Libya over the weekend causing havoc amongst equity markets.  Even better than expected Consumer Confidence figures as well as Richmond Fed Manufacturing couldn’t entice buyers to prop up the market.  Heavy volume sellers were in our stock market leaders today showing institutions were dumping stocks, the best performers.  Today, the market went into correction mode with a big percentage decline on higher volume.  When the likes of NFLX stock are AAPL stock taking beatings you must stand up and take notice.  While no one kn

Paul Farrell's latest takes aim at "Dow 20,000" as being more hype citing all the people who were tragically bullish going into the financial crisis. I would venture to say that for as many people who were incorrectly bullish to start 2008 there were just as many who were incorrectly bearish in 2009.

I will repeat what I said the other day; take in divergent views in conjunction with your own observations and draw your own conclusion.

Stocks stumbled after a poor reading from the ISM Non-Manufacturing index. Despite a moderate figure from the ADP employment report the drop in the ISM index really shook traders. Sellers were in full control as stocks were heading into panic mode just before the one o’clock hour. Buyers were able to save the day from the selling carnage. At the end of the day volume appeared higher across the board. IBD has NASDAQ volume lower while Bloomberg indicates volume was actually higher.

Well it is finally here (scheduled for tomorrow actually); the Norwegian Fishery ETF! Long time readers will know I have been writing about this theme for several years. The long term global demand for fish seems to be a one way trade which creates a long term tailwind for the stocks. To be clear the stocks will still face the ups and downs of the stock market cycle but more people globally are going to be able to afford better diets.

In a prior screencast we noted the importance of Apple to the Nasdaq 100 and the overall tech economy.  Now we are seeing some of the downside from this reliance in the announcement that the Nasdaq 100 index is being rebalanced.  This rebalancing will reduce the weighting in Apple by some 8%.  One question is how is that a major market index could get so overweighted in any individual security.  In short, investors need to look behind an index to understand how it is constructed.  The

“The market giveth, the market taketh”

Readers have suggested three alternative metrics for the strategy tested in the “Simple Sector ETF Momentum Strategy Performance”: (1) Sharpe Ratio over the past six months; (2) slope of price over the past six months; and, (3) average of three-month, six-month and 12-month past returns. Do these metrics outperform past six-month return in a momentum More...