Friday, June 21, 2013

Indices closed mixed.....

Indices regained their footing after margin calls were out of the way. Only Nasdaq closed lower by 7 points.

S&P 500 @ 1592.43, low today 1577.70

RSI @ 40.81

CMF @ -0.060

Internals were :

UP volume led by 1.10 to 1 in NYSE & 1.04 to 1 in Nasdaq

Advancing stocks led by 1.02 to 1 in NYSE & 1.53 to 1 in Nasdaq

Net new 52 wk lows were leading by 223 in NYSE & 4 in Nasdaq

VIX Down 7.76% @ 18.90

Oil @ $93.69

Gold @ $1292.00

Canadian $ Down 68 tick @ 95.45, 19 month low against US$ due to below expectation retail sales & inflation number.

Stocks which closed green included EBAY KOG AUY
TCK TIF LEN FB M BIDU GG EGO SLW AEM
MA V SOL JASO SPWR GRPN CRUS LRCX
MU AMCC JDSU FNSR SPLK MCD Z 
FCX....

My portfolio weighting :

AUY  33.12%

BBRY 31.86%

EBAY 25.80%

KOG  9.22%

Exposure 102%

Next post by 2 PM on Sunday.

BLOG does NOT give buy or sell.

Saleem

2 comments:

stocktrader_1996 said...

Hey Saleem,

And so ends a tumultuous week. Amazingly, the portfolio actually gained 0.29% this week versus the S&P's -2.11%. Of course, the major gainer was AMCC (+24.1% before selling), but other software stocks rallied like TXTR (10.7%), MODN (+8.9%), RALY (+6.7%), and PFPT/SPLK/MDSO (+2.9%/+1.8%/+3.0%). Everything else dropped including GMCR (-8.0% after purchase), RDN (-7.5%), TOL (-5.4% after purchase), M (-4.5% after purchase), and KORS (-4.4% after purchase) among many others. Here's the portfolio now:

Software: TXTR RALY MODN PFPT SPLK MDSO
Consumer Discretionary: SODA M KORS GMCR
Housing/Financial: BAC RDN TOL WLH
Other: INVN (specialty semi) CLDX (biotech) WLK (chemical) TEAR (medical device)

My moves this week focused on consumer discretionary as I added KORS, M, TOL, and GMCR, and also CLDX, a biotech special story. I rid myself of materials like STLD and SWC, and also some rethinks on thesis, CERN and HPQ. AMCC was a profit taking move. Based on the outperformance of the portfolio in recent months, my overall approach of holding software growth stories along with opportunistic other moves seems to be working.

The more I thought about how this week unfolded, the more troubled I was. The Fed laid out the taper plan, which in theory is helpful, but I'm wondering more about the underlying strength of the global and domestic economies. Couple the global uncertainties with the Fed exit strategy, and you have many people wondering if the Fed is suddenly looking too backward.

It does not help that Bernanke is leaving in January. I would say generally investors believe he has been treading that fine line between substantial economic support yet not devaluation or hyperinflation policies. Any discussion on the next Fed candidate could spook the market as people worry that the perfect balance might be thrown off. We should realize that the market's choice of Yellen for the next Fed president (to achieve as much continuity as possible) might not coincide with the political dynamic surrounding this appointment.

The significant breakdown of structure within economies like China, Brazil, and India leave the developing world in a pause or regression mode. I am concerned about the outlook from our multinational companies and correspondingly their hiring or expansion plans. I think we got a little taste of that from ORCL and FDX this past week, but companies that report in July on the June conditions might really have even more negative things to say. This could be the next shoe to drop on the market, and I don't think enough investors are paying attention yet to this aspect.

The one positive I see is really just a market symptom where quarter-end/half year-end window dressing could help the averages. This could be exaggerated upwards by the oversold nature of the markets in the short-term. I may have to use this week to lighten some positions that could be vulnerable.

Overall, I am more troubled than I've been in a while and see a real reason for markets to drop further from here. Despite this, I am unsure what to do because I am notoriously late to start hedging or trimming positions and usually end up missing a portion of the next up leg due to <100% long exposure. I hope some of my positions make fresh up moves that would then be intuitive sell points so I can sell more comfortably. I think this window dressing week may provide those opportunities.

Hope all is well! :)

Stocktrader

Stocks100 said...

Hi Stocktrader,

Excellent recap of your hyper analysis of the week it was.....

Summer is a challenging time for equities & this time it will be no different.

Fed reaction is in rear-view now which may give us a new trading range.

I am glad you had another week of beating the averages...i was down 2.73%...thanks to AUY...down it went with gold.

Saleem