Tag Archives: S&P 500

MPG Core Tactical 60/40: December 2014 Performance Update

Posted on by
Reply

MW-BB798_sm6040_20130422180557_MDDear Mr. Market:

We’re already two weeks into the New Year and want to make sure we wrapped up any loose ends with how you finished up 2014.

We finished up last month’s edition of the MPG Core Tactical Portfolio series by saying that oil prices could continue dropping to even under $50 per barrel. We’re not in the business of peering into a crystal ball and prognosticating, however this “prediction” was mentioned simply due to all the noise surrounding oil and its dramatic plunge. A multitude of experts began making statements that oil prices “are very near if not already at a bottom”. Mind you, this was just last month when oil finally dipped under $65 per barrel. The problem with these “experts” predicting bottoms (or anything for that matter)…is that not a single one knew that oil was near a top back in June or that it would fall as fast as it has. As of this writing oil has dipped again and now sits just under $45 per barrel!

What does about a 60% haircut in oil prices mean to the stock market? Simply put, the bulls believe that it is a positive for economic growth and is basically like a huge tax cut for consumers and therefore acts much like fiscal stimulus. The bears will opine that falling oil prices mean that the risks of global deflation are real and that the “kick the can down the road” mentality of a market that has been propped up for over five years is about to come to an ugly end. Continue reading →

Avoid Holiday Stock Envy!

Posted on by
Reply

holiday5

Dear Mr. Market:

The holiday season is upon us!  We will soon be spending time with friends and family at gatherings as we celebrate this time of year. Let’s take a moment to look at a conversation that commonly takes place this time of year:

John – “How are you doing? I heard you moved on to a new job a couple of months ago, how is that going?”

Jane – “I am great! Yes I did start a new job and am really excited about it, the company is doing great and I am excited about the future.”

John – “I’ve heard it’s a great place to work – their stock has been doing really well! How about the stock market this year, crazy huh?” 

Jane – “Their stock is amazing! It’s helped my portfolio a ton, I’ve also got a couple of stocks that got me back on track and might make retirement come much faster than I thought!”

John – “Really? I haven’t invested much in individual stocks. Do you do this yourself or have somebody that helps you out?”

Jane – “I read a lot and buy some newsletters but basically I do it myself.  It really isn’t that hard.”

John – “I just don’t have the time for that. What has worked out so well for you?”

Jane – “Well here are a couple of names you should look at that have been doing really well for me this year…”

And so the story goes… John writes a few stocks down on a cocktail napkin and puts it in his pocket with a smile as he thinks about the incredible growth his portfolio will soon experience. On Monday he signs into his online brokerage account and without doing any research or due diligence he buys large positions in 3 different stocks with the blind assumption that they will go nowhere but up…but do they?! Continue reading →

Currency Markets: Not the Roller-coaster you think it is!

Posted on by
1

dollar3Dear Mr. Market:

You’ve taken equity investors on a roller coaster ride this year with the Dow Jones now delivering negative returns year to date. Investors have been scrambling to find where to invest their money as they move out of equities. The fixed income markets remain an area of doubt as interest rates are near rock bottom levels and fear of rate hikes from the Fed continue to run rampant. With all these variables and negativity in the market where should investors consider looking to invest their cash?

We’ve discussed ‘Alternatives’ before and how they warrant a place in a diversified portfolio. Often investors become a bit skeptical when they hear the term Alternative Investment as thoughts of hedge funds and ‘ponzi schemes’ come to mind.   With new regulations and monitoring in place investors can feel confident when they consider adding these types of investments to their portfolios. The investments that typically come to mind when looking at this asset class are: real estate, commodities, futures and hedge funds. Today will take a look at one component of alternative investments that is often overlooked but investors interact with everyday– the dollar or currency markets in general.

If you turn on the nightly news or read any articles about the economy it is hard not to see headlines discussing the strength and/or weakness of the dollar. What does this really mean and how can an investor take advantage of these moves? Analysts and economists tend to use terms to make themselves sound like an authority while at the same time losing 90% of their audience. Below we will discuss some of the basics:  Continue reading →

MPG Core Tactical 60/40: September 2014 Performance Update

Posted on by
Reply

MW-BB798_sm6040_20130422180557_MD

Dear Mr. Market:

October is historically one of your stormier months and it looks like you began to rumble a month or so early this year. We’re headed into the last quarter of the year but in case you’ve missed why we’re running a series of articles around the topic of a “60/40 benchmark”, here’s a refresher:

Click here to revisit the first edition of the MPG Core Tactical 60/40 Portfolio.

Here’s the current summary of the MPG Core Tactical 60/40 portfolio mix, which is updated as of this writing (October 6, 2014).

Click here to compare our portfolio against the benchmark.

It’s finally happening. Yes…it appears the stock market is correcting. As a matter of fact for the second time this year alone the Small Cap asset class has endured a correction of -10% or more. What’s puzzling (and actually quite worrisome) is the divergence between what Large Caps and what Small Caps are doing. In a healthy and rising stock market, “as the tide rises so do all the boats”. We’ve had warnings before but the alarm bells are ringing louder since not all asset classes are moving in tandem as they once were. What we’re seeing now are perhaps the final signs of the rally peaking out.

What adjustments did we make?

The following moves were made during the month of September: Continue reading →

Dividend Investing … are you chasing yields?

Posted on by
Reply

Chasing DividendsDear Mr. Market:

With interest rates at rock bottom levels many investors have gravitated to dividend yielding stocks over the last several years. Money markets, certificates of deposit and bonds simply are not delivering the rates that investors are looking for or have come to expect. It has left investors looking for other options to generate the income that they are counting on but what are the long-term ramifications? Are investors chasing yields with the risk of digging themselves into a deeper hole? What should investors look for and how can they manage their portfolios effectively?

It doesn’t take much effort to find a laundry list of stocks with very attractive yields. In fact if you simply run a screener on Google it will return a list of nearly 100 stocks that offer a yield of 10% or more! With the stock market continuing its upward trend investors have been moving to these stocks chasing the yields with little attention being paid to the underlying stock and the associated risks.

Before we jump into specific companies and industries let’s make sure we are all on the same page and understand what dividends are. Continue reading →

Here comes the stock market correction…What should you do?

Posted on by
Reply

Unknown-61Dear Mr. Market:

You’ve been messing and toying with the brightest minds since 1792, when the New York Stock Exchange was created under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street. Your latest bull market run has as many investors as puzzled as it does nervous. The longer we go on without a stock market correction the potentially worse it will be when it eventually hits. At this point, it’s clearly not a matter of “if” but “when” it is coming. Continue reading →

3 Common Diversification Mistakes

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Mr. Market:Diversification 2

Whether you handle your portfolio or hire a professional to manage it, there is no way you have not heard of the importance of diversifying your investments. The reality is, however, most investors fall prey to one of three major diversification mistakes; which of the three is your issue?

First and foremost, let’s briefly review what diversification is:

Investopedia defines Diversification as: ‘A risk management technique that mixes a wide variety of investments within a portfolio. The rationale behind this technique contends that a portfolio of different kinds of investments will, on average, yield higher returns and pose a lower risk than any individual investment found within the portfolio.’

At first glance this makes sense and doesn’t appear to be complex, right? We find that investors typically appear to be in one of three different camps when it comes to diversification:

  1. Under Diversification
  2. Improper Diversification
  3. Over Diversification

Let’s take a moment to look at each and how investors can get their portfolios back on track. Continue reading →

MPG Core Tactical 60/40: April 2014 Performance Update

Posted on by
Reply

MW-BB798_sm6040_20130422180557_MDDear Mr. Market:

Unless you’ve never picked up a financial magazine or read the business section of any newspaper, you have undoubtedly heard of the old investment adage “Sell in May and go away”. Many financial “experts” and journalists do their best to paint the summer months as those that are primed to underperform. Does history always repeat itself in exactly the same way? Nope. It’s not hard to find investors who sold last spring (or even the one prior) in anticipation of a nasty summer and they are still in cash or underweight equities. If you’re in that boat and don’t trust the stock market, you may sleep better at night for now but in the interim you’ve lost opportunity cost and missed another bull market.

The flip side to this is that bearish investors will eventually be right! The S&P 500 has not had a correction of -10% or more since October 3, 2011. Like many investors out there we firmly believe a correction of -10% to -20% is coming this year but we don’t think it will be the start of a bear market. The challenge behind all of this, however, is that the longer we go without a healthy correction the deeper and more severe the inevitable sell-off will be. Continue reading →

High Frequency Trading – How does it impact you?

Posted on by
1

HTF robotsDear Mr. Market:

The markets are constantly moving from one headline to the next – some of them having a profound impact on the markets. Last Sunday night “60 Minutes” aired a topic that has been lurking in the shadows for years, suddenly it jumped up and grabbed headlines raising concerns and paranoia with investors. High Frequency Trading (HFT) has dominated headlines over the last week prompting a federal investigation and hours of debate.

Michael Lewis, author of “Flash Boys”, has been on a publicity tour claiming the U.S. Stock Market is ‘rigged’. Is the average investor at a disadvantage, on the outside looking in at the security exchanges? This week we encourage you to view a letter being sent to our clients and friends of the firm (High Frequency Trading letter) Continue reading →

Update: March Madness: Final Four Investing Bracket 2014

Posted on by
Reply

March MadnessThe 2014 NCAA Basketball Tournament certainly had an eventful weekend!  52 games have been played across the country with 5 of them going into overtime. The $1 Billion that Warren Buffett offered to anyone that had a perfect bracket is now a distant memory. Every year there are plenty of surprises and this year has been no different:

  • 3 of the 4 teams that were seeded as #12 in their brackets posted wins over teams seeded #5! The one team that lost was beaten by only 3 points in overtime!
  • #1 seed and ‘media darling’ Wichita State lost to #8 Kentucky in the 2nd round.
  • The 2 longest winning streaks in the country have both come to an abrupt end – Wichita State with 35 and S.F. Austin with 29.

 Here are some other mind boggling numbers to take into consideration with the NCAA Tournament:

  • The odds of winning Buffet’s $1 Billion prize was 1 in 4,294,967,296!
  • It is estimated that Vegas takes in over $100 Million from bets on the NCAA Tournament – experts think this represents only 4% of all the money wagered on games!
  • The NCAA tournament costs businesses $1.7 Billion in lost productivity during the month of March.

Continue reading →