Over the past several weeks, the markets have begun to demonstrate a few changes in trends that may prove to be helpful. First, the start of an advancing trend in foreign emerging markets (such as China, Russia, India, Brazil, and yes Greece) has strengthened, enabling us to bring our allocation to this area up to [...]
Every year, I look forward to writing this Thanksgiving post. This is my tenth year doing it, so it has become a bit of a tradition that refreshes me, and will hopefully lift your spirits during this harvest season. Despite what you hear on TV or read online, life is really quite good. It has [...]
What has the market told us over the past three months? Pretty much what it has been shouting for the past eleven years. Without additional stimulus and government spending there's just not enough economic growth to support prices at these levels and to meet current debt obligations. Slow growth wouldn't be so bad if it [...]
For the last year or so as I've been visiting with clients during our periodic reviews, I've often shared my belief that after all of the stimulus of the past few years has been enacted, the economy will eventually have to stand on its own two feet. If it can't, our global finance ministers may believe that [...]
Last week's market action saw the major world averages soar on the rumor that the European Central Bank will orchestrate yet another bank bailout. With many major European banks teetering on the brink of insolvency due to exposure to Greek, Portuguese, Irish, and now Italian debt, the market had been pricing in a systematic freezing [...]
The start of the 4th quarter is decidedly bearish, with the first two days seeing significant market losses. Our managed portfolios continue to hold extreme cash and bond positions which is helping to significantly limit the amount of deterioration seen in the first few days of the quarter. Click here to access our current view of [...]
All managed portfolios continue to be significantly overweighted in defensive instruments such as cash and bonds at the present time. Both The Appleton Group Portfolio and our PLUS Strategy have no more than 25% exposure to market risk, which leaves each more than 75% defensive. This is extreme, but might not be conservative enough, to [...]
Goodbye August, and not a moment too soon. The volatility demonstrated for the month was astounding: out of the 23 days the markets were open, the Dow Jones Industrial Average moved by triple digits (either up or down) 16 of those days. The best single day was a gain of +3.98%, and the worst day [...]
Last week's market action was the most unsupportive since the dark days of March 2009. Negative trends now exist for nearly all market segments as the swift declines of the past several weeks have impacted all of the short-term trends we monitor. Click here to access our current view of the markets - our five-year ETF [...]
The extraordinary volatility seen in the markets for the past two weeks has clearly been a concern. Over the past two days alone, the S&P 500 Index has been up by more than 4% and down by more than 4% consecutively. We've used the recent volatility to reduce invested positions further, selling into strength on [...]
