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: Bespoke Investment
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August 1st, 2012
After a surprising build in crude oil inventories last week, inventories got back on track with their seasonal trends this week with a decline of 6.5 million barrels. Even with this larger than expected drop, crude oil inventories still remain well above their historical norms for this time of year.
August 1st, 2012
Below is a table showing the July and year-to-date performance of key ETFs across all asset classes. For the month of July, the S&P 500 tracking SPY ETF gained a little more than 1%. But while largecaps gained, both the S&P Midcap 400 (IJH) and S&P Smallcap 600 (IJR) posted declines in July. Looking at sector performance, Energy (XLE) and Telecom (IYZ) were the big July winners, while Materials (XLB) and Consumer Discretionary (XLY) were the only sectors that declined.
August 1st, 2012
Shares of Apple (AAPL) rose nearly 3% on Tuesday in part due to speculation that the company would split its stock, thus paving the way for its addition to the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). For those who are unfamiliar with the construction of the index, stocks in the DJIA are weighted according to price as opposed to market cap. Therefore, the higher the stock's price, the higher that stock's weighting in the index.
July 31st, 2012
Although the S&P 500 was up a little more than 1% during the month of July, a lot of stocks made some big moves. The tables below highlight the stocks in the Russell 3000 that did the best and worst during the month. As shown, all of the stocks had advances or declines of at least 30%.
July 31st, 2012
The month of August has generally been a painful month for equities. Going back to 1990, the S&P 500 has averaged a decline of 1.05% with positive returns just 54.5% of the time. Furthermore, the last two months of August have been especially painful. In August 2010, the index fell 4.74%, while in 2011 the S&P 500 dropped 5.68%.
July 31st, 2012
While tomorrow is a Fed day, it's also the first trading day of the month. Below is a table showing the S&P 500's performance on the first trading day of each month since the bull market began back in March 2009. As shown, the S&P has averaged a gain of 0.28% on the first day of the month with positive returns 67.5% of the time. The median return of 0.59% is much stronger than the average return.
July 31st, 2012
Below is a list of the 30 S&P 500 stocks that are currently trading the farthest above their 50-day moving averages. We have run the 30 stocks through our trading range screen as well so you can see the recent momentum of these overbought stocks. For each stock, the dot represents where it is currently trading within its range, and the end of the tail is where it was trading one week ago.
July 31st, 2012
Since the Fed enacted ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) on December 16th, 2008, the S&P 500 is up 59.50%. There have been 913 trading days since then and 29 of these have been Fed days.
So how has the market historically performed on these 29 Fed days? As shown below, the S&P 500 has averaged...
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July 30th, 2012
While the period from March 2000 through now has been classified as the dark ages for investing, the rolling ten year returns for the S&P 500 hit their highest levels since January 2008 this month. The chart below shows the historical rolling ten-year returns for the S&P 500 going back to 1938. As shown in the chart, the returns have been rebounding from multi-decade lows in the last couple of years and are now up to 51.9%. In other words, $100 invested in the S&P 500 ten years ago this month is worth $151.9 today.
July 30th, 2012
Much has been made of the weak earnings numbers that companies are posting this reporting period, but don't tell that to investors. Shareholders have been driving prices higher when companies have reported this earnings season. As shown below, the average stock that has reported since earnings season began on July 10th has gained 0.70% on its report day (for companies that report after the close, we use the next day's change). If the season were to end today, this would be the best performance stocks have seen on their report days since Q4 2010.
