Taxes, Retirement and Your Investment Strategies
In response to the economic hardship caused by COVID-19, the federal government extended this year’s tax-filing deadline from April 15 to July 15. The state of Connecticut also extended the deadline to match the new date. While this obviously gave Americans more time to file and pay any amount owed to Uncle Sam, this extension of the tax-filing deadline offers a number of other financial benefits – if you use it to your advantage. There are many long-term and short-term […]
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Date: August 3, 2020
NASDAQ 100 Ceding Leadership
When we left off on Monday, it was time for the bulls to step up in technology as the insanely strong momentum streak had ended. Let’s give the bulls credit; they stepped up in a big way on Monday. However, that move was almost fully reversed on Tuesday. We have a good old fashioned tug o’ war as some of the NASDAQ 100’s largest components are set to release earnings. I will continue to take the glass half empty side […]
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Date: July 29, 2020
Momentum Streak Ends for NASDAQ 100
On Friday I wrote about the NASDAQ 100 crossing a very obvious line in the sand that “everyone” has been watching. Remember, the NASDAQ 100 which is heavily weighted to Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google and Microsoft had not closed below its average price of the past month since early April. In fact, I don’t even think it has seen back to back down days since early May. That’s a feat! In other words, it has had historically strong momentum. With […]
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Date: July 27, 2020
NASDAQ 100 Crossing Line in the Sand
This is going to be a really short update because I am way behind schedule and stocks have been behaving as I have spelled out for two weeks. Today’s close will be somewhat important for the short-term as the bulls are on their heels, especially those playing momentum stocks. For weeks, I have written about the NASDAQ 100’s idiosyncratic behavior versus the other four major stock market indices. You can search the archives to read about how stretched this index […]
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Date: July 24, 2020
NASDAQ 100 Reverses Again – Banks Need Some Lovin’
Continuing on my theme of a possible pullback or correction, the NADSAQ 100 has now reversed twice from the same level in two weeks. That means early strength has twice been thwarted by the bears with the tech index closing near its low for the day. You can see that in the two arrows below. We now have a very clear line in the sand drawn. If the bulls are to win, they will quickly close above the 11,100 level […]
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Date: July 22, 2020
Bulls Could Push for One More High Before Pulling Back
On Friday, I wrote about the Window of Opportunity for a stock market decline. I definitely did not say that stocks were about to plummet. The conditions were building that the chance for a bout of weakness was growing IF the NASDAQ 100 rolled over and IF the other major stock market indices did not surge. I also wrote that I thought it could be a July or August story for the window to be open and not a very […]
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Date: July 20, 2020
Social Security and COVID-19: 5 Things You Should Know
We’re more than halfway through 2020 and one thing is abundantly clear – the Coronavirus is just as much a financial crisis as it is a health crisis. Millions of Americans have watched their nest eggs dwindle due to stock market declines, layoffs and furloughs. This crisis has affected us all, but anyone retiring in the next year or two is especially vulnerable as they prepare to pull from retirement accounts and collect Social Security. When conducting a financial analysis […]
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Date: July 20, 2020
Window of Opportunity Opening for a Broad Stock Market Decline
On Wednesday, for those were able to read to the end of the update, I did something I haven’t done in a while, broach the idea that stocks could could go down for more than a brief pullback. I continue to warm to that idea. Let’s start with the top chart below which is 10 and 20 day average of the NASDAQ volume versus NYSE volume. You can see that since the bull market launched on March 23rd, there has […]
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Date: July 17, 2020
Sea Change? Dow Industrials Exploding Higher
On Monday, I offered some comments about the pathetic banks into earnings. JP Morgan was first and they got some love. Goldman was this morning and they should get even more love. The call wasn’t that difficult as sentiment was just so negative and fearful. In almost every post over the last two plus months I have separated the major stock market indices away from the NASDAQ 100 which was behaving very idiosyncratically. Over the past few sessions, there has […]
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Date: July 15, 2020
Opportunities in the Financials
Q2 earnings season begins this week with the much maligned financial sector up first. I think there is opportunity here as the sector has been straight down since its peak on June 8th. While I would love to see one more selloff to new July lows on the first round of reports, I recognize that being too cute forces you to miss the boat sometimes. I would hate to see great reports and the stocks take off right away. That […]
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Date: July 13, 2020
How to Tell a Good Financial Advisor from a Bad One
Using a bad financial advisor is worse than having none at all, for they can destroy your wealth and jeopardize your financial future. On the other hand, you can significantly benefit from the recommendations given by a good financial advisor. For this reason, when finding a professional financial advisor to work with, it’s important to know what to look for. While their title might be the same, financial advisors are not created equal. As a fee-only fiduciary financial advisor in […]
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Date: July 13, 2020
Is the NASDAQ 100 the New Dotcom Bubble?
Another day, another surge by the NASDAQ 100 without the rest of the indices joining the party. You know the few stocks. Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Microsoft, Nvidia, Facebook, Google and a few more. The Dow Industrials, S&P 500, S&P 400 and Russell 2000 are not behaving well. This is not, not, not 1999 and the Dotcom Bubble, but, but, but this is still dangerous behavior that can lead to consequences tomorrow, next month or next year. Remember, markets can stay […]
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Date: July 10, 2020
It’s All About The NASDAQ 100
On Monday it was interesting that so many in the media spent much of the day focused on the NASDAQ 100 and those few behemoth stocks within that index which seem to only go up. You know the ones. Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Tesla, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia and a few others. First, it was all about how anyone could or should own anything else. Then it was comparing them to the Dotcom era. They were wrong on both counts. As […]
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Date: July 8, 2020
Young Bull Market Not the Rising Tide Lifting All Ships
I hope you had an enjoyable and peaceful July 4th holiday. Living in CT, it definitely lacked the “feel” of traditional July 4th weekends. No town fireworks. No big gatherings. Nothing special. Last week was one for the bulls as they fought off early weakness and ran higher right to the June employment report which was another record setting shocker on the upside. I actually thought there would be some mildly lower revisions from that eye popper a month ago. […]
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Date: July 6, 2020
Portfolio Games Over But All is Not Well in Hooville
The end of the month, quarter and first half of 2020 are now in the books. Portfolio managers played their usual games on Tuesday, especially in the final 15 minutes of trading where stocks spiked and immediately fell. While illegal, it is beyond hard to prove that a manager was “painting the tape” or trying to mark up the portfolio while other folks sold garbage they didn’t want to show on the books and bought what has worked during the […]
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Date: July 1, 2020
Stocks Could Bounce But Better Buy at Lower Levels
As was the theme for last week, stocks closed lower on Friday and for the week. Some of the headwinds I wrote about have dissipated and the big, annual rebalance in the Russell indices was completed on Friday’s close. While I don’t think the bulls are ready to reassert themselves for a run to new highs, the market is certainly oversold on the short-term and could support a little bounce. Heading into the holiday-shortened week, one of my favorite weeks […]
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Date: June 29, 2020
Trading Range Continues. Puckering Up for Dow 25,000
The theme for the week has been one of caution, not because of the Coronavirus, but because after the four, big quarterly options expiration, the stock market usually faces a headwind. Add on top of that, we have a massive quarterly rebalance out of stocks and into bonds to the tune of somewhere between $100 and $200 billion. And then there is that “little” thing called the annual Russell rebalance which takes place today at the close. There have been […]
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Date: June 26, 2020
The Week Continues to Unfold as Expected
On Monday I wrote about the headwinds facing the stock market this week in https://investfortomorrow.com/blog/this-week-is-usually-down/. We have post-options expiration and end of quarter during an uptrend. Yesterday, I wrote this in an email. “On top of that we have the polar opposite quarterly rebalancing that we had in March when stocks had sold off so much that more than $100 billion had to be purchased in stocks at quarter’s end by institutions following a set asset allocation, like 60/40. With […]
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Date: June 24, 2020
This Week is Usually Down
Friday saw another one of those “ugly on a chart” afternoon reversals as Apple announced a fresh round of store closings in the states that recently reopened. I am sure a lot of people saw the re-openings as easy and as expected, but the truth is much different. It is going to be lumpy and uneven with varying degrees of success and failure. One thing remains a certainty in my humble opinion; the U.S. economy will never be completely shut […]
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Date: June 22, 2020
3 Common Retirement Planning Mistakes
An American Institute of Certified Public Accountants survey of more than 1,000 adults found the following: 49 percent are not confident about how they will finance their retirements 29 percent said they’re not sure they’d reach their retirement goals 20 percent said they don’t think they will ever reach their retirement goals Even if you’re successful and cash flow is not a worry now, things may feel different when you stop receiving that paycheck or you sell your business, and […]
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Date: June 22, 2020
