SOXX is near its first buy level at the upper blue trend line. I am taking a small position here, and I will triple the position if it reaches the lower blue trend line. SOXX is a great investment to buy and hold for the long term, having pretty consistently outperformed the S&P 500. However, coronavirus is a real concern, because semiconductor companies sell a...
Abbvie has been falling hard on news that it will sell off some drug patents in order to win approval for its merger with Allergan. It is entering a support zone between about $77 and $81, however, and it may start to climb from here as investors start to get excited about the merger. Also look for Coronavirus news to move the stock; word on the street is that one...
It took long enough, but the bearish view on oil finally prevailed, as I predicted a month or two ago. Oil has been in a steep decline due to a combination of bearish inventory data, cooling geopolitical tensions, competition from alternative energy, and weakened demand due to Coronavirus. The virus's spread slowed somewhat yesterday, but it remains to be seen...
The MCHI China index has been plummeting due to the coronavirus outbreak, which has many Chinese cities on lockdown today. Also hard-hit by the coronavirus outbreak are shipping companies and airline companies and the crude oil producers who serve them. The odds are good that the story will get worse before it gets better. Not only are we likely to see more...
Coronavirus is accelerating this weekend, with the number of cases having nearly doubled since Friday. The fear is likely to give gold a boost, so I'm expecting a Monday spike. However, there's some risk going into the Fed meeting Wednesday. The Fed's last statement indicated that they didn't anticipate changing rates this year. However, stocks and economic data...
With the odds of a Fed rate hike down to 12.7%, it's looking likely that the rate environment will stay favorable for gold next Wednesday. We're also seeing a little deceleration in stocks due to the Coronavirus, with China stocks already having taken a big loss, and US travel stocks also suffering. We've now had one Coronavirus case in the US, and there are...
I'm highly interested in energy right now, but in the long term I'm just really worried about the oil and gas industry. Thanks to Swanson's Law, the price of solar panels continues to fall. Battery technology is also rapidly getting better, and we seem to be witnessing the mainstreaming of electric cars. According to FactSet, the "Independent Power and Renewable...
Boeing trades at an extremely high P/E multiple of 50, and the forward P/E is even worse at 455. Investors have been hanging on at the current support level on hope of a turnaround in the earnings forecasts, but instead the forecasts are continuing to fall. The latest round of analyst forecasts cut Boeing's expected earnings by about 12% for 2020 and about 13% for...
GGAL took a big hit to its stock price back in August after the Argentinian peso plunged and Argentina raised interest rates to 60%. Investors feared that would hurt GGAL's earnings, though I've seen no evidence that it has. Now the situation has stabilized, with the peso flat against the dollar for the last few months and interest rates gradually coming down....
Alaska is rated the second-best Airline, according to the Wall Street Journal. It is extremely undervalued, with a PEG ratio of about 0.5. News has been extremely positive for Alaska lately. In terms of technicals, Alaska looks to be right above a volume support and ready to bounce. Another way to play Alaska earnings is to diversify risk by buying the JETS...
American Airlines was recently rated one of the worst major airlines by the Wall Street Journal, and the news for the company overall hasn't been great. However, the technical setup looks fairly nice, with American near a support level and showing a long period of bullish divergence on the weekly RSI and MACD. It's got a 1.5% dividend yield and a really good...
In the 2020 Stock Traders' Almanac , the authors point out that "S&P gains January's first five days preceded full-year gains 81.8% of the time." They call this the "First Five Days" effect. This year, January's first week produced a gain of about 1%, so based on the historical pattern, we should expect the full year to be an up year. The authors also write...
The Fed meets in 14 days, and futures markets are currently predicting about a 25% chance of an interest rate hike. That would be bearish for gold. Gold will likely consolidate and perhaps even move a bit lower leading up to the meeting as investors start to price in the rate hike possibility. If the Fed leaves rates alone, then gold will move higher. One thing...
RYF has been a slow-mover lately, but it's moving up today after a blockbuster earnings report from JP Morgan. RYF today is exiting oversold relative to the S&P 500. When you look at RYF's chart in isolation, it's right below a breakout level: With attractive valuations across the entire sector, I think this fund will indeed break out on the strength of JP...
Qudian, a China P2P lending company, today withdrew its full-year guidance because of a worsening regulatory environment in China. Qudian is still in good enough financial shape to buy back $500 million worth of shares, but nevertheless the company says it has seen default rates rise and volume fall sharply as a result of regulatory changes. With Alibaba having...
Baidu is up 7.5% today, but today's analyst upgrade of its earnings forecast was more on the order of 50%, so there's lots of upside left in this stock. Baidu does have one source of drag: Chinese regulators are cracking down on tech monopolies and technology theft in accordance with the trade deal with the United States. Baidu is likely to be affected, though...
News of the pending approval of the USMCA trade deal has been somewhat eclipsed by news of the signing of the Phase 1 China trade deal. However, the reality is that the USMCA deal has larger implications than the China deal, since we do a lot more trade with Canda and Mexico than with China. One sector affected by the deal is the U.S. steel industry, because the...
After a press release indicating that CVS Health plans to open 600 new Health Hub stores this year, CVS stock has once again been climbing. I suspect the breakout will continue once CVS pushes through some resistance. I'm looking for maybe $78 per share from this run. CVS's forward P/E of about 10.5 is very attractive for a stock with large growth prospects in the...