Earnings season is underway at this time, and the few stocks that have announced have produced some mixed results so far. One industry that is expected to see earnings decline in the second quarter is the tech sector, and we have seen mixed results from International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM) and Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX). IBM saw earnings grow, […] Read more

The semiconductor industry has been one of the top performing industries over the past six months. The VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF (NYSE: SMH) has gained 24.64 percent from April 20 through October 20. The S&P 500 has gained 9.31 percent during that same time period. That means the SMH has gained 2.5 times what the […] Read more

Back in December, I wrote pieces for both Bull Market Rodeo and Seeking Alpha expressing how I thought stocks would rally in the first quarter. The market was the most oversold it had been in some time, and investor sentiment was the lowest it had been in years. Investors were flocking to bonds and that […] Read more

The overall stock market performance has been pretty impressive so far in 2019. After the huge selloff in the fourth quarter of 2018, stocks turned in an impressive performance through the first four months, but then we saw a little pullback in May. Over the last few weeks, we have seen the overall market bounce […] Read more

The latest Bank of America Merrill Lynch survey of investment managers came out on Tuesday and it showed incredibly low allocations to equities, high allocations to cash, and overcrowding in the long treasury trade. Let’s break down each aspect of those three investment categories. First, the funds showed an overall allocation of 21% to global […] Read more

The first quarter earnings season has pretty much concluded at this point since almost all of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported results. As of last Friday, 491 members of the index had reported and the overall performance was above average in terms of beating analysts EPS estimates, but it was a little […] Read more

West Texas Intermediate Crude moved from below $45 a barrel to over $65 a barrel from December through April, but after breaking the $65 mark, the price has tumbled in recent weeks. As of Friday morning, the price was flirting with a key support level in the $55 area. The weekly chart below doesn’t reflect […] Read more

Like many of you, I have signed a non-compete clause as an employee, which, otherwise I would have not been hired. There is always a little sinking feeling in your gut when you do so. It’s like you have signed away your rights, which you have to an extent, to make a living, or create […] Read more

Throughout 2018, the housing market in the U.S. was in a downward trend in terms of housing starts and new home sales. Those two industry measures go hand in hand, and both trended lower in 2018 as the Federal Reserve was in a rate-hiking cycle. The housing industry is very sensitive to interest rates. The […] Read more

After hitting a new all-time high on May 3, the S&P 500 and most of the rest of the market have been hit with tremendous selling pressure. As another round of negotiations was scheduled to take place last Thursday and Friday, President Trump tweeted his intentions to implement new tariffs on Chinese goods. This caught […] Read more