Friday, May 30, 2014

Q8

The Q8 stocks which QRiskValue covers as of this AM.  Indexes on their highs but five out of the eight stocks are down on year.





AAPL BAC GOOG GS IBM MSFT F PFE
Last 636.95 15.19 558.80 160.13 183.14 40.39 16.45 29.59
Change 1.57 0.04 -1.28 -0.61 -0.62 0.05 -0.09 -0.02
YTD 75.93 -0.39 -1.56 -17.13 -4.43 2.98 1.02 -1.05
%YTD 14% -2% 0% -10% -2% 8% 7% -3%










Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Billions of Tiny Gambles

All of the reasons given for the equity market upside;  corporate buy back programs, the Fed's forced carry trade to equities, and the always clever "wall of worry" theory, all have played a part in the rally.  This may be news to the cable business programs searching for what we may have missed, the world is long stock.  Professionals may be less enthusiastic but they are long too.  Additionally, the proliferation of almost every form of financial product made available to institution and retail customers, from ETFs to alternative liquidity mutual funds, have at their very nature a means to execute, every so cautiously, a long bias.  Their design has created a false sense of security for all investors that somehow their ability to easily scale active participation some how allows them to cheat risk.  Billions of dollars in tiny gambles based on the notion of being able to move about in contrived market liquidity is still subject to exit event mechanics.   Liquidity in joyful upward direction is different than liquidity in exit mode.     

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Zombie Longs

Stock market continues to the upside.  Low volume low volatility adds to the creepy conditions as the hum of the walking has set into the daily action.  Like being trapped in a room where the ceiling and wall are moving in, mindless equity positions pile onto the already living dead who entered these markets long ago.  There is no cure for the Zombie Long.  A federal reserve marches to accommodate soft metrics for the larger economy but only sparks the equity balance sheets of a tiny percentage of the country.  Yellen, like Bernancke, unwilling to admit their complicity in enriching the elite, for who else would they dine with.  A weekend reading of Tim Geitner's self serving book is really an insight into his success in producing obscene entitlements for high corporate standers  while the rest of America was left without upside. 

The Zombie Longs are suckers for the top.  Unable to turn around quickly they are the foils for any downside event.  They will keep on coming no matter what happens.