Investment "Logic"

Another painful week is behind me.  The portfolio under performed the S&P 500 primarily due to my holdings of NPS Pharma and Citigroup.  NPSP continues to be the victim of a biotech sell off and Citigroup has suffered a major setback as the Fed declined their capital distribution plans.  For the week ahead, there will be some various government reports that can easily swing the market in any direction in the short-term, however the key factor to my timeline and stocks will be Friday's non-farm jobs report.  This report will have to show the right amount of strength to convince markets that the economy is improving and that interest rates can increase.  However, it cannot be so strong that rates start to jump.  There's a lot of negativity in the market, so it feels like it wouldn't take much for things to start pulling back. Notes: Stock Ratings: 1 = buy at current stock prices, 2 = buy on a 5-10% dip in stock price, 3 = sell on a 5-10% increase in ...

Not a great week for the portfolio, as it was down around 1% while the S&P500 was up around 1%.  The primary driver for this is my holding of NPSP, which was one of my top holdings and took substantial losses this week, plunging over 11%.  The biotech industry as a whole was hit hard last week and I can't help but feel that the extreme selling on Friday was more of the "whoosh" effect you get when a sell off reaches its climax.  That doesn't mean stocks will start going up or will stop going down, but if I'm right, this is the "near bottom" stage.  For the next week, the biggest thing for my portfolio will be the releasing of the CCAR results for Citigroup.  This is where we'll likely see if and how much capital can be returned to shareholders in the forms of dividends and share buybacks.  With the Fed chair saying that the economy continues to improve earlier this week, odds are we won't be seeing interest rates going down a lot from here.  ...

Unless you've been living under a rock this week, there have been two key themes impacting the markets.  The first is the ongoing tensions between Crimea and Russia, and the second is information indicating that China is much weaker than anticipated.  Couple these kinds of highly visible situations to a market that is continually called to be at its peak and you create fear.  In the world of the markets, it seems fear is good for only one thing - driving stock prices down.  Especially when such a major financial calamity is only a few years in our rear view mirror.  The Great Recession has impacted people who invest or might consider investing so strongly that I'm willing to guess it's only rivaled by the Great Depression.  The American people as a whole have littler tolerance for risk, so if things get scary, they run to safety.  People do what they need to do to be comfortable, and though I can't say I intend to follow in suit, it's also important to...

Broadwind energy was a company that used to be focused as a pure wind turbine company.  However, when the alternative energy bubble burst in 2010, Broadwind was ill-prepared to address it.  Since then, the company has gotten a new CEO that has transformed the company to be a little more diversified such that in addition to towers, they also provide gearing services - making and servicing customized gearing solutions for various companies, with the biggest focus in energy (drilling for oil and gas) and machinery (Caterpillar is their largest gearing customer).  This company is unequivocally a cyclical company, needing a strong economy to get strong business.  The stock is also very speculative right now, with a market cap of just over $140 million.  It's easy to make this stock move either direction, should anyone want to, so a strong constitution is needed to even consider, much less own this stock.  The company has done a pretty decent job in building some...

As expected, the biggest thing about this week was the jobs number we got today, which was better than expected.  Generally, markets shrugged the good news off as the market had run up nicely going into this week.  Additional factors are the Russian/Ukraine events that continue to take the advice of Katy Perry and go "Hot and Cold," creating a more volatile market.  Going into next week, the Eastern Block drama will continue and lurks as a factor to market events.  Keep in mind what should or shouldn't be impacted by these events because the market tends to play to sectors more than individual stocks.  Also a key watch for me will be the fourth quarter earnings announcement for Broadwind Energy.  I hadn't watched this stock like I should and it's moved incredibly over the last year.  I want to know more about what I'm considering adding onto here, but in the course of waiting, the stock has risen over 10% this week.  That's a big run going into ea...

Next week's biggest key is to prepare for and react properly to the US Jobs number that comes out Friday morning.  I feel this will be very difficult to do.  It's possible many big money firms are already placing their bets - selling some winners ahead, and probably buying other stocks they believe to benefit.  However, the real question is not what the jobs number will be compared to estimates, but rather how will the market react to them?  !0 year treasuries are already down over 12% on the year - indicating that there's still strong interest in the safe treasury market and doubt on the economy's strength.  So if the jobs number comes in below expectations, will this be a "Bad news is good news" market, where stocks jump because the Fed continues their bond buyback program - keeping treasury rates low - or do they sell off because the S&P 500 was up almost 30% last year and is about flat on the year after dropping almost 6% earlier in the year?  Being...