Investment "Logic"

So it's been a couple weeks since I've last written.  In that time the Fed held off on raising rates, and volatility (represented by the VIX) has gone down.  In the hours leading up to the Fed announcement and days since, the overall sentiment has been back to the same routine.  Rates on the 10-year T-note have dropped from roughly 1.8% to 1.6% and appear to be continuing that path for a little while.  It's hard to believe we'll see it get as low as it was earlier this year, though.  People are already looking towards November and December for the next rate hike from the Fed, and all commentary is already pressing towards those "thoughts of market doom," in the hopes of striking fear, it seems.  Since the Fed's stance was made public, the market has rallied, overall, while banking has pulled back on the same news as well as concerns over fraudulent practices going on within Wells Fargo.  Earnings season is just around the corner, so for now, the...

So, as summer goes, so doesn't my regular updates on my portfolio.  Now that summer is essentially over, it's safe to assume that I'll slowly gain more time to keep up on this in an amount that correlates to how much colder the weather gets.  While I love summer and taking advantage of it, it's time I put the right focus on this again, and I'm none too soon - if anything, a little late back to the game. After going through the first three days of a holiday shortened week, the S&P 500 got belted today, falling 2.45%.  In contrast, the 10-year yield rose 3.47% today and 5.69% in the course of the week and the VIX, which measures volatility jumped an astounding 39.47% to 17.51, though this is still below the key fear area of 20.  These are the key indicators I've been taking note of recently, as all the pros that were vacationing late in the summer have come back and are taking stock of what's going on in the world.  What's going on, you might as...

A week without earnings allows me a chance to do a full review of my entire portfolio - something that's hard to accomplish with a full time job and short Minnesotan summers that you want to take advantage of.  So far, 3 of 7 of the stocks in my portfolio have reported.  Pepsico and Citigroup both did well whereas Honeywell didn't do poorly, but there were things there that are making people take pause.  We're a little over half-way through the heart of the earnings season as well, with almost 63% of companies in the S&P 500 reporting.  Of those, over 70% have beat their marks, which is fairly impressive.  The trend of downwards earnings seems to have come to and end as it looks like the S&P is showing future earnings trends to be rising going forward.  This helps prepare for a potential new bullish leg in the markets after having trended between a range of 1900 and 2100 since October of 2014.  The fear and greed index is in the extreme fe...

Not a lot of new information to report from the portfolio and markets over the last week.  Yes, the markets and portfolio was down, but it wasn't exactly violently slow.  If anything, I'd say the thing to note is the volatility levels being so low.  People are becoming more bullish, but they're also extremely wary of another deep pull back.  I think that leaves us in a position of meandering around for a little while.  With earnings season upon us, it's possible that this will start giving the market a charge in one direction or another.  Will we see more earnings overseas due to a weaker dollar?  Will politics be a problem?  Will the Fed step in and start raising rates near the end of the month?  These are the things I think we need to be watching for. For the week ahead, my portfolio is officially going into earnings season with the first quarter results from Citigroup, Friday morning.  A number of weeks the company warned of a ...

Another week has completed and I have to say the market performed much better than I anticipated.  What I was clearly unaware of when I wrote last week's summary was that Fed chair Janet Yelled was set to speak in front of the New York Economic Club and that her speech would hold significance to the market and the events that have been transpiring up to that point.  When she spoke, Chairwoman Yellen clearly stated that the jobs report would not be the only thing that needs to be noted in a decision regarding the next rate hike.  The Fed would continue to be cautious, and also pay attention to the varying domestic and global data to key on proper signals to move.  The key word we haven't really heard before was the word 'global.'  It's now recognized the impact we have on the rest of the world, how rate increases impact the exchange rates to the US Dollar, and how it can ripple through the global economy in a powerful fashion.  I'm not here to say wheth...