Just as I was beginning to feel very good about the performance of our portfolios, along comes Allergan. At the close today – about a half hour after the stock started plummeting the news services reported that the FDA had rejected the company’s proposed oral psoriasis drug. Read More

Despite a big drop in Wal-Mart, the overall market finished just a little under water today and indeed recovered from fairly steep early losses. The path of least resistance remains upward. Last Monday we were complaining a bit about the lackluster market breadth during the rally. Read More

Stocks rebounded today after selling off on last week’s dollar scare. At least for the near term we view the weak dollar as more of a positive than a negative and we would not be scared out of stocks because the buck falls.   Read More

The market’s recent rally began a little more than three weeks ago. Then oil prices stood at about $55. In other words, the roughly 15 percent decline in oil prices has coincided with the approximately 8 percent gain in stocks. Every percentage point down in oil has, therefore, translated into about a half percent gain in stocks. Read More

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One of the most depressing things about the election campaign has been the lack of discussion on energy. Indeed, I can’t remember one reference to energy in the three debates – and yes despite being an avid baseball fan I did watch the debates. Read More

The quick and dirty summary is to expect more of the same. The indicators are not good enough to get very excited but still good enough to rule out a major market decline. Our advice is to stay the course. And the course has not been too bad. Year to date our growth portfolio has netted a return of over 6 percent and our income portfolio has done even better racking up a gain of about 8 percent. There may come a time for dramatic changes, but for now we think portfolios diversified with dominant companies and market-beating fundamentals is the way to go. Our short-term Master Key ticked up to 1.35 from its previously neutral reading. While the current reading is hardly something to shout about, it does suggest that last week’s pullback will most likely be followed by another rally attempt. Technically the most outstanding characteristic of the market is the persistently strong market breadth. Our preferred way of measuring market breadth or, more precisely, relative market breadth is by comparing an unweighted average of NYSE stocks with the S&P 500. Historically, there is no example of a major bear market beginning with the unweighted averages far outperforming big caps as is the case today. In your next issue of TCI we have more detailed market bite on this topic. Read More

A quiet holiday Monday on Wall Street—with the bond markets closed—gives way to a busy rest of the week on the earnings front. More than 30 companies in the S&P 500 are set to report earnings this week, including financial bellweather and Income Portfolio recommendation Citigroup. Read More

Sometimes the best thing you can do is kick back and let the market speak. This is one of those times. Stocks, as we have been predicting, are finally making a run at their highs. The action of the past couple of days has taken stocks out of the trading pattern that has prevailed since early March. Read More