Category: General

Ding, Ding, Ding?

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Behold the beauty of this title: Investors Most Optimistic on Stocks in 3-1/2 Years in Poll

I was reviewing this morning’s news items the above headline stuck out like a sore thumb.

A little stroll down memory lane:

In May of 2012 NFTRH 188 used this graph among other indicators to get bullish on a risk vs. reward basis, stating “and then there is this beauty… the dumb money has lurched hard to ‘risk off’.

Smart/Dumb money confidence, May, 2012

I personally took some pretty good grief for writing Dumb Money Sold in May and Went Away over at Contrary Indicator Central – AKA the Seeking Alpha comments system – to the version of the article published at SA.  The most memorable of the responses by defensive bears was “Gary = Dumb Investor”.  I considered these comments to be of great value, because to be an effective contrary market player you must, almost by definition, appear dumb to most people a lot of the time. Continue reading "Ding, Ding, Ding?" →

Stocks mixed as DuPont, J&J report earnings

Posted on by The INO.com Team

U.S. stocks wavered between small gains and losses Tuesday as big companies reported their fourth-quarter financial results.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 19 points to 13,669 as of 12:10 p.m. Eastern time. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose a fraction to 1,486. The Nasdaq composite average dropped seven to 3,127.

Among the Dow components that reported early Tuesday, chemical and bioscience company DuPont reported a sharp drop in income on weakness in its electronics, communications and other businesses, but the results still beat analysts' forecasts and DuPont's stock rose 77 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $47.76.

Johnson & Johnson said higher sales helped boost its profit from a year ago, when results were weighed down by a slew of one-time charges. However, the company's 2013 profit forecast fell short of analysts' estimates. J&J dropped 44 cents to $72.79. Continue reading "Stocks mixed as DuPont, J&J report earnings" →

Gold Chart of The Week

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Each Week Longleaftrading.com will be providing us a chart of the week as analyzed by a member of their team. We hope that you enjoy and learn from this new feature.

Weekly Gold Report (January 21 through January 25)

As we begin this abbreviated week, U.S. markets continue to be the focal point as traders try to plan ahead for a continuation of reported earnings. Additionally, there is expectation that House Republicans are planning to punt the U.S. debt ceiling decision by three months if a few of their demands are also met as a compromise. Overall, I believe most traders (myself included) were delighted to see stability this morning as we won’t soon forget the MLK Day chaos from five years ago, when equities saw unwinding of a massive futures position held by a trader at SocGen. While we all welcome volatility, we also appreciate it in smaller doses!

The bulk of the earnings this week fall in the S&P 500 as just shy of one hundred companies in the index report earnings. Thus far, earnings have been decent as indicated by several closes last week above the prior September chart highs. Be sure to keep an eye on Apple as they report on Wednesday. Despite the fact that it has been on a recent slide, it still commands attention as it hovers the $500 mark. Continue reading "Gold Chart of The Week" →

The Secret Word: Deflation - And the Next Five Years of Financial Turmoil

Posted on by The INO.com Team

The following is a sample from Elliott Wave International's new 40-page report, The State of the Global Markets - 2013 Edition: The Most Important Investment Report

You'll Read This Year. This article was originally published in Robert Prechter's July 2012 Elliott Wave Theorist.

In the first five months of 2012, there were 20 times as many Google searches on "inflation" as there were on "deflation." This is down from a

ratio of 50 times in June 2008. If any theme has been overdone over the past six years, it is the theme of inevitable inflation if not hyperinflation.

Inflation reigned for 75 years, from 1933 to 2008. People are so used to it that they cannot imagine the opposite Continue reading "The Secret Word: Deflation - And the Next Five Years of Financial Turmoil" →

How Green Are Gold's Blue-Chip Mining Stocks?

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Disenchanted with gold's lackadaisical performance over the last year, some investors are losing interest in the equities that are supposed to provide leverage to the metal's price movements. The press has added fuel to the fire by increasingly attacking gold-mining CEOs for rising production costs and weak stock prices. This has driven some investors to pursue ETFs or other vehicles as a replacement for gold stocks, while others have simply thrown their hands up and left the precious-metals space. Is this overreaction or rational decision-making?

We set out to objectively evaluate how gold-mining majors have been performing operationally in the current commodity bull market that started roughly at the beginning of 2002. We compare them against the S&P 500 – the mainstream "blue chip" index – to see if gold miners deserve the beating they've received. We also look at what may lie ahead for one of our favorite subsectors of the gold universe. Continue reading "How Green Are Gold's Blue-Chip Mining Stocks?" →