Tag: Stocks

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Dividend Stocks Due Diligence Earnings Economics Stock Analysis

Soft Lines – The Retail Segment for Early Cycle Moves

This article is brought to you by 3X Trading, a community that highlights experience and expertise of the professionals within. While other groups rely on algorithms or inexperienced traders, 3X relies on its team of seasoned professionals to navigate markets, providing you with analysis, classes, and a personal service to ensure you are always informed and making good trading decisions, for any strategy. Join the Discord server for free and learn from dividend investors and day traders alike. I frequently share analysis and insights throughout the week, so I hope to see you in there! Thank you Discord members @Jenlevit and @Alladin for working on the marketing and the charts of this piece!

Market Cycle

The market is in a weird spot to kick off 2023. So far, this year feels like the inverse of 2022. High inflation, which defined most of the last year, seems to have given way to a narrative of falling inflation. Wages data, small business surveys, CPI, and ISM data (all items we cover regularly on the weekly market recaps) suggest softening.

The graph above is called “The Psychological Pitfalls Of A Market Cycle”. It’s broken up into four distinct areas indicated by the colors. The orange color on the far left is the Mark Up phase of a cycle, next is Distribution, followed by Mark Down, and ending with Accumulation in the dark red before the cycle repeats again with Mark Up.

We have had three consecutive inflation reports that showed no major inflation concerns. In fact, two of those three reports actually contained negative surprises! The Fed on Wednesday acknowledged weakening inflation while also mentioning that they still have work to do. Anyways, it is clear that the market’s narrative has shifted to declining inflation and that the Fed will pivot dovish sooner or later. Therefore, now is a great time to look for some early cycle outperformers.

The Soft Line Industry

Before I dive into why this sector could be good for cycle moves in the near term, lets discuss what soft lines are. If you google what the soft line industry is, you will see a site that says they sell primarily soft merchandise. Not a very helpful explanation, but it is technically correct and is a term that is used in retail quite often.

Soft lines are retailers that sell smaller items that are usually soft. Consumer items like linens, clothing, shoes, bags, towels, mats, pillows, and sometimes even beauty products. These kinds of goods may be called soft items. They are typically more difficult to handle in the supply chain than hard goods. Hard goods are stackable, easy to store, and easy to transport while soft goods need to be packaged carefully, they can wrinkle, they need to be presented aesthetically in stores, and are more sensitive to restocking.

Soft Line – Early Cycle Mover

Now back to the cycle. The uncertain backdrop of the economy appears to be closely tied to the health of the US consumer. With that said, I believe the soft line industry is at an interesting value point. Morgan Stanley’s US Soft Lines Retail Equity Analyst, Alex Straton, called the coming year a ‘tale of two halves’ in a Thoughts on The Market Podcast last week when discussing soft lines.

What they meant by this is that the first half of what retailers are facing is harder expectations from an income statement perspective caused by an ongoing excess inventory overhang (Nike’s large inventory in the end of 2022 is a great example of this) and possible recessionary conditions from a macro perspective. An article from Morgan Stanley claimed that census forecasts for the S&P 500 have earnings growth at almost 4%, this is overly optimistic in their view. Consensus earnings growth expectations specifically for soft lines are even more optimistic at 15%.

These stocks can be moved significantly based on earnings revisions. If we have negative earnings revisions ahead based on the assumption that expectations are unrealistic, it’s likely that the stocks move downwards from here, hitting a bottom sometime in the first half of the year.

The second half of the year presents a very different story – hence the tale of two halves. If earnings revisions/expectations become more realistic, the industry will be in a position to more easily meet top line returns and margins may receive year-over-year relief. This relief may come from falling fright costs, falling price of cotton, promotions, etc. On top of that, as we go through the year, inventory should mostly reach normalization. Lastly, a recovering macro perspective should be more solidified in the second half of the year. With this improving backdrop and the fact that soft lines are early cycle outperformers, they could quickly pivot off the bottom and see gains.

It is impossible to ever call a bottom accurately and consistently on anything. But given the case for the industry turn around as we have laid out, there are a few data points to keep an eye on to help you realize when the time to initiate might be near. The first indication is 2023 guidance, and we should get more information on this in the coming weeks as earnings season continues.

The other item that we will spend more time explaining is inventory levels. Cleaner levels are essential to having a view on how long the margin risk that hit retailers in the second half of 2022 could potentially linger into this year. Last year, there was a lot of market discussion around the inventory problem. It was seen as a key risk to earnings with oversupply and lagging demand creating the perfect storm for pressuring margins.

Today, retailers have made good progress of working down inventory levels in the third quarter of 2022, but there’s still much room to go. Look at the examples below from Tapestry’s ($TPR) Q1 2023 earnings report, Ralph Lauren’s ($RL) Q2 2023 earnings report, Nike’s ($NKE) Q2 2023 earnings report, and VF’s ($VFC) Q2 2023 earnings report. What we would rather see here is that inventory levels are in line with forward sales growth.

How To See The Opportunity

As we look across the soft line space for opportunities to take advantage of for an early cycle move, make sure that you’re sticking to sound fundamental and intangible analysis. What I mean by fundamental is if the company is growing or outperforming (beauty stores like Ulta are a great example of this), look for diversification in selling channels, be aware of company events such as restructuring or leadership changes, understand if their margins reasonable, and look to see if investors are rewarded with buybacks, dividends, and/or sufficient price appreciation. What I mean by intangible is if the company has a strong brand, if the brand has value, if that brand value had an upward trajector, and do the products speak to the consumer.

If you can answer most of these items in a positive light, then you may have located a good company for this early move.

For me, certain subsectors of this industry particularly interest me and others that don’t. One to avoid, in my opinion, is activewear. These items saw strength in Covid as people gained a higher affinity for staying healthy, exercising, and taking care of their bodies. Long term, the category has really nice upside potential, but for the purposes of getting early cycle returns, the lingering strength from Covid may negate the strategy.

My other point is on mid-tier brands vs luxury/high-tier brands. A debate as old as time. I lean high-tier, for a couple of reasons. One is that higher wealth consumers will be less affected by a recession if one happens. The global economy is growing, China is opening, and India looks to be on the verge of its most performative decade ever. These items will boost attention to and desire for world-renown luxury brands. Another point I have is called revenge shopping. The Economist touched on this phenomenon which is where people are more willing to splurge on high-end items currently because they have been pinching pennies and living a stressful life since Covid that they feel they should treat themselves.

My Picks

Having said this, here are a couple of stocks I have my eyes on:

Tapestry ($TPR), the luxury brand company that operates through Coach, Kate Spade, and Stuart Weitzman. P/E ratio of 12.3, pays a 2.57% dividend, and has had decent sales growth over the last five years.

Ralph Lauren Corp. ($RL) sells premium lifestyle products including the well-known Ralph Lauren clothing brand but also sells accessories, home furnishings, and many other soft line products. P/E ratio of 17.3, pays a 2.35% dividend, and has performed great share buybacks of the last 10 years.

Steven Madden Ltd. ($SHOO) designs, markets, and sells fashion-forward footwear through several well-known brands including Steve Madden, Anne Klein, GREATS, and others through wholesale and direct-to-consumer segments. P/E ratio of 11.4, pays a 2.3% dividend, and has shown impressive sales growth over the past decade with the exception of 2020.

Burberry Group PLC ($BURBY) is a holding company that designs, manufactures, and sells apparels and accessories under the luxury Burberry brand. P/E ratio of 21.18, dividend yield of 2% that pays semi-annually, and touts some very stable margins and impressive FCF per share.

I also like Columbia Sportswear ($COLM) but did not dive into them too much as I believe seasonality may dampen the early cycle mover strategy discussed here.

Of these five, I have initiated a small position in Steven Madden Ltd. ($SHOO) and will wait for their earnings report on February 23rd before adding heavy. The reason for this is so that I can get another temperature check on the inventory levels, sales levels, and the margins are trending in the right direction. So far, sales and margins are. Inventory, which is the key, still needs improvement however.

Thank you for reading! If you like pieces like this, follow my Twitter or my CommonStock page where I post updates on the economic data throughout the week. And go check out the 3X discord where I’m actively conversing about ideas like this!

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio Stock Market

Dividend Portfolio: 1/20/2023 Weekly Update (Revision)

It came to my attention that I missed alerting some moves in this portfolio update! I apologize about that. This post is mostly a repost, but it does contain edits to include items that I missed. You can find these in the bolded and italicized font.

Welcome back to the weekly Dividend Dollars portfolio review! This portfolio update is brought to you by Sharesight, a portfolio tracking tool that I am happy to partner with. Their platform makes tracking trading and dividend history, understanding your performance, and saving time a breeze. I wrote a review of the product that you can read here if you’re interested in learning more! Click the link above or the picture below to get a special offer only for Dividend Dollar readers!

Here at Dividend Dollars, our investing approach is a dividend growth strategy with aspects of value investing and fundamental analysis. I am a young investor in my 20’s and by sticking to this strategy over the long term, the magical powers of compounding are on my side. This allows me to more easily build substantial positions in dividend paying stocks over time, which will one day help me reach the ultimate goal of being financially free through the sources of passive income they provide. You can read more about the strategy here. Let’s dive into the portfolio review!

Portfolio Value

To date, I have invested $13,130 into the account the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $13,332.90. That’s a total gain of 1.55%. The account is down $233.43 for the week which is a 1.72% loss.

We started building this portfolio on 9/24/2021 and when compared to the S&P 500 we are outperforming the market so far! Within that same timeframe, the S&P 500 is down -10.84% which puts us 12.39% higher than the market! I love tracking my portfolio against a benchmark like the S&P. The above chart comes from Sharesight which makes portfolio and dividend management a breeze!

We added $120 in cash to the account this week, trades made will be broken out below.

Portfolio

Above is a dashboard of the portfolio that tracks annual dividend income, yield, beta, dividend growth, and more.

Below is a table of everything we are invested in so far. There you can see my number of shares, shares bought through dividend reinvestments, average cost, gains, and more. The tickers in green are positions that I bought shares in this week, the blue ones are positions that I reinvested dividends into, the yellow ones are positions that announced a dividend increase this week, and the red are positions that I trimmed. Our PADI this week decreased from $500 to $505. This is mainly because of a drop in the yearly payout from $XYLG following their most recent dividend declaration.

Dividends

This week I received no dividend, bummer!

In my portfolio, all positions have dividend reinvestment enabled. I don’t hold onto the dividend, I don’t try to time the reinvestment, I just let my broker do it automatically.

Dividends received for 2023: $14.88

Portfolio’s Lifetime Dividends: $425.28

Trades

This was quite a busy week with a large mid-week dip that I took advantage of followed by a sweet two-day rally to leave the market and my portfolio significantly higher.

I made lots of buys in the portfolio on the down-day Wednesday and then a little more on Thursday. Firstly, we initiated a new position in Orsted (which I wrote a brief article on how they are poised to be a huge renewable power player in the North Sea, you can read that here), added to my favorite DCA’s of ALLY, INTC, and BAC, and also executed our weekly $10 adds in SPY, XYLG, & SCHD.

The buys on Wednesday were partially funded by sales in $JNJ and $MDT. Those positions were my only healthcare positions at the time. Though many would argue that both are strong companies and great holds, I personally don’t feel too confident in my knowledge of the sector.

I could go on and on listing the items I am not well-read on, but the main ones are: there are lots of moving parts with regulators, R&D into new drugs and technologies can be risky, patents and their expirations create frequently shifting product portfolios that need to be monitored, and increased political focus on cheaper healthcare. All of these things put the sector above my head. Now this isn’t to say that I won’t ever invest in the sector, I just simply to need to do a bit of research and familiarizing myself before committing to it.

Always invest in what your comfortable with. Take $INTC or $T for example. I’ve been following their business plans for quite some time. I am very familiar with where they’re at and where they’re going as companies. This familiarity gives me conviction and comfort. Because healthcare is pretty foreign to me, I don’t have that and am stepping back from it with these sales.

Lastly, my first covered call on AT&T expired worthless this week giving me a 100% gain on that premium. I will be watching their earnings call next week and will be looking for a spot to write another.

Below is a breakdown of the trades I made this week:

  • January 17th, 2023
    • Orsted ($DNNGY) – added 3 shares at $34.17
  • January 18th, 2023
    • Microsoft ($MSFT) – added 0.14 shares at $240.79
    • Ally Financial ($ALLY) – added 3 shares at 26.84
    • Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ) – sold position of 1 share at $170.63. Loss of $7.85.
    • Medtronic ($MDT) – sold position of 2.016938 shares at $78.87. Gain of $4.26.
    • Bank of America ($BAC) – added 2 shares at $33.72
    • Intel ($INTC) – added 2 shares at $28.77
    • SPDR S&P 500 ETF ($SPY) – added $10 at $394.45 per share (weekly buy)
    • Global X S&P 500 Covered Call & Growth ETF ($XYLG) – added $10 at $25.88 per share (weekly buy)
    • Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF ($SCHD) – added $10 at $76.39 per share (weekly buy)
  • January 19th, 2023
    • Ally Financial ($ALLY) – added 1 share at $25.70
    • Intel ($INTC) – added 1 share at $28.34
    • 3M ($MMM) – added 0.5 shares at $120.20
  • January 20th, 2023
    • Orsted ($SNNGY) – added 1 share at $29.73
    • AT&T ($T) – $20 Covered Call expired, 100% on $3 premium

Next week I will continue to add $10 into each ETF ($SPY, $XYLG, and $SCHD) and will continue to hold onto the rest of my cash if the market gets lower. I have started to slowly deploy that cash in case a bottom has already been hit, but only time will tell. I really want to deploy this cash position into $CMCSA, and $INTC to build 100 share positions in them for covered call activities.

Summary

That is it for the update this week. The market recap and outlook for this wild week will be posted on Saturday, so make sure to have the site bookmarked or subscribe via email on the homepage!

Let me know what you think of the progress so far, share with me your progress and questions, interact with me on twitter and Instagram using the links below!

Thank you for reading! See you next week and stay safe!

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Dividend Stocks Earnings Stock Analysis

Comcast ($CMCSA) Q4 2022 Earnings – Mixed Earnings but a Light Is At The End of the Tunnel

This earnings break down is brought to you by 3X Trading, a community that highlights experience and expertise of the professional within. While other groups relay on algorithms or inexperienced traders, 3X relies on its team of seasoned professionals to navigate markets, providing you with analysis, classes, and a personal service to ensure they are always informed and making good trading decisions, for any strategy. Join the Discord server for free and learn from dividend investors and day traders alike. I frequently share analysis and insights throughout the week, so I hope to see you in there!

Summary

On Thursday, 1/26/2023, Comcast ($CMCSA) reported fourth quarter earnings that beat most expectations despite a lack of strength in subscriber growth and losses from Peacock (their streaming service).

Performance

Earnings per share came in at $0.82 for the quarter, beating expectations of $0.77 by 6.4%. Revenues came in at $30.6B beating expectations of $30.4B and a previous quarter of $29.8B. Good news so far!

Unfortunately, Adjusted EBITDA fell by 15% to $8B from $9.5B from the prior quarter. This was mostly due to higher severance expenses as hinted at by CFO Mike Cavanagh in the third quarter call. He said, “As we enter the fourth quarter and look to our year ahead, we remain focused on driving long-term growth during an increasingly challenged economic environment… We expect we will be taking severance and other cost reduction-related charges in the fourth quarter in anticipation of expense reduction actions that will provide benefits in 2023 and beyond.”

Cable Communications

Comcast report 26,000 lost broadband customers for the quarter, attributing impact to Hurricane Ian which hit Florida and South Carolina in September. The hurricane caused severe damage and losses to the homes of subscribers. When looking at total customer relationships, the firm estimates the total number decreased by 36,000 and broadband increased by 4,000 when excluding the effects of the hurricane.

Though subscribers are growing, the pace has slowed compared to quarters prior to Covid. Competition from telecom and wireless providers are growing, and a housing slowdown in the US contributes to a lack of new customers as the shift to new homes. Total customer relationships of 34.3M increased slightly form 34.2M last year.

Comcast’s wireless segment, Xfinity, added 365,000 customers in the quarter, brining the total subscriber base to over 5.3M. Wireless customer growth has been consistent since jumping into the business in recent years. This was offset by a loss of 440,000 cable video subscribers as customers continue to cut traditional TV bundles in favor of streaming.

NBCUniversal

NBCUniversal is the business segment that contains the media (cable, streaming, and related advertising figures), studios (movie studios such as Universal Pictures, Dreamworks, and Focus Features) , and theme parks (5 Universal Parks and Resorts) businesses.

Revenues for Universal were up about 3% from the prior quarter to $9.8B. Revenues was boosted by the 2022 FIFA World Cup which aired on Peacock and their Spanish-language network Telemundo.

Though overall results are good, Peacock has continued to weigh on the business. Adjusted earnings fell by nearly 50% to $817M due to Peacock losses and severance expenses. $978M of that is attributed to Peacock losses compared to a loss of $614M last quarter.

This quarter, Peacock added 5M new paying Peacock customers to the subscriber base, brining the total number to 20 million. This increase could be attributed to the World Cup, football season, and English Premiere League. The company remains committed to earning a return on their Peacock investment, though next year doesn’t look like the year for it. Overall, Peacock’s losses for the year of $2.5B were in line with the company’s earlier outlook. Next year, Michael Cavanagh says they expect losses to be near $3B.

Theme parks remained a bright spot for the segment this quarter with $2.1B in revenue, right behind the studios revenue of $2.7B. Studios revenues were actually down compared to last quarter, however the segment ended the year strong with a #2 rank in the world wide box office for year thanks to movies like Jurassic World: Dominion and Puss In Boots: The Last Wish.

Sky

Lastly, Sky, the segment that holds one of Europe’s leading media and entertainment companies, reported 129,000 net customer additions. This was reflected in a revenue growth of $163M compared to last quarter. For the year, Sky revenues decreased 11.5% to $17.9B. When excluding the impact of currency, revenue only decreased $1.2%, highlighting the segment’s sensitivity to exchange rates.

Final Thoughts

These 4th quarter results won’t change any negative sentiment around the company, but it’s a step in the right direction. Broadband customer growth is still anemic. I believe the lack of growth in the broadband service is mostly an economic one. Comcast is well positioned to combat competition and maintain pricing power. Broadband business lost customers this quarter for the first time. Average revenue per customer, however, grew 3.5% year over year. The cable segments’s EBITDA margin was flat versus last year, but would have hit a record 45% if the higher severance costs hadn’t hit.

Peacock showed better growth this quarter with 5 million net adds, but still reported a loss, crushing the margins of the Universal segment. Universal faces more challenges, but a rebound in theme parks and the growth in Peacock is a good step in the right direction.

Free cash flows took a hit for the year, dropping to $12.6B from $17.1B. Expenditures were heavily tied to a rebound in content and higher cash taxes. Both items should show less of an impact for 2023. The company’s balance sheet is strong and has allowed the company to raise its dividend by 7.4% to $1.16 for 2023, their 15th consecutive increase. Approximately $17.7B was returned to shareholders this year through $4.7B in dividends and $13B in share buybacks.

Overall, $CMCSA still looks undervalued to me. It has the stability of a telecom stock with it’s focus on broadband, has potential growth aspects of similar streaming companies with Peacock, an impressive ability to bring in revenues at the box office, and a knack for stretching profits out of popular franchises with a growing theme park business. All of these items make them a diversified company that is hard to compete with and an attractive opportunity for long-term investors.

All information provided is available on Comcast’s Earnings page with access to the earnings releases, presentations, and transcripts. Both the Q3 and Q4 2022 earnings materials were used in this article.

Categories
Earnings Economics Market Recap Market Update Resources Stock Market

Stock Market Recap & Outlook (1/27/23) – Earnings and Core PCE

This weekly market recap is brought to you by Koyfin, a powerful analytical tool that I am proud to partner with. Their platform is entirely customizable for whatever data you want to look at including stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, currencies, economic data releases (one of my personal favorites used often for these posts), crypto, and even transcripts of company events! Click the link above to get a special offer only for Dividend Dollar readers or go give my product review a read if you’re interested!

Weekly Market Review

The January rally carried on as investors received more market-moving earnings results and data releases this week. The positive bias had the S&P 500 get back above its 200-day moving average and stay there all week.

Things got started on an upbeat note on Monday after an article by Nick Timiraos (chief economics correspondent for WSJ and Fed’s assumed preferred source for divulging information to)  highlighted the possibility of the Fed pausing its rate hikes this spring.

Monday also brought us a survey of businesses by the NABE that conveyed a lower possibility (56% vs nearly two-thirds before) of the U.S. being in a recession or entering one.

The market hit a speed bump on Tuesday with a lot of divergent stock prices for a number of NYSE-listed stocks including Morgan Stanley ($MS), AT&T ($T), Verizon ($VZ), Nike ($NKE) and more. The abnormality quickly led to volatility halts brining many of us to wonder what was going on. The official explanation turned out to be an “exchange-related issue.” The issue seemed to be resolved quickly with announcements of some trades will be declared null.

Defense-related companies Lockheed Martin ($LMT) and Raytheon Technologies ($RTX) reported positive quarterly results.

Market strength was offset by some disappointing earnings/guidance from the likes of  Verizon ($VZ), 3M ($MMM), Union Pacific ($UNP), and General Electric ($GE), along with the news that the U.S. filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google over alleged dominance in digital advertising.

Price action on Wednesday was integral to keeping the rally alive this week. Valuation concerns from Microsoft’s ($MSFT) disappointing fiscal Q3 outlook and expected growth deceleration for its Azure business fueled a broad retreat to kick off the session.

Investors also had a negative reaction initially to results and/or guidance from the likes of Dow component Boeing ($BA), Texas Instruments ($TXN), Kimberly-Clark ($KMB), and Norfolk Southern ($NSC).

Buyers showed up quickly after the S&P 500 dipped below its 200-day moving average to push the market higher. Most stocks either narrowed their losses or completely recovered and closed the session with a gain.

After the strong reversal on Wednesday, Tesla ($TSLA) reported strong quarterly results and outlook, which helped the rebound in the mega cap space, and Chevron ($CVX) announced a massive $75 billion stock repurchase program announcement.

There was also a number of positive data releases Thursday that helped support a positive bias. The Advance Q4 GDP Report increased at an annual rate of 2.9% in the fourth quarter of 2022. The second estimate will be released towards the end of February.

Weekly initial jobless claims unexpectedly decreased by 6,000 compared to the previous week. The current level of 186,000 is well below the 4-week moving average of 197,500.

December durable goods orders came in better than expected, as well. Orders increased 5.6% month over month to $286.9B versus an estimated 2.5%. This is especially a good reading compared to a -1.7% decrease from revised numbers last month. Excluding defense, the durable goods orders were up 6.3% for the month. Inventories, up for 23 consecutive months at this point, increase again by 0.7%.

The rally effort continued on Friday despite Intel ($INTC) reporting ugly results and guidance, KLA Corp. ($KLAC) issuing below-consensus guidance, Chevron ($CVX) missing on earnings estimates, and Hasbro ($HAS) issuing a Q4 profit warning.

On Friday, the PCE Price Index was released. Results were up 0.1% month-over-month while the core-PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, was up 0.3%, as expected. That left the year-over-year changes at 5.0% and 4.4%, respectively, versus 5.5% and 4.7% in November.

There was a sharp pullback before Friday’s close, as people took money off of the table heading into a big week of earnings next week from Alphabet ($GOOG), Apple ($AAPL), Amazon ($AMZN), and Meta. Other catalysts include the FOMC decision and the January Employment Report.

Only two S&P 500 sectors registered losses this week — utilities (-0.5%) and health care (-0.9%) — while the consumer discretionary (+6.4%), information technology (+4.1%), and communication services (+3.3%) sectors led the outperformers.

 

Dividend Dollars’ Outlook & Opinion

That’s it for the recap. Now for my opinion!

As mentioned in the last market update, I was expecting a red week this week and people took money off the table leading into an earnings heavy week. My other, less anticipated call, was that stocks could break above the downtrend line. This was the outcome to took precedent.

Stocks looked to trend higher this week and was supported by better than feared (notice the “better than feared” vs “better than expected” clarification was intentional) earnings reports and economic data! No data report this week was too good or too bad, and more items like this support the chance of an actual soft landing for the economy. We will have a better feeling for this next week after the FOMC meeting, but in the meantime bias is positive.

147 of the S&P 500 companies have released earnings so far. 50% have beat on top line expectations and 69% have beat on bottom line. The 50% beat rate, should it hold, would be the lowest top line rate since before the pandemic. Next week is a big earnings week and will give us more information on potential earnings recession. This information is tracked using MarketBeat.

 The S&P chart has turned bullish as the market pushed above the downtrend and put some space between price and the SMA 200. We have had the highest number of daily closes above the 200 day SMA in 2023 so far since last spring. The next level I see is around 4,080 that has rejected three times.

Similarly, the Nasdaq Composite index has a level a 11,617 to get over. It is also approaching the change to break above the 200 day SMA for the first time in a year. Additionally, the index is above is 11,500 resistance level. It looks bullish but the coming earnings from mega-cap tech names have the potential to move it.

Overall, stocks are riding recent bullish momentum and are being supported by technical developments. The market appears to be hopeful that the Fed will show a less aggressive stance on rates. We have seen this optimism in the past before, but we haven’t seen the Fed move into a stock friendly stance. Maybe that happens at the next meeting, maybe we get more information on potential rate hike path.

We will see what happens with the Fed next week and will have a better feel  of what’s going on in tech. With VIX as low as it is, a slurry of stocks reaching 52 week highs, decent earnings and data, the bulls appear to be in control for the near term. Potential for volatility next week is high. I think the market is moderately bullish in the first of the week then could be volatile in either direction depending on those factors.

That’s it for my recap! If you would like to see how I am building my dividend portfolio using my predictions/strategy written here, you can read about my buys in my weekly portfolio update on this link.

And if you like updates like this, follow my Twitter or my CommonStock page where I post updates on the economic data throughout the week.

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Earnings Economics Market Recap Market Update Stock Market

Stock Market Recap & Outlook (1/20/22) – PPI and Earnings Brings a Whipped Week

This weekly market recap is brought to you by Koyfin, a powerful analytical tool that I am proud to partner with. Their platform is entirely customizable for whatever data you want to look at including stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, currencies, economic data releases (one of my personal favorites used often for these posts), crypto, and even transcripts of company events! Click the link above to get a special offer only for Dividend Dollar readers or go give my product review a read if you’re interested!

Weekly Review

The 2023 rally hit a speedbump week as investors may have been looking to take some money off the table after the gains from the last two weeks. Growth and rate hike concerns, which had been put on the backburner to start the year, seemed to be back in play. 

Early on Wednesday, the market initially reacted positively to the slowdown in inflation reflected in the December Producer Price Index (PPI) of -0.5% that beat expectations by 0.4%. Any optimism that may have come from the pleasing PPI report quickly faded as weak retail sales and manufacturing data was released thereafter.

Retail sales fell 1.1% month-over-month in December compared to expectations of -0.8%. This comes off of a revised 1.0% fall in November.

Industrial production fell 0.7% month-over-month in December compared to a -0.1% expectation. This, also, comes off a revised decrease to 0.6% for November.

Following these releases, the main indices sold off on Wednesday. Selling efforts had the S&P 500 take out support at its 200-day moving average. It could be argued that data is suggesting that the Fed is likely to remain on its rate hike path in spite of a weakening economic backdrop, increasing the risk for a policy mistake to trigger a deeper setback and therefor increasing the selling efforts.

Market participants also received official commentary on the economy when the FOMC released its latest Beige Book on Wednesday afternoon. “On balance, contacts generally expected little growth in the months ahead.”

St. Louis Fed President Bullard (non-FOMC voter) added fueled the market’s concerns saying that he would prefer that the Fed stay on a more aggressive path but added that the prospects for a soft landing have improved.

Thursday’s trade, a mostly choppy and sideways day, looked a lot like Wednesday’s trade with investors reacting to more data and commentary pointing towards weakening growth and the possibility of the Fed making a policy mistake.

Building permits decreased for the third consecutive month in December to 1.330 million. One surprising positive note out of the report was that single-family starts grew 11.3% month-over-month.

Weekly initial claims were released at the same time, which decreased to 190,000, their lowest level since late September. There are no major weaknesses in the labor market that could put a stop to the Fed’s hiking path.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said in an interview Thursday morning “I think there’s a lot of underlying inflation, which won’t go away so quick,” adding that he thinks rates will top 5.0%.

As earnings season progresses, the main concern for the market is the potential that weaker growth will translate to cuts in earnings estimates and downward guidance.

Goldman Sachs ($GS) sold off sharply on Tuesday after reporting below-consensus earnings (Actual EPS 3.32 vs 5.77 Average Estimate) and revenue (Actual 10.59B vs 10.91 Average Estimate), along with increased provisions for credit losses.

So far, however, quarterly results have generally received positive reactions from investors. In contrast to Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley ($MS) received a positive reaction despite a Q4 earnings miss.

Another notable earnings report was Netflix ($NFLX), which surged 8.5% on Friday and led to interest in the tech/growth space. It felt like this pushed a sentiment shift and produced the rally effort on Friday.

The rebound effort to close out the week had the Nasdaq Composite recoup all of its losses while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average put a nice dent in their weekly losses. The S&P 500 was able to climb back above its 200-day moving average by Friday’s close.

Only three S&P 500 sectors were green this week — communication services (+3.0%), energy (+0.7%), and information technology (+0.7%) — while the industrials (-3.4%), utilities (-2.9%), and consumer staples (-2.9%) sectors had the largest losses.

The 2-yr Treasury note yield fell two basis points this week to 4.20% and the 10-yr note yield fell three basis points to 3.48%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.2% to 101.99.

WTI crude oil futures rose 2.3% to $81.69/bbl and natural gas futures fell 5.3% to $3.03/mmbtu.

Separately, Treasury Secretary Yellen notified Congress via a letter that the debt ceiling has been reached, prompting the Treasury Department to begin employing extraordinary measures.

Dividend Dollars’ Outlook & Opinion

That’s it for the recap. Now for my opinion!

As I mentioned in the last market update, I predicted a red week this week but that we wouldn’t break below the 100 day SMA. I was correct, but I was not expecting a rally as strong as we got on Friday. After rejecting against the downtrend line and falling under it, we only stayed there for a day before trying again. Truly some wild price action!

My main reason for predicting this is due to my assumption that quarterly earnings this season will show slowing growth. Earnings so far has been mixed, but that slowing growth is starting to as we get deeping into this earnings season. This week 26 companies in the S&P 500 reporting earnings, 15 of them beat consensus EPS expectations. 55 companies of the 500 have reported Q4 results so far and have beaten EPS 69% of the time and revenue estimated 55% of the time.

Year over year, Q4 earnings are -4.5% lower versus a -4.1% estimated from Schwab Managing Director of Trading and Derivatives. Revenues are +7.4% higher year over year versus a 3.8% estimate.

Though there was lots to talk about, this week was a moderate week for economic data materially. The key was the inflation report in PPI which eased quite a bit, it pushed the market higher very briefly before falling down sharply. A slowdown in inflation should be great news for markets since it means the Fed’s rate hikes are having effects. So that brief downturn (and the sideways movement following the CPI) doesn’t make much sense to me, unless you believe inflation expectations were already baked in.

So I believe the movement was mainly a technical one as we rejected hard off the strong downtrend line. After pushing higher through the 50 day SMA last week (dark blue line), the market stalled at the convergence of the 200 day SMA (white line) and the downtrend. The market has failed to break above that line 5 times now.

Given how firmly that line has held, I believe a significant breakthrough above it will be needed before the beginning of the next longer-term uptrend. And next week could be the deciding week for that! Next week is the biggest week for earnings in this earnings season so far.

SPX open interest change for the past week was larger to the put site (call OI +3.0% and put OI +4.4%) as was the aggregate changes in exchange traded products (includes SPY, QQQ, DIA, etc.). This could be interpreted to be bearish. However, open interest participation as a whole is +19.2% greater than 2022 levels which may be bullish for the long term. VIX levels seem neutral in the near-term, however, the VIX IV Gap is lower is moderately bullish.

Price action through Wednesday should be mostly indicative of only earnings releases as there are no noteworthy economic reports through then and the indicators mentioned above are a bit mixed. Thursday brings us the first estimate of GDP for Q4 and durable goods orders for December, both of which can cause a market reaction. Then Friday does a one up and brings us the Core PCE reading for December and a sentiment report for January.

This PCE report is about the only item left that could affect the outcome of the next Fed rate hike, which I predict to be 0.25%, but those results would have to be extremely significant to even put a 0.50% rate hike on the table.

I’m thinking risk off continues into next week after a possible brief approach up to the downtrend line again followed by a rejection down. However, be ready flip sides if earnings beats are common next week as that may be push strong enough to break above. And if we break above its off to the races.

That’s it for my recap! If you would like to see how I am building my dividend portfolio using my predictions/strategy written here, you can read about my buys in my weekly portfolio update on this link.

And if you like updates like this, follow my Twitter or my CommonStock page where I post updates on the economic data throughout the week.

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Dividend Stocks Dividends Portfolio Stock Market

Dividend Portfolio: 1/20/2023 Weekly Update

Welcome back to the weekly Dividend Dollars portfolio review! This portfolio update is brought to you by Sharesight, a portfolio tracking tool that I am happy to partner with. Their platform makes tracking trading and dividend history, understanding your performance, and saving time a breeze. I wrote a review of the product that you can read here if you’re interested in learning more! Click the link above or the picture below to get a special offer only for Dividend Dollar readers!

Here at Dividend Dollars, our investing approach is a dividend growth strategy with aspects of value investing and fundamental analysis. I am a young investor in my 20’s and by sticking to this strategy over the long term, the magical powers of compounding are on my side. This allows me to more easily build substantial positions in dividend paying stocks over time, which will one day help me reach the ultimate goal of being financially free through the sources of passive income they provide. You can read more about the strategy here. Let’s dive into the portfolio review!

Portfolio Value

To date, I have invested $13,130 into the account the total value of all positions plus any cash on hand is $13,332.90. That’s a total gain of 1.55%. The account is down $233.43 for the week which is a 1.72% loss.

We started building this portfolio on 9/24/2021 and when compared to the S&P 500 we are outperforming the market so far! Within that same timeframe, the S&P 500 is down -10.84% which puts us 12.39% higher than the market! I love tracking my portfolio against a benchmark like the S&P. The above chart comes from Sharesight which makes portfolio and dividend management a breeze!

We added $120 in cash to the account this week, trades made will be broken out below.

Portfolio

Above is a dashboard of the portfolio that tracks annual dividend income, yield, beta, dividend growth, and more.

Below is a table of everything we are invested in so far. There you can see my number of shares, shares bought through dividend reinvestments, average cost, gains, and more. The tickers in green are positions that I bought shares in this week, the blue ones are positions that I reinvested dividends into, the yellow ones are positions that announced a dividend increase this week, and the red are positions that I trimmed. Our PADI this week decreased from $500 to $505. This is mainly because of a drop in the yearly payout from $XYLG following their most recent dividend declaration.

Dividends

This week I received no dividend, bummer!

In my portfolio, all positions have dividend reinvestment enabled. I don’t hold onto the dividend, I don’t try to time the reinvestment, I just let my broker do it automatically.

Dividends received for 2023: $14.88

Portfolio’s Lifetime Dividends: $425.28

Trades

This was quite a busy week with a large mid-week dip that I took advantage of followed by a sweet two-day rally to leave the market and my portfolio significantly higher.

I made lots of buys in the portfolio on the down-day Wednesday and then a little more on Thursday. Firstly, we initiated a new position in Orsted (which I wrote a brief article on how they are poised to be a huge renewable power player in the North Sea, you can read that here), add to my favorite DCA’s of ALLY, INTC, and BAC, and also executed our weekly $10 adds in SPY, XYLG, & SCHD.

Lastly, my first covered call on AT&T expired worthless this week giving me a 100% gain on that premium. I will be watching their earnings call next week and will be looking for a spot to write another.

Below is a breakdown of the trades I made this week:

  • January 17th, 2023
    • Orsted ($DNNGY) – added 3 shares at $34.17
  • January 18th, 2023
    • Microsoft ($MSFT) – added 0.14 shares at $240.79
    • Ally Financial ($ALLY) – added 3 shares at 26.84
    • Bank of America ($BAC) – added 2 shares at $33.72
    • Intel ($INTC) – added 2 shares at $28.77
    • SPDR S&P 500 ETF ($SPY) – added $10 at $394.45 per share (weekly buy)
    • Global X S&P 500 Covered Call & Growth ETF ($XYLG) – added $10 at $25.88 per share (weekly buy)
    • Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF ($SCHD) – added $10 at $76.39 per share (weekly buy)
  • January 19th, 2023
    • Ally Financial ($ALLY) – added 1 share at $25.70
    • Intel ($INTC) – added 1 share at $28.34
    • 3M ($MMM) – added 0.5 shares at $120.20
  • January 20th, 2023
    • Orsted ($SNNGY) – added 1 share at $29.73
    • AT&T ($T) – $20 Covered Call expired, 100% on $3 premium

Next week I will continue to add $10 into each ETF ($SPY, $XYLG, and $SCHD) and will continue to hold onto the rest of my cash if the market gets lower. I have started to slowly deploy that cash in case a bottom has already been hit, but only time will tell. I really want to deploy this cash position into $CMCSA, and $INTC to build 100 share positions in them for covered call activities.

Summary

That is it for the update this week. The market recap and outlook for this wild week will be posted on Saturday, so make sure to have the site bookmarked or subscribe via email on the homepage!

Let me know what you think of the progress so far, share with me your progress and questions, interact with me on twitter and Instagram using the links below!

Thank you for reading! See you next week and stay safe!

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Earnings Economics Market Recap Market Update Stock Market

Stock Market Recap & Outlook (1/13/22) – CPI Report & Q4 Earnings Kicks Off

Apologies for missing the review last week, travel makes it hard! We are back and don’t have any more plans for a little while, so writing mode is fully engaged!

Anyways, this weekly market recap is brought to you by Koyfin, a powerful analytical tool that I am proud to partner with. Their platform is entirely customizable for whatever data you want to look at including stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, currencies, economic data releases (one of my personal favorites used often for these posts), crypto, and even transcripts of company events! Click the link above to get a special offer only for Dividend Dollar readers or go give my product review a read if you’re interested!

Weekly Review

The stock market decided to keep the heat on high for the second week of 2023. We logged decent gains on the basis that the Fed won’t have to raise rates as much as feared and that the U.S. economy may see a “soft landing” after all.

The first half of the week was a snooze-fest, as most traders were waiting for Fed Chair Powell’s speech on Tuesday, the December Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Thursday, and bank earnings reports on Friday that marked the official start to the Q4 earnings reporting season.

Fed Chair Powell gave a speech titled “Central Bank Independence” Tuesday morning. Powell’s speech made no mention of any kind of policy that would harm markets, he did, however, acknowledge that, “…restoring price stability when inflation is high can require measures that are not popular in the short term as we raise rates to slow the economy.”

The latter point notwithstanding, the S&P 500 was able to close above technical resistance at its 50-day moving average.

By Thursday’s open, the market had received the much anticipated CPI report. It was in-line with the market’s hopeful expectations that it would show continued disinflation in total CPI (from 7.1% year/year to 6.5%) and core CPI (from 6.0% year/year to 5.7%).

Those were pleasing headline numbers, but it is worth noting that services inflation, which the Fed watches closely, did not improve and rose to 7.5% year/year from 7.2% in November.

That understanding did not seem to hold back the stock or bond market. After a brief dip, the price action on Thursday generally supported the view that the Fed will pause its rate hikes sooner rather than later. In fact, the fed funds futures market now prices in a 67.0% probability of the target range for the fed funds rate peaking at 4.75-5.00% in May versus 55.2% a week ago, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

The move up in the stock market was particularly notable considering the big move leading up to the CPI report. The S&P 500 was up 3.7% for the year entering Thursday and up 4.4% from its low of 3,802 on January 5.

Ahead of the open on Friday, the market gave back some gains and featured a series of mixed quarterly earnings from Bank of America ($BAC), JPMorgan Chase ($JPM), Wells Fargo ($WFC), and Citigroup ($C). Those stocks languished out of the gate due to higher-than-expected credit loss provisions. But true to form for 2023 so far, buyers returned and bought the weakness. Before long the bank stocks were back in positive territory and so was the broader market.

The S&P 500 moved above its 200-day moving average (3,981) on the rebound trade and closed the week a whisker shy of 4,000.

Only one of the S&P 500 sectors closed with a loss this week: consumer defensive (-0.74%) — while the heavily weighted consumer cyclical (+5.94%) and information technology (+5.58%) sectors logged the biggest gains.

The 2-yr Treasury note yield fell five basis points to 4.22% and the 10-yr note yield fell six basis points to 3.51%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 1.6% this week to 102.18.

WTI crude oil futures made strides to the upside this week rising 8.5% to $80.06/bbl. Natural gas futures fell 4.8% to $3.23/mmbtu.

Dividend Dollars’ Opinion

That’s it for the recap. Now for my opinion!

As I mentioned in the last market update, after basing around the 3,825 level for a while, the next move was a significant one. I expected that dip buyers would step in with tax loss harvesting over, earnings season approaching, and the next rate hike still a few weeks away.

I said, “they could push the market higher for next week, or even the week after that” and that’s exactly what’s happened! The January Effect is in full swing. Last week I was correct in not expecting any major move in one direction or the other.

I predicted a short-term bounce before drawbacks are caused by possible earnings disappointments, the next rate hikes, and key economic data misses. We saw this week that two of those items are losing steam.

The CPI report showed that falling inflation is confirmed, but not overly impressive.

Then, the banks kicked off earnings. Even though they beat expectations, their results were a mixed bag. But weren’t enough to push the market lower. Many more key earnings are to come, but if the banks were any indication, this earnings season may not be the “make it or break it season”.

So far, 6% of companies in the S&P 500 have reported Q4 results with an 86% beat on EPS and 57% beat on revenue. The earnings so far show 4% growth on a year-over-year basis compared to a -4.1% estimated when Q4 ended. The season is still early, so let’s not extrapolate on these results too much. Rather, lets look at the technicals!

A lot has changed since the last time we did weekly update. The bear market low is still intact and 4,292 is the target for a new bull market to start. These two items are now -10% and +8% away from the current level.

For weeks I have been pointing out the resistance at the 50-day SMA (dark blue line) and the 100-day SMA (light blue line), the market finally broke above them. It did not take long for the next level, the 200-day SMA (white line), to come into play. Our last daily candle still encompasses the line, which is not yet a clean break. This line also converges with long-term downtrend area that began at the last all time high. The prior four failures at this level suggests it won’t be easy to break.

I think we have seen the short-term bounce that I last wrote about. This resistance we are heading into is the mother-of-all-resistance! Bargain buyers came in strong in the first two weeks of 2023, but steam may run out soon if earnings season disappoints and resistance proves heavy. I wouldn’t be surprised to see profit taking, and a red week next week, but I don’t believe we will fall under the 100 SMA now turned support.

That’s it for my recap! If you would like to see how I am building my dividend portfolio using my predictions/strategy written here, you can read about my buys in my weekly portfolio update on this link.

And if you like updates like this, follow my Twitter or my CommonStock page where I post updates on the economic data throughout the week.

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Economics Market Recap Market Update Stock Market

Stock Market Week in Review (12/30/22) – 2022 End Without a Bang

This weekly market recap is brought to you by Koyfin, a powerful analytical tool that I am proud to partner with. Their platform is entirely customizable for whatever data you want to look at including stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, currencies, economic data releases (one of my personal favorites used often for these posts), crypto, and even transcripts of company events! Click the link above to get a special offer only for Dividend Dollar readers or go give my product review a read if you’re interested!

Weekly Review

The last week of 2022 shaped up to be a disappointing one, similar to the whole of the year. With all the major indices finishing the year off quite lower than where they started. The S&P 500 ended down 18.2%, The Nasdaq 100 ended down 33.6%, and the Dow Jones Industrials ended down 8.6% .

The Santa Clause Rally never really seemed to kick off and Q3 earnings season is now over, with the next not starting for about two more weeks.

The major indices remained under pressure from continued weakness in some of the most beaten-up names this year. Specifically, mega cap losses accelerated this week on lingering valuation concerns and presumably tax-loss selling activity by participants who bought into the seemingly invincible stocks last year.

Some of the mega cap names aren’t so “mega” any more given the massive loss in market capitalization they have suffered this year. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF $MGK fell  0.3% this week and 34.0% for the year.

The Santa Claus rally period, which is the last five trading days of the year and the first two trading sessions of the new year, has gotten off to an uneven start. It is believed to be a good sign for how the new year will start when this period produces a cumulative gain over that stretch. 2022 was a definite exception to that belief. Recall that the 2021 Santa Claus rally produced a net gain of 1.4% for the S&P 500 and yet the S&P 500 declined 5.3% this January and 5.0% in the first quarter.

It looked like Santa Claus might come charging to town following Thursday’s rally. The S&P 500 closed the session just a whisker below the 3,850 level, where it has remained since mid-December, but then backed off again in Friday’s trade.

When this year’s Santa Claus rally period began, the S&P 500 stood at 3,822.39. The S&P 500 closed Friday’s session at 3839.50 after visiting the 3,800 level.

It was also a disappointing week in the Treasury market. The 2-yr note yield rose 10 basis points to 4.42% and the 10-yr note yield rose 13 basis points to 3.88%.

The bump in yields was another headwind for equities, particularly the growth stocks, which was the case all year. The Russell 3000 Growth Index fell 0.3% this week, and 29.6% for the year, versus the Russell 3000 Value Index which rose 0.1% this week and fell 10.1% for the year.

Separately, Southwest Air $LUV was an individual story stock of note after the airline canceled thousands of flights due to the winter storm. Tesla $TSLA was another focal point, trading in roller-coaster fashion. The stock hit 108.76 at its low on Tuesday, leaving it down 69.0% for the year, but managed to rebound and hit a high of 124.48 in Friday’s trade.

Only 3 of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed with a gain this week in thin trading conditions. The financials sector rose 0.74%, the energy sector rose 0.47%, aided by a bump in oil prices above $80.00/bbl, and the communication sector rose 0.40%. Meanwhile, the materials and consumer staples sectors were the worst performers with losses of 1.07% and 0.84%, respectively.

The economic calendar was light on major releases this week. Featured reports included the November Pending Home Sale Index, which declined 4.0%, and continuing jobless claims for the week ending December 17, which hit their highest level since February (1.710 million). Next week will see many major releases that includes the December ISM Manufacturing Index, the December Employment Situation Report, and the December ISM Non-Manufacturing Index.

Dividend Dollars’ Opinion

That’s it for the recap. Now for my opinion!

Last week I was correct in not expecting any major move in one direction or the other. The SPX ended only 6 points lower this week than where it ended last week!

It appears that the Bear Market level is being confirmed as a key level of resistance. And with all major moving averages above the that level, there is not much happening in form of support below our level.

We have been basing at this level for 8 days, which makes me think the next move in either direction will be a significant one.

With the next earnings season still two weeks away and the next rate hike still about four weeks away, the dip buyers are likely to step in again, now that the tax-loss harvesting season has ended. Most people like to buy things when they are on sale, and right now the SPX is 20% off.

Data releases on the ISM Index and Unemployment next week could be the items that have the largest impact.

January will be the month the watch for next year. Given the end of tax-loss harvesting and the fact that we are a few weeks away from key economic data releases and the next Fed hike, I think bargain buyers could push the market higher for next week, or even the week after that putting the January Effect in full swing.

The January Barometer also shows that January overall will be the month to watch. The barometer is: If the Standard & Poor’s 500 market index ends January higher than it started, the rest of the year will follow suit, and vice versa. the January Barometer has registered only 11 errors between 1950 and 2021, giving the indicator an accuracy ratio of 84.5%.

With all of that in mind, I think we see a short-term bounce before possible drawbacks caused by earnings disappointments, Fed hike, and other key economic data bring the market down to a lower level in January.

That’s it for my recap! If you would like to see how I am building my dividend portfolio using my predictions/strategy written here, you can read about my buys in my weekly portfolio update on this link.

And if you like updates like this, follow my Twitter or my CommonStock page where I post updates on the economic data throughout the week.

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Economics Market Recap Market Update Stock Market Strategy

Stock Market Week in Review (12/23/22) – A Weak Week to Lead Us Into The “Santa Rally”

This weekly market recap is brought to you by Koyfin, a powerful analytical tool that I am proud to partner with. Their platform is entirely customizable for whatever data you want to look at including stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, currencies, economic data releases (one of my personal favorites used often for these posts), crypto, and even transcripts of company events! Click the link above to get a special offer only for Dividend Dollar readers or go give my product review a read if you’re interested!

Weekly Review

Well, this was a disappointing week, and one that solidifies the absence of a Santa Clause Rally to end the year. The S&P 500, which touched 4,100 last Tuesday, was drawn to the 3,800 level all week which proved to be a key support area.

With tax loss harvesting likely to be beginning and with sentiment falling over all due to 2023 earnings estimates feeling too high, the market was lower this week. Many analysts suggest downward earnings revisions in the coming weeks and months as the economic environment shifts.

The week started on a weaker note as the market digested a weaker-than-expected NAHB Housing Market Index report for December on Monday.

Treasury markets moved on a surprise policy change from the Bank of Japan (BOJ) on Tuesday. The BOJ announced a change to its yield curve control (YCC) policy to allow the 10-yr JGB yield to move +/- 50 basis points from 0.00% versus its prior band of +/- 25 basis points as part of an effort “to improve market functioning.”

This announcement, which came in conjunction with the BOJ’s decision to leave its benchmark rate unchanged at -0.1%, also caused some upheaval for the Nikkei (-2.5%) on Tuesday and the currency market in addition to sovereign bond markets. The yen surged as much as 4.0% against the dollar.

The Market also had to deal with some disappointing housing data before Tuesday’s open, namely an 11.2% month-over-month decline in November building permits (a leading indicator) to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.342 million (consensus 1.480 million).

The S&P 500 dropped below 3,800, scraping 3,795 at Tuesday’s low before buyers showed up for a small rebound effort that ultimately left the main indices with modest gains. At this point, the indices were in a short-term oversold position. At their lows Tuesday morning, the Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 were down 9.7% and 7.5%, respectively, from their highs last week. That oversold posture triggered some speculative buying interest in a bounce.

Things really took off Wednesday when some well-received earnings reports from Dow component Nike ($NKE) and leading transport company FedEx ($FDX) triggered some decent buying interest.

The market also got some better-than-expected consumer confidence data for December, which was another support factor for the broader market. That report overshadowed a weaker than expected existing home sales report for November that was released at the same time.

Unfortunately, the rebound move soured promptly on Thursday following some disappointing earnings results and commentary from Micron ($MU) and CarMax ($KMX), a sour Leading Economic Indicators report, and some cautious-sounding remarks from influential hedge fund manager David Tepper say he is ‘leaning short’ on the stock market.

He expects the Fed and other central banks to keep tightening and for rates to remain high for a while, making it “difficult for things to go up.” His comments resonated with market participants who recalled the hugely successful “Tepper Bottom” call he made in March 2009.

The resulting retreat was broad in nature with the major indices moving noticeably lower right out of the gate, dealing as well with rate hike concerns after the third estimate for Q3 GDP showed an upward revision to 3.2% from 2.9%. The Nasdaq, S&P 500, and Dow were down 3.7%, 2.9%, and 2.4%, respectively, at Thursday’s lows.

The S&P 500 was stuck below the 3,800 level and Tuesday’s low (3,795) for most of the session before the main indices managed to regain some of their losses in the afternoon trade. There was no specific news catalyst to account for the bounce, possibly just speculative bargain hunting.

Friday’s session also started on a downbeat note after the November Personal Income and Spending Report showed no growth in real spending and PCE and core-PCE inflation rates that are still too high on a year-over-year basis (5.5% and 4.7%, respectively) for the Fed’s liking.

This report meshed with a Durable Goods Orders Report for November that was weaker than expected and was subsequently followed by economic data that showed new home sales were stronger than expected in November and that easing inflation pressures helped boost consumer sentiment in December.

Once again, the S&P 500 slipped below the 3,800 level, but soon found support as the new home sales and consumer sentiment data bolstered investor sentiment and spurred some bargain hunting interest. The major indices finished modestly higher on Friday, taking a positive first step during the Santa Claus rally period (last five trading days of the year plus the first two trading sessions of the new year).

Separately, the week concluded with the House passing the $1.7 trillion government funding bill after the Senate passed it, leaving it to be signed by the president early next week.

Overall, sector performance was mixed this week with 6 of the 11 sectors in the S&P ending green. Energy, financials, utilities, and a few others finished higher. The weakest links were consumer discretionary and technology which were dragged down by their mega cap components.

Dividend Dollars’ Opinion

That’s it for the recap. Now for my opinion!

Last week I was half-way right in expecting a near term bounce, however I was not expecting it to only last two days (Tuesday and Wednesday). We broke back under the bear market line and stayed there Thursday through Friday.

This here is the key to me. We are under all major moving averages AND the bear market line. There is significantly more resistance than there is support.

Next week, the 3,800 level will be key. We found substantial support at that level as everything under it was just a long wick. There are no major economic releases next week, which make me think we won’t see any crazy catalytic moves in one direction or the other.

We have some claims and housing reports, but that’s about all that’s worth watching, domestically that is. China and Japan have some releases that could bleed over into the US market.

With that, I will just reiterate what I said last week: “With the next earnings season on the way, Fed commentary continuing to spark volatility, and mixed economic data, the next move is anybody’s guess. I think a near-term bounce is likely with more downside to follow after the new year. Then, January will be the month to watch as history shows that it sets the market’s mood for the rest of the year.”

I think the action we saw on Tuesday and Wednesday very well could be the bounce, leaving more downside as my expectation. There are no huge economic releases next week, the Santa Rally so far has been week, therefore I think next week will be red mostly off of tax-loss harvesting.

However, if we open significantly higher in the earlier days of next week, I could see buyers coming in heavy off of the hopes of a strong Santa Rally to push us up through the end of the year. I think this scenario is less likely.

I would love to see more red next week so that I can buy more discounted stocks like I did this week. You can read about my buys in my weekly portfolio update here.

And if you like updates like this, follow my Twitter or my CommonStock page where I post updates on the economic data throughout the week.

Regards,

Dividend Dollars

Categories
Economics Market Update Stock Market

Stock Market Week in Review (12/4/22) – Powell Rally

This weekly market recap is brought to you by Koyfin, a powerful analytical tool that I am proud to partner with. Their platform is entirely customizable for whatever data you want to look at including stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, currencies, economic data releases (one of my personal favorites used often for these posts), crypto, and even transcripts of company events! Click the link above to get a special offer only for Dividend Dollar readers or go give my product review a read if you’re interested!

Weekly Review

The market seemed to be in a turkey coma as there wasn’t much action in the first half of the week. The market was choppy while waiting for Fed Chair Powell’s speech on Wednesday and the key economic data to follow.

The market liked what it heard in Mr. Powell’s speech and things took off in a big way on Wednesday off of his hints that the Fed may slow the pace of rate hikes.

Some will argue that he actually loosened the screws a bit. I would argue he didn’t even bring his toolbox. The market, which was waiting for a to be hit like a nail by a hammer, was relieved when he did not.

This became a rally catalyst that caused some short-covering and some chasing action as the S&P 500 broke above key resistance at its 200-day moving average.

Powell’s actual speech repeated just about everything he said following the November FOMC meeting. Some added attention was paid to his summation that “the ultimate level of interest rates will be somewhat higher than previously expected” versus the original contention that “the ultimate level of interest rates will be higher than previously expected.”

Mr. Powell’s talk (and tone) presumably weakened the fear of another 75-basis point rate hike. Granted the fed funds rate is still going higher from current levels, but market participants can smell a peak in the policy rate around 5.00% in the first half of next year. If the FOMC elects to raise the target range by 50 basis points at the December meeting, the target range will be 4.25-4.50%.

On Thursday, market participants received the October Personal Income and Spending Report, which favored the “smaller” rate hike at the same time it favored a soft landing possibility.

Personal income increased 0.7% month-over-month in October and personal spending jumped 0.8%. The PCE Price Index was up 0.3% month-over-month and the core-PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.2%.

On a year-over-year basis, the PCE Price Index was up 6.0%, versus 6.3% in September, and the core-PCE Price Index was up 5.0%, versus 5.2% in September.

The big rally effort slowed as market participants contended with the notion that the upside moves might have been an overreaction and that the growth environment is going to be challenging given the past rate hikes and the rate hikes that are yet to come.

A 49.0% reading for the November ISM Manufacturing Index, which is the first sub-50% reading (the dividing line between expansion and contraction) since May 2020, hurt some of the rebound enthusiasm.

The November employment report on Friday also tested the rally. Nonfarm payroll growth was higher than expected, the unemployment rate held near a 50-year low of 3.7%, and average hourly earnings increased at a robust 0.6% month-over-month, leaving them up 5.1% year-over-year.

The report itself was good news from an economic standpoint, yet the market saw it as bad news as it gives more room for the Fed to slow the economy with rate hikes. The report signals higher for longer with respect to the target range for the fed funds rate.

The initial retreat following the employment report saw the S&P 500 breach its 200-day moving average, but by Friday’s close the index reclaimed a position above that level. All in all, this week was a win for the bulls given that the market showed nice resilience to selling efforts and the S&P 500 held the line at that key technical level, next is the downward trend line 👀

8 of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed with a gain on the week. Communication services and consumer discretionary enjoyed the biggest gains. Energy, utilities, and financials were the lone sectors in the red by the end of the week.

In the Treasury market, there were big down swings predicated on the thinking that maybe the Fed won’t have to raise rates as high as feared. The continued inversion along the yield curve reflects the festering concerns about the Fed raising rates into a weakening economy and inviting a recession. The 2-yr note yield fell 19 basis points to 4.29% and the 10-yr note yield fell 18 basis points to 3.51%.

Dividend Dollars’ Opinion

That’s it for the recap. Now for my opinion!

As I stated last week, we just barely broke above the 200-day EMA. We opened this week below it and would have finished there if the market hadn’t rallied so hard off of Powell’s speech. I even called that we could gap fill to the 4,080 area, and we did!

I’m not trying to make a habit out of predicting things, just simply share with you what I’m noticing. And I’m noticing that an end of year rally could push us slightly higher to the mother of all trendline’s. The red line in my chart below has been rejected every time since ATHs.

We could very easily stay fighting for that trend line through the end of the year before a significant breakout happens. But when it does happen, the direction is anybody’s guess. My money is on down.

Here’s why: what did Powell say on Wednesday that warranted a 3% surge on the S&P? Signals of slowing rate hikes are nice… but the probability of a 50-point rate hike in December has not changed. The CME Fedwatch tool showed a 75% probability of a 50-point hike last week. The probabilities for a smaller hike in the February meeting were fairly unchanged as well.

People all over are anticipating a “Fed Pivot”. But the Fed is far from pivoting. A Fed Pivot happens when the Fed reverses their monetary policy stance and occurs when the underlying economy has changed to such a degree that the Fed can no longer maintain its policy.

What on Wednesday suggested that this was the case? We are still a ways away from the peak rate and even then we will be at that rate for sometime before a rate cut is imminent. So why did the market bounce as it did following the speech?

The main reason is that expectations were low. We expected him to stay hawkish, instead we got optimistic. To me, playing the expectations game is silly. Rates are rising, and they will be staying there for a while. This will eat at companies’ earnings and sooner or later will be reflected in stock prices.

Be ready for deals, the technical indicators say a dip is coming. Worse yet, a recession is still not out of the picture.

I think that inflation is still a larger problem than the market anticipates. We have seen the market move higher on “better-than-expected” inflation readings where inflation is still over 7% and CPI has yet to peak.

The Fed may lessen the size of the rate hikes, but we are a long way away from ever having rates decreased. Till then, the market is at risk of entering a very serious recession.

The Fed is trying to engineer a soft-landing and so far they have done a great job of it.

However, the longer rates stay high, the closer we may get to seeing the Fed’s planned economic slow down go too far. GDP, employment, real incomes, etc. These things will start to waiver, earnings will start to miss, and the market will start to look quite overbought at these levels which will kick off some serious selling and capitulation.

Because of this, I am short with a position in $SDS and $SPXS and am holding more cash than normal. The short is only 2% of my portfolio and the cash is 10%. I’ll be adding to this short and cash position through to the end of the year if we remain trending up, but I think we are getting closer to a flip

I constantly make moves in my portfolio according to this thesis. You can read about these moves in my weekly portfolio update here.

And if you like updates like this, follow my Twitter or my CommonStock page where I post updates on the economic data throughout the week.

Regards,

Dividend Dollars