Ticker Sense

May 27th Blogger Sentiment Poll

There are more bears than bulls in this week's poll.

Blogger Sentiment Poll Participants:

24/7 Wall Street (-) Carl Futia (+) Crossing Wall Street  Dash of Insight (+) Elliot Wave Lives On (-) Fallond Stock Picks (-) In the Money  Jack Stevison (-) Knight Trader (-) Learning Curve (+) MaoXian  Millionaire Now (N) Peridot Capitalist (N) Quant Investor (+) Random Roger's Big Picture  Stock Advisors.com  Wall Street Folly  Word on the Street (N)

Birinyi Associates Enters Record Book As Stock Market Trivia

Birinyi Associates' Jeff Rubin was featured as one of CNBC's trivia questions for their Million Dollar Portfolio contest.  The question, referencing a prior Birinyi bulletin also displayed here, asked what Mr. Rubin had thought about Mr. Pickens' forecasts.

T. Boone Pickens Is Bullish On Oil

In a CNBC interview this morning T. Boone Pickens suggested that oil may climb above $150/barrel this year, which was promptly followed by a $2 rally in the commodity.  Birinyi Associates promptly distributed a note to clients which shows that Mr. Pickens' comments should not be ignored.  His historical comments, shown below versus an oil price chart, have since been reproduced by Reuters and by CNBC. 

US Markets, Sectors and the Dollar; Several Reasons To Be Cautious

Taking another look at our market and sector trading envelopes, we see that the S&P 500 has encountered some overhead resistance at the 200-day moving average.  In addition, the market is overbought and the dollar is weaker after short-term strength (see below).  The next several days will likely see cautious trading (sideways to negative prices) as investors still seem uncertain about the future.

Reasons to be cautious:

• Financial company EPS estimates beginning another round of downward revisions.
• As shown below, the dollar is at the top of its down-trend.
• The S&P 500 and DJIA are overbought.
• Leading sectors (tech & energy) are more overbought.

Birinyi Associates: Still Picking Winners

As many readers of Ticker Sense already know, Birinyi Associates publishes a monthly newsletter which includes (among other things) three model portfolios.  As newsletter subscribers know, two of those portfolios have had an outstanding year so far.  In fairness to subscribers we are not able to print the featured stocks, but we are able to print several reasons why you should subscribe to Birinyi's newsletter today.

The three portfolios are all beating the market month-to-date, and two of them have crushed the S&P 500 year-to-date.

Out of the ten stocks in the Growth portfolio, four are up over 10% for the month; and two of them are up over 25%!

The low cost of $225/year or $22.99/mo makes Reminiscences one of the best values on the street.  The average long-short equity hedge fund is down 0.50% for the year, and up 2.01% for the month. At $225/year Birinyi's growth portfolio is outperforming the funds 4 to 1.  For more information about the newsletter, and how to subscribe click here.

May 19th Blogger Sentiment Poll

There are more bears than bulls in this week's poll.

Blogger Sentiment Poll Participants:

24/7 Wall Street (N) Carl Futia (+) Crossing Wall Street  Daily Dose of Optimism (+) Dash of Insight (+) Elliot Wave Lives On (-) Fallond Stock Picks (+) In the Money  Information Arbitrage (N) Jack Stevison  Learning Curve (+) MaoXian  Millionaire Now (N) Peridot Capitalist (-) Quant Investor (N) Random Roger's Big Picture (-) Self Investors (-) Shark Report (+) Traders-Talk (N) Wall Street Folly  WindRiver Blog  Wishing Wealth (+) Word on the Street (N)

Expected S&P 500 Impactors: Bottoms-up Forecasts

Based on closes as of 5/13/08, the majority of analysts covering large-cap equities expect technology stocks to move the market the most over the next six to twelve months.  The consensus price target is the average of each analyst's target price on each S&P 500 stock (currently there are over 8,000 data points).  Based on the underlying targets, analysts expect the index to gain just over 13% from its current level of 1403. 

The tech sector is expected to gain 15.48% and account for 35.4 of the S&P's expected 183 index points over the next year.  Health care and financials are expected to add 29.2 and 26.0 points and gain 18.63% and 11.20% respectively.  On another note, the tech sector is nearly the largest component in the S&P, trailing financials by only 26bps in terms of market weight.

Readers interested in more information regarding sector and group impactors, including the most and least liked stocks in each sector, may also be interested in Birinyi's Mini-institutional service.

May 12th Blogger Sentiment Poll

This week's results are split, but there are more bears than bulls.

Blogger Sentiment Poll Participants:

24/7 Wall Street (-) Carl Futia (+) Crowder Blog  Crossing Wall Street  Daily Dose of Optimism (-) Dash of Insight (+) Elliot Wave Lives On (-) Fallond Stock Picks (+) In the Money  Information Arbitrage (N) Learning Curve (+) MaoXian  Millionaire Now (N) Peridot Capitalist (-) Quant Investor (N) Random Roger's Big Picture (-) Stock Advisors.com  Traders-Talk (+) Wall Street Folly  Wishing Wealth (+) Word on the Street (N)

S&P 500: Yet Another Cause for Concern

Those traders active in the market yesterday may have noticed that the S&P 500 did not open on time.  In fact, it was not priced yesterday until about 10:14 am.  Birinyi Associates has been concerned with systematic changes in modern financial markets, but more important is the lack of concern from the larger investment community.  There is no mention of the glitch in today's news, and the only explanation we found was that it related to a problem at the CBOE.  We stress that the inability to calculate the US market's most closely followed benchmark should be a cause for concern, especially considering the fact that nearly all trades are executed electronically (we all see the NYSE floor on CNBC every day).

Readers interested in more information may also be interested in subscribing to Birinyi's Mini-Institutional service.  In August 2007, Laszlo Birinyi published a report to those subscribers entitled "the next CRASH," which wasn't necessarily a bearish publication, but detailed many examples of systemic failures and their possible impact on the greater market.  We continue to cite examples of these failures, and must ask not if but when the next "glitch" will be more than just a confined error.

May 5th Blogger Sentiment Poll

This weeks poll continues with bullish results.

Blogger Sentiment Poll Participants:

24/7 Wall Street (-) Carl Futia (+) Crowder Blog (-) Crossing Wall Street  Daily Dose of Optimism (+) Dash of Insight (+) Elliot Wave Lives On (-) Fallond Stock Picks (+) In the Money  Learning Curve (+) MaoXian  Millionaire Now (N) Peridot Capitalist (-) Quant Investor (N) Random Roger's Big Picture (-) Shark Report (+) Stock Advisors.com  Traders-Talk (-) Wall Street Folly  Wishing Wealth (+) Word on the Street (N)