Ticker Sense

Q3 Earnings: Better Than Expected, Better Than Last Time

The last few days have everyone wondering whether the rally can continue.  Is the market's move supported by the fundamentals, and can the economy recover fast enough to drive further earnings growth?  Looking strictly at reported earnings so far this quarter, S&P 500 companies continue to report significantly better than expected results.  In the previous quarter the average difference between EPS estimates and reported EPS was $0.08, this quarter it is $0.09; furthermore, the ratio of companies that beat earnings to those that missed is 6.25 (150 beats vs 24 misses).  This earnings season has been met with skepticism and scrutiny, but the numbers so far have been better than any period during the '02 - '07 bull market.

October 26th Blogger Sentiment Poll

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

Blogger Sentiment Poll Participants:

24/7 Wall St (-) Carl Futia (+) Dash of Insight (N) Elliot Wave Lives On (-) Fallond Stock Picks (-) In the Money  Learning Curve (-) Maoxian  Millionaire Now (-) Navivest (N) Peridot Capitalist (-) Quant Investor (N) Smart Money Tracker (-) Traders-Talk (+) Wall Street Folly  Wishing Wealth (+)

Laszlo Birinyi on CNBC

Laszlo Birinyi will appear as a guest on tomorrow's airing of Squawk on the Street at 10:00.

October 19th Blogger Sentiment Poll

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

Blogger Sentiment Poll Participants:

24/7 Wall St (N) Carl Futia (+) Dash of Insight (+) Elliot Wave Lives On (-) Fallond Stock Picks (-) In the Money  Maoxian  Millionaire Now (-) Navivest (N) Peridot Capitalist (-) Smart Money Tracker (-) StockAdvisors.com  Wall Street Folly  Wishing Wealth (+)

Stock of the Week Adds Another 8%

Monday morning we recommended King Pharmaceuticals (KG) as our stock of the week.  The recommendation was distributed at 8:30 and we calculate performance based on the opening that day.  Subscribers to Birinyi's Mini-Institutional service have gained 7.7% through Wednesday's close, and over 110% this year investing in the Stock of the Week alone!

Where Will You Be In Ten Years?

Below we highlight the simple rolling ten year return on the S&P 500 since 1955 (note that this is simple return, not total return).  The shaded areas on the chart are periods of negative return.  The great bull market lasting from 1982 to 2000 brought this calculation has high as 400% before turning negative in October of 2008. With this market up 59% from the bottom, many investors may feel as though they missed these gains and need to wait for another entry point.  Depending on your time horizon, that is not necessarily the case.

If we look at the last period when ten year returns were negative, we find that the ten year return going forward is an average of 163%.  In other words, on a days when the ten year return on the S&P was negative (this is roughly 640 trading days) the average return going forward ten years was 163% and the minimum return was 78%.  Anyone with a time horizon of at least ten years should stay in stocks.

Birinyi in the News - Barron's

Barron's was kind enough to feature Laszlo Birinyi this weekend as one of the more prominent bulls who kept people in the market.  Click the link below for the full story.

Link to Barron's

October 12th Blogger Sentiment Poll

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

Blogger Sentiment Poll Participants:

24/7 Wall St (-) Carl Futia (+) Dash of Insight (+) Elliot Wave Lives On (-) Fallond Stock Picks (-) In the Money  The Knight Trader (+) Maoxian  Millionaire Now (N) Peridot Capitalist (-) Smart Money Tracker (+) StockAdvisors.com  Wall Street Folly  Wishing Wealth (+)

Biggest Money Makers Since 3/9

A lot has been said about the biggest percent gainers since the March 9th low, but what about the biggest money makers.  Let's face it, when banks were at risk of government abduction and the market was blind sided by the January and February declines, it was tough to pull the trigger on big purchases of BAC at $3 or Citi below $1.

Below we look at the market from a different view, if you had bought 1,000 shares of any S&P 500 stock what would have been the big winner?  It turns out that a purchase of 1,000 shares of Google at the 3/9 close has returned $226,650 through the 10/7 close; far and away the biggest winner.  There are only seven S&P stocks that are down since the market bottomed.

Stock of the Week (ANF) Continues to Outperform

Every week we distribute a stock recommendation to our Mini-Institutional subscribers.  This week's recommendation is already up 10% putting total gains for the year at over 100%.  A purchase of 500 shares of Abercrombie on Monday's open would have already paid for a Mini-Institutional subscription for the year.