Thats how i feel about this incredibly strong year and the uber bullish reaction, dow gaining another 56 points, s p up and nasdaq. Theres just not enough supply, stock to meet the demand from buyers who had to radically switch orientation to deal with a much more positive backdrop. And thats been very good for the averages and your portfolio. Whenever anybody talks about stock shortage, automatically greet them with a little skepticism there are always bankers ready to pump out stock to meet demand but its not a wholesale shortage of stocks but stocks that fit the program meaning belonging to companies that are high domestic taxpayers and got a big boost to their earnings recent performance of amazon not doing well versus walmart, on fire two largest retailers out there. Walmart, effective tax rate of 32 , soon to be cut to 21 consistently buying back stock for he years amazon has higher but dont pay much in taxes because dont have much in earnings, spending to win and aggressive issu
The next minute its good. Oils bad. Sell, sell, sell. Wait. Oils good. Buy, buy, buy. Housing is horrendous. The house of pain. Wait a second. Housing is fabulous. Transports are awful. Or maybe theyre terrific. Hallelujah perhaps we should dispense with these sectorbased labels and Start Talking about individual managements, individual companies, and execution. This earnings season weve seen a remarkable divergence in individual sectors, more than weve seen in 25 years. We believe stocks in the sectors should trade in unison, were missing important opportunities to earn the stocks of companies that are deliberate. Rather than etfs meant to capture broadbased moves. Those arent working. Weve become so conditioned to playing certain trends with certain stocks that we forget sometimes the facts about the actual companies can get in the way of the stories. You know why that is . Its because the performance of management varies tremendously from company to company. Some guys get it while o
Dow nosediving 243 points. S p coming in 1. 44 . Nasdaq falling 0. 88 . There were actually some positive signs that were constructive enough to merit an honest discussion. In the interest of explaining the prevailing pain, lets talk about what made things hideous to begin with. The stock price has been beholden to the expectation as to what people thought companies would earn or thought they would say. It is about Great Expectations and then having your stock clobbered. Companies go higher. Im asking. What happens if you have a company that has super duber i love you, you love me expectations and it fails and fails spectacularly . Sell sell sell sell sell sell sell sell. Then you get the curious case of dupont. If missing earnings were an art form, this dupont quarter would be a picasso. The guernica of earnings. If it werent for the lock out i would indeed throw the stanley cup. If it was an olympic contest, i would be giving this a high dive belly flop. Dupont has noxious earnings e
Is down by just. 10 . A road map develops for what could be a very, very good day in technology. Hear what Steve Ballmer has to say. The mini ipad is out. More trouble at best buy, a Major Management shakedown. And is cramer going to call this the come back story of the quarter . And could it keep the ceo off the hot seat . We begin today of course with microsoft officially unv l unveiling its the secret staging area microsoft uses to lae out its Retail Stores nationwide, we talked to Steve Ballmer about pcs versus tablets. You asked me whats going to happen to the pc market and the tablet market. We cant tell them apart. But with one arrow, we have if you will gotten two birds, tablet and pc, but we dont want to let any of the innovation surface of that not be exploited. Thats the only statement were making. What do you think its going to do . Because if theres so much hoopla about windows 8 a year ago. Its a dividend play, its a utility, its a little more spark. The company itself, t
On mad money to preach to all excesses when it comes to investing. Its the sin, the sin of arrogance. When you own stocks, you got to be humble. Although, people recognize that humility doesnt come naturally to everyone. You have to recognize you will be wrong, perhaps often. As the past few years have taught you, painfully, your portfolio will get hit with things you never saw coming. Things you never imagined, let alone thought were possible. Who would have thought we had to worry about cypriot banks . Who would have thought about sequester or about abenomics . And one thing to be sure when you put a portfolio together is that at some point something will go wrong and it will hit you totally out of left field. Thats why its so important to prepare yourself and your stocks for the next unexpected catastrophe, so you can make money in any market, or not lose as much as the other guy, because sometimes things dont go that smoothly. How do you get ready for a calamity that we dont know w