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The New Money Market Fund Rules You Could Face
Tags: financial regulation, New money market fund rules, SEC
Cash-Secured Puts: Keep the Cash Flowing – Even After You've Sold the Stock
In January, I told you how you can double or even triple your yield by selling "covered" calls on your dividend stocks.
While this is a safe and highly effective strategy, selling covered calls does have a drawback – of a sort.
If the stock you're holding rises in price before the calls you sold expire, you could be forced to sell the shares at the option's designated strike price.
This isn't likely to be a huge problem since you'll be selling your stock at a profit. The problem is that if you no longer own the stock, you won't be getting the dividend.
Fortunately, this problem has an easy solution. It's a strategy called selling "cash-secured puts."
Using cash-secured puts, you can maintain your cash flow while you're waiting to repurchase the actual stock at a price equal to or below where you just sold it.
How to Use a Cash-Secured Put to Generate Income
Here's how it works.
Buy Timber Stocks and Watch Your Money Grow on Trees
Chances are you've never considered timber stocks in your investing strategy.
But if that's the case, then you've been missing out.
Timber is a long-term investment that can reward your portfolio in good times, and protect it in bad.
In fact, investing in timber has proven to be more profitable – and less risky – than any other asset class for almost 100 years. Investing in timber stacks up well against stocks, bonds, oil and other commodities-even gold.
Here's why…
High-Frequency Trading Could Cause Another Flash Crash
The threat of another flash crash caused by high-frequency trading is as great as ever.
And the next flash crash could be much worse than the one that shocked investors in May 2010.
Although the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken some steps to prevent another flash crash caused by high-frequency trading (HFT), some experts question whether the additional disclosure and "circuit-breakers" designed to prevent big, sudden price moves will make a difference.
"Those things won't prevent another flash crash – they can't," said Money Morning Capital Waves Strategist Shah Gilani. "All they will do is soften the move."
The real issue, Gilani said, lies with the computers that execute the trades – thousands of them in milliseconds.
HFT has changed the nature of the stock market since these trades now account for between 60% and 70% of the transactions on the U.S. stock exchanges.
"You can't stop a flash crash unless you stop the computers from doing what they're programmed to do. And that's not being addressed," Gilani said. "The SEC is looking at keeping the ship from sinking, not stopping it from hitting icebergs."
HFT's heavy volume and high speed made it the prime suspect in the flash crash of 2010, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged more than 600 points in five minutes, before recovering almost as quickly.
Mini Flash Crashes
Since then, the frequent occurrence of mini flash crashes – when a single stock or exchange-traded fund experiences a steep and rapid drop in price that quickly reverses – have served as nagging reminders of the vulnerability of the system to such events.
"It's like seeing cracks in a dam," James J. Angel, professor at the McDonough School of Business atGeorgetown University told The New York Times. "One day, I don't know when, there will be another earthquake."
Three Luxury Companies That Can Bring You Closer to the Good Life
A lot of consumers are hurting right now, but you wouldn't know that looking at the earnings of major luxury companies.
Many luxury companies like LVMH Moet Hennessey Louis Vuitton SA (PINK: LVMHF), Burberry Group PLC (PINK: BURBY), Hermes International SCA (PINK: HESAF), and Coach Inc. (NYSE: COH) had a stronger-than-expected 2011 campaign.
Better still, they're set to expand on that success this year.
U.S. sales are regaining momentum and emerging markets – led by China – have been an outright boon for luxury companies.
Although you may not have realized it, China is now the world's second-largest market for luxury goods, behind Japan. And it could become the largest as soon as this year.
China's National Statistics Bureau says that there are now more people living in the country's towns and cities than in the countryside – making China a predominantly urban nation for the first time in history.
Worker pay is rapidly rising in China, with officially mandated base wage minimums up an average of 22% in 2011. And a new class of workers as well as a wealthy elite are driving luxury sales globally.
Two good examples of this are Burberry and Compagnie Financiere Richemont (PINK: CFRUY).
Luxuriating in Success
Burberry, the U.K's largest luxury-goods maker, reported third-quarter sales that beat analysts' estimates, and said it sees no reason to change full-year forecasts even in light of a "challenging" economy.
Burberry's revenue in the three months ended Dec. 31 climbed 22% to $882 million (574 million pounds). Asia-Pacific sales climbed 36%, while sales in Europe surged 20%. Sales rose 4% in the Americas and 31% in the rest of the world.
The company said it can weather any fallout from Europe's sovereign-debt crisis because Chinese consumers will help offset losses.
Chinese customers alone account for 10% of Burberry's total sales.
Swiss-based luxury goods group Compagnie Financiere Richemont also has benefited from China.
Premium
The Markets or the Mattress: I Know Where My Money is Going
The next 1,000 points on the Dow Jones Industrial Average in either direction are going to be determined by what happens in two cities thousands of miles from our own shores…
Athens and Berlin.
What's more, the risks associated with Europe's redemption, or its failure, are more concentrated now than they were before the crisis began.
There are two reasons: a) Europe won't help itself and b) Wall Street may still have $1 trillion or more in exposure to European problems.
What makes me crazy right now is that European chatter is what's driving the markets.
Every sound bite from Europe is critical these days. Not because there is anything relevant in the political babbling from financial ministers tasked with fixing this mess, but rather that there is a cascade of events that could take us in either direction.
Fix this mess and the markets will take off for a 1,000 point gain that will leave anybody who is on the sidelines hopelessly behind.
Fail and the markets could tank.
It certainly fits the pattern established in recent months. News leaks suggesting solutions have brought on rallies, while negative leaks have caused a ripple effect that has quickly dumped stocks into the hopper.
Yet, it's not really the numbers that matter at the moment – even with the Fed rumored to be considering another $1 trillion stimulus and reports that the European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) may be seeking as much as $600 billion each.
No. The market swings we are seeing are all about confidence or, more specifically, the near complete lack thereof.
The Mattress vs. The Markets
A recent report from TrimTabs shows that checking and savings accounts attracted eight-times the money that stock, bond and mutual funds did from January to November 2011.
That is a whopping $889 billion that went under "the mattresses" versus only $109 billion that went into the markets.
In fact, CNBC is reporting that the pace of money headed for plain-Jane savings and checking accounts from September to November accelerated to nearly 13-times the average monthly flow rate of the preceding nine months from September to November.
What's significant about this is that the money has headed for the sidelines when the markets have rallied. Usually it's the other way around. Normally money floods into the markets when they move higher.
The other notable thing here is that, generally speaking, up days this year have had thinner volume than down days. This means that most investors just can't handle the swings. In other words, every time the markets dip, they're packing it in.
Pessimism is the Breeding Ground of Opportunity
Bottom line: Investors are making a gigantic mistake – especially those with a longer-term perspective.
Five Tech Stocks to Avoid: RIMM, HPQ, YHOO, ORB, GRPN
After a rocky 2011, tech stocks have gotten a nice bounce so far this year.
The Nasdaq 100 index is up about 7% so far, well above the 4.6% rise in the Standard & Poor's 500 index.
Strong earnings last week from Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC), Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) and International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) have drawn still more attention to tech stocks.
But while tech stocks may look tempting right now, knowing which tech stocks to avoid will prevent a lot of pain to your portfolio in 2012.
So here are five tech stocks you should avoid, at least for now.
Don't Let Uncertainty Scare You Out of the U.S. Stock Market
Compared to its foreign counterparts, the U.S. stock market is one of the best performers this year – even though some nervous investors may find that hard to believe.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index is basically flat so far this year, but that's a far better performance than the double-digit losses in other markets.
The French and German stock markets are down about 18% and 21%, respectively. Japan has plummeted nearly 15% in the aftermath of the crippling earthquake and tsunami, and China's Shanghai Composite Index has plunged about 17%.
Even emerging markets, where growth is not as stunted as some major developed economies, have struggled. India's index is down about 18%, and Brazil's 16%.
"The U.S. is the best house in a bad neighborhood," James Dailey, manager of the TEAM Asset Strategy Fund, told CNN. "A lot of it has to do with the policy decisions and politics around the world and that's very discomforting."
A major factor in weak market performance has been the Eurozone debt crisis. The lack of resolution has been rattling investor nerves for months, and will not go away in the New Year.
"The real structural problems facing Europe are going to require wholesale lifestyle changes that won't get done in a year or two," said Money Morning Capital Waves Strategist Shah Gilani. "European Central Bank meddling will only serve to extend the problem while they pretend things will sort themselves out."
Another year of Europe's problems plaguing economies has created a market environment filled with too much uncertainty for many investors to be comfortable.
"That's led to a lot of paralysis," said TEAM fund's Dailey. "Investors are walking away from stocks and raising cash."
A weak U.S. economic outlook for 2012 is also steering investors away from markets.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates U.S. growth will slow to 2% next year, down from a 3.1% estimate in May. Of course, these forecasts are contingent upon Congress finding a way to stimulate the economy and tighten fiscal policy – not an easy balance to achieve. Without such action, U.S. economic growth next year could be as slim as 0.3%, and only hit 1.3% in 2013.
What investors need to know despite this dismal forecast is that the lack of growth does not mean a lack of profit opportunities. There are still investments that will boost your portfolio – if you know where to look.
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New York Stock Exchange Holiday Calendar 2011-2013
Under normal circumstances, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is open from Monday through Friday 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET. It closes for official U.S. holidays; most U.S. exchanges follow the NYSE's schedule.
The NYSE will also close for special occasions or emergencies.
Notes on the Schedule
- New Years' Day (January 1) in 2011 falls on a Saturday.The rules of the applicable exchanges state that when a holiday falls on a Saturday, we observe the preceding Friday unless the Friday is the end of a monthly or yearly accounting period. In this case, Friday, December 31, 2010 is the end of both a monthly and yearly accounting period; therefore the exchanges will be open that day and the following Monday.
Did You Miss the Dow's Biggest Monthly Point Gain Ever?
Tags: dow, monthly point gain
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