Investing: October 2009 Archives

If stocks truly do climb a wall of worry, then there's plenty for them to climb.  The gain from Thursday's better than expected GDP figures vanished the next day.  The culprit?

An 0.5 percent drop in consumer spending, flat personal incomes, and an increase in the savings rate.  Of particular concern to many was that even though personal incomes were flat, wages and salaries decreased by 0.2 percent.

The drop in consumer spending was right where the consensus estimate came in.  Analysts had expected a drop in spending after the expiration of the cash for clunkers program, and they were right.  Not surprisingly, sales of durable goods to consumers plunged by seven percent in September, after a gain of 6.1 percent in August.  Much of the swing was attributed to the cash for clunkers program.  Car sales were projected to have declined to less than ten million vehicles on an annual basis after getting a boost to 11.5 million vehicles in August.

Analysts said that the drop in consumer spending is a concern heading into the holiday season, which accounts for the majority of profits for most retailers.  With personal incomes flat and consumer spending declining, analysts are concerned that retailers may not meet their holiday estimates.

Even though the drop in consumer spending was expected, when added to worse than expected numbers on consumer confidence and housing, it was able to drag the markets down.  The Dow lost 2.5 percent to close at 9,713.  All 30 Dow components were lower, led by a drop of 7.3 percent in Bank of America and 5.8 percent in J.P. Morgan Chase.  The S&P dropped by 2.8 percent to 1,036, with financial, material, and energy companies leading the decline.  The Nasdaq was off by 2.5 percent and closed at 2,045.

Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were down for the month, with the Dow essentially flat.  The drop in the S&P 500 ended a seven month streak of gains.

All in all, it was a very disappointing week for investors.  Some, of course, were more disappointed than others.  Regular readers may recall that a position was entered in Novatel Wireless and ABB.  How did those trades turn out?  Not so well.  Novatel dropped by 20 percent after reporting strong third quarter earnings but providing disappointing guidance for the fourth quarter.  And ABB, while reporting a 12 percent gain in earnings, dropped on comments by its executives that the outlook for this year and next "remains uncertain."

Regular readers will recall that we entered a position in Novatel Wireless a couple of days ago.  The reason for staking out a position in Novatel was due to the introduction of MiFi.  We saw that the product was hot, and we expected it to push earnings higher.

For the third quarter of the year, that's exactly what happened.  "Our 12% sequential revenue growth and significant margin improvement was primarily driven by strong demand for our industry-leading MiFi Intelligent Mobile Hotspot platforms, as well as strong core product sales in North America," Peter Leparulo, chairman and CEO of Novatel Wireless, said.  Revenues increased to $94.3 million, up from $78.4 million in the third quarter of 2008 and $84.1 million in the second quarter of 2009.  Earnings were also up to $6.2 million from a loss of $1 million in the thrid quarter of 2008 and a loss of $800,000 in the second quarter of 2009.  That works out to earnings of $0.20 a share for the third quarter and a loss of $0.03 per share for the third quarter of 2008 and second quarter of 2009.

Revenues exceeded Wall Street expectations, which had pegged third quarter revenues at $92.6 million.  Earnings also exceeded projections, which were for earnings of $0.10 per share.

But the stock got pounded despite these impressive results.  Why?

Because of Novatel's guidance for the fourth quarter.  "Currently, we expect fourth quarter MiFi sales to be similar to third quarter levels as improving sell through catches up to initial stocking orders," Leparulo said.  The company released projected revenue figures of $85-95 million, with earnings of $0.04 to $0.12 per share.

In order to meet Wall Street's expectations for the fourth quarter, Novatel will have to hit the higher number, and even that number is only a small increase from third quarter revenues and a decrease in earnings.  Part of the third quarter earnings came from tax benefits.  Even so, with the rollout of a new hot product, it's disappointing to see Novatel project flat revenues.

Novatel's stock got destroyed in after market trading, dropping by 18 percent to $10.

Still, we believe that MiFi will be a big product for Novatel, so we will eat our losses now, possibly add to our position, and sell covered calls to generate income while we wait for the pop from MiFi to really arrive.

Third quarter GDP numbers, which will be released on October 29, just became even more important.

Stocks plunged on Wednesday after two releases of economic data.  First up, at 8:30 AM, was the release of durable goods orders.  Durable goods orders increased by one percent to $165.7 billion, according to the Commerce Department.  Excluding the volatile transportation sector, orders increased by 0.9 percent.  The one percent increase in overall orders was in line with estimates, and the increase in orders excluding transportation was above the consensus estimate of 0.7 percent.  This data was seen as indicative of an economy in recovery.

However, based on that data, Goldman Sachs cut its estimate for third quarter GDP.  The company had initially projected a three percent growth in GDP for the third quarter.  After seeing the durable goods data, their estimate was revised downward to 2.7 percent.

Half an hour after the markets opened, the Commerce Department released its new home sales data.  That report showed a drop of 3.6 percent between August and September, with September sales coming in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 402,000.  Commerce also said that inventory of new homes came in at 7.5 months of sales at the current rate.

The consensus estimate for new home sales was for an increase to 440,000.  Estimates ranged from 412,000 to 460,000, so even the lowest estimate by economists was better than the actual figure.

In reaction to the economic data, markets dropped by more than one percent.  Alcoa, American Express, and Caterpillar helped drag the Dow down by triple digits.  This was the third 100 point plus drop in four sessions.  The Dow dropped by 1.2 percent to 9,763.  The S&P 500 was off by two percent, to 1,043.  And the Nasdaq dropped by 2.7 percent to 2,060.

Analysts said that the pullback in stocks was driven by a number of factors.  First, traders with big profits were protecting those profits ahead of the release of third quarter GDP numbers.  Second, even though the economy is recovering, economic data that disappoints spooks investors.  Finally, even though companies are reporting earnings that have for the most part exceeded expectations, they are beating estimates through cost cutting.  And even with earnings exceeding expectations, earnings are still down by double digit percentages versus the same period last year.

Many traders said that stocks have gotten ahead of themselves and priced in strong economic growth.  Until consumer spending recovers, it's difficult to see how that will occur.  And earnings exceeding estimates appear to have been priced in to stocks and then some.

With all those factors influencing the price of stocks, it appears likely that unless there is a serious surprise to the upside in the GDP numbers, we may be looking at the end of the bias towards higher stock prices.  As they say, the trend is your friend until it ends.  And the recent drop in stock prices may indicate that the trend is ending.

Even in a down market, there are equities that are worth investing in.  We found two equities that we opened positions in yesterday.

First up was Novatel Wireless (NVTL).  You probably have seen the commercials from Sprint that highlight one of Novatel's products. 


a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering environmental impact."

The company's power systems unit is likely to benefit from a number of factors.  First, there is a push in developed countries to modernize their electric grids.  Some of the eletricity generated is lost during the transmission process as it turns into heat.  In the province of Alberta, for example, transmission losses are expected to cost $220 million CDN

And the aging electric grid is slowing the development of green power.  While there's a lot of wind blowing in plains of Oklahoma, for example, there aren't transmission lines that allow that power to be sent to population centers that need it.  ABB's power systems unit helps solve these problems, and it's likely to see increased sales and profits as a result.

Second, as developing nations start to build electric systems and other infrastructure projects, ABB's expertise is called upon.  In fact, for the first time in the history of the company, developing markets accounted for more revenue than developed nations.

Finally, ABB has other divisions that help companies improve the efficiency of their operations.  With the push towards doing more with less and increasing productivity, this unit is likely to tapped for its expertise.

Add it all up, and it's likely that ABB will be seeing increasing revenues and profits.  And, its services are likely to be in demand regardless of what the economy does.

We entered a position in ABB at $20.63.  We are taking losses today, as the market punishes industrial companies, but ABB is going to be a longer term holding we will buy more if the price drops.

So, we had two plays.  We had a macro play, with ABB.  And we had a micro play, with Novatel.  Even in a down market, there are still trades to be made.

Stocks started out the day with a bang but ended it with a whimper.  The markets soared early, with the S&P 500 up as much as 1.1 percent on better than expected profits from a number of companies.  More than three quarters of the companies in the S&P 500 reporting profits so far have exceeded expectations, and traders reacted to this by pushing stocks higher.

However, as the day progressed, traders pounced on news that some large banks may be required to sell new shares in order to pay back government loans.  A drop in oil prices also pounded energy and materials companies.

The final straw for stocks was news that the $8,000 tax credit for first time home buyers would be phased out throughout 2010.  That news drove the stocks of the 12 companies in the S&P 500 down by 3.4 percent.  Pulte Homes and D.R. Horton led the way lower, plunging by 3.8 percent.

Banks saw big losses as well, as the stocks of banks like Fifth Third, SunTrust, and Bank of America dropped by a minimum of five percent.

On the day, the Dow was off by 1.1 percent to 9,868.  The S&P 500 lost 1.2 percent to 1,067.  The Nasdaq held up better, dropping by 0.6 percent to 2,142.

This volatile market resulted in some major swings in our positions.  We closed out our position in Radio Shack, which we entered at $15.17 last week.  We closed out our position at $16.50, for a gain of 8.8 percent in a week, for an annualized return of 455.9 percent.

We took some of the gains from that position and used them to purchase options on Vale, which is a raw materials producer.  We bought December $28 call options for $1.65, and watched the value of those climb to $1.75 before we left for work.  That gave us a gain on paper of 6.1 percent in about ten minutes!

We should have booked those gains, because by the time we went to lunch, those options were down to $1.45.  And by the time we got home, those options were trading for $1.15, so we lost $0.60 or more than a third of our investment.

What did we do wrong here?  We wrongly assumed that the initial surge would continue throughout the day, pushing the price of our options higher.  Unfortunately, we didn't anticipate the news about the potential problems banks would have paying back the TARP or the downward push on oil and raw materials prices or the phase out of the tax credit for homebuyers pushing stocks downward.

On top of that, it's possible that stocks are just overpriced and traders are looking for reasons to take profits.  According to an economist who correctly predicted the end of the dot com bubble, stocks are overpriced by 40 percent and are headed for a decline as the extraordinary measures governments throughout the world put in place to prop up the financial system wind down.  Technical analysts also say that the market could be primed for a drop.  Others said that the reaction of the markets today could be seen as a sign that traders are looking to book gains because they are anticipating a larger decline later.

It's likely that the market will react throughout the week to any economic news or rumors.  And of course, the market is widely anticipating the release of the first estimate of third quarter GDP on Thursday.  Expect the markets to make big moves depending on whether the economy returned to growth and whether the actual number exceeds or falls short of the consensus estimate.

Aggressive traders may want to use options to put a straddle in place ahead of the GDP numbers.

Regular readers will know that a position was entered in Radio Shack due its growing margins and its ability to exceed analyst expectations.  The thesis was that the stock would pop after its earnings were reported this morning, since it was likely that traders would see the growing margins as well as better than expected earnings and react accordingly.

Today's earnings release showed continuing growth in margins, but the bottom line number was a penny short of analyst expectations of $0.31 per share.  Earnings came in at $0.30 per share, or $37.4 million.

So you would think that the earnings miss would cause the stock to drop.  Not so.  Even though the earnings number came in lower than expected, traders reacted to margin expansion and better than expected sales numbers and pushed the stock higher.

Total revenue was expected to come in at $961 million, and the company far exceeded that number with revenue coming in at $990 million.  That was still down from last year's third quarter, when revenue was $1.02 billion.  So the company, while still reporting lower sales and attributing them to closing stores and kiosks, beat expectations.

Net margins also showed improvement, rising to eight percent from 7.4 percent.  This gain was driven in part by a shift away from lower margin products.  The company said sales were shifting away from low margin items like converter boxes, laptops, and GPS products to higher margin wireless services.

So the street saw the earnings, which missed, but then also saw the growing margin and better than expected top line numbers.  They reacted by pushing the price of the stock up in pre-market.

With the information that individuals have access to these days, there are plenty of situations where investors can get in on these gains.  Finding companies with increasing margins can be done with a wide range of screening software.  A good combination of things to look for are growing margins, higher earnings projections, and positive cash flow from operations.  Then apply your own criteria to find the best stock for you.

Thursday's release of initial third quarter GDP is going to be the biggest economic news in a week full of data.  After shrinking for the previous four quarters, economists expect that the economy grew at a 3.2 percent pace in the third quarter.

The economy has also shrunk in five out of the last six quarters, with only the second quarter of 2008 showing growth due to the issuance of stimulus checks by the government.

The current downturn is the worst since the 1930s.

Government stimulus also is responsible for much of the return to growth.  The Cash for Clunkers program is estimated to have increased sales of autos by 700,000 and the $8,000 tax credit for homebuyers has helped to boost home sales.

Now, the concern among analysts is whether or not the economy can continue to grow after the stimulus ends.

Many economists believe that with inventories depleted, companies will be forced to restock.  This will help keep the economy growing, they say, even as unemployment climbs.  However, few expect the economy to grow at a strong pace as unemployment, housing, and a new focus on savings keeps the consumer from opening up his wallet.  The consensus is for sustained growth, but not at a strong enough pace to fire up hiring.  This may lead to a period of slow growth but high levels of unemployment.

The GDP figure is going to be the one that gets the most attention, but there's a lot of other economic data that will be released this week.  Other reports leading up to the GDP release are the Case-Schiller home price index, consumer confidence, durable goods orders, and new home sales.  On the same day that the GDP data is released, we will see initial unemployment claims, continuing claims, and personal consumption data.  We will close the week out with the University of Michigan confidence index.

All in all, it will be a busy week for market moving data and the markets will likely be volatile.

One of the sayings that permeated Wall Street through the years is "sell in May and go away."  That is a relic from the days where the wealthy would "summer" in the countryside.  So before they went on their summer vacation, they would sell their stocks, and they wouldn't trade again until the summer vacation season ended in the fall.

That also was a relic of the time where you had to get in touch with a broker in order to make a trade.  This simply isn't the case these days.  Take your laptop along with you on vacation, hook yourself up to a wi-fi network, often provided for free by hotels and airports now, and you can do some trading while you're on vacation.

This was what happened with us, and since options for October expired on the Friday before we left for vacation, we needed to sell covered calls on the positions we wanted to keep as well as close out positions we no longer wanted to hold.

Options expired without being called on five stocks we own.  These stocks were Biovail, Ford, General Electric, Qualcomm, and Xerox.  We had positions called away in Brandywine Realty Trust and Chimera.

Of the five stocks where options expired, we want to continue to hold four of those companies.  The lone exception was Xerox, so that position was closed out.  As you know, Xerox agreed to purchase a company and the price of the stock plunged.  We took advantage of that to buy shares relatively cheaply and to sell calls against it, hoping to benefit from both the premium received by selling the calls as well as a rebound in the stock price.  That was the case, as we bought Xerox at $7.51 and sold calls against it for $0.21.  The options expired worthless, and the stock was sold at $7.88.  So, for holding Xerox for about a month, we earned $0.48 per share.  That is a 6.4 percent gain, which works out to an annualized return of 76.8 percent.

We sold covered calls against all of the stocks we wanted to keep, and total income generated here was $131.  We'll book that income and hold the shares.

We used the profits from the trade in Xerox to establish a new position in Mylan.  Of course, we sold a call against it.  Our entry price for this position was $16.35 and we sold a $17 November call for $0.35.  Mylan is a generic drug company with a strong pipeline.  Acquisition related expenses caused the company to report a loss for 2008, and Wall Street punished the stock severely.  We believe that with more people getting health insurance and thus having access to drugs, companies like Mylan will benefit.

The position in Mylan is one where we will either hold it for the long term or book profits now if that occurs.  If the position gets called away, we'll find something to replace it.  And if it doesn't, we'll continue to sell calls on the position until that does happen.

Doing all of this trading took less time than it took to type out this blog.  That's the power individual traders have now.  You don't have to spend your entire vacation watching your stocks if you want to trade.  All it takes is a few minutes at some point in the day, a laptop, and a wifi connection.

This week's issue of Barron's has a great article that highlights five modern day viewpoints that are often preceded with "everyone knows."  Of course, when you hear someone say "everyone knows," hang on to your wallet, especially when it comes to investing.  Everyone knew that you could just refinance that option ARM when the balloon payment came due, and look at what happened.

The article, written by Michael Santoli, said the five modern investing myths are as follows:

• The dollar is collapsing
• Portfolio managers are trailing the market and need to jump into stocks
• The coverage of Dow 10,000 shows the press is back to cheerleading
• This current rally is unprecedented
• Goldman Sachs is pushing compensation to new highs

If you hear anyone making these statements, ask them why they're saying these things.  And if they can't answer the question, do not take any advice, especially financial advice, from them.  Let's look at these "everyone knows" statements one by one.

The dollar, it is true, has plunged by double digits this year versus a basket of other currencies.  But what that means is that it is merely back to where it was before the financial crisis hit and investors flocked to safety.  Remember, shortly after the implosion of Lehman and the failure of TARP to pass the House the first time, people were paying more than face value for the three month treasury!  They were actually willing to give up some money in order to hold something that was considered safe.

Portfolio managers are actually doing better than the S&P 500, on average.  According to Lipper, the average mutual fund has outperformed the S&P 500 by five percent this year.  The managers are benefiting from a broad rally in the market, lead by lower quality stocks.

The coverage of Dow 10,000 was hardly positive.  A lot of places pointed out that the Dow first crossed the 10,000 threshold in March of 1999.  NPR even ran a piece highlighting what top headlines ran that day.

There is no question that the rally we're seeing is a very powerful one.  However, historical analysis shows that this rally resembles the one seen in 1937-1938.  Others say that it more closely resembles the one investors experienced in 1974-1975.  Whichever side you choose, there's no question that the rally has historical precedent.

Finally, while Goldman is hiking compensation and increasing the amount of money it reserved for bonuses -- which really should be called profit sharing or commissions -- historically, Goldman has reserved around half of its revenue for compensation expenses.  In the third quarter, that figure was 43 percent.  And that number was lower than the 48 percent in the second quarter.

So, as usual, the things that "everyone knows" are actually not true.  At one point, everyone knew that the earth was flat and that the sun and stars revolved around the earth.  If you hear the phrase, you need to be very skeptical about what you hear next, because it might not be true.

Yesterday, while everyone was fixated on whether or not the Dow could stay above 10,000 -- it didn't, dropping to 9,996 -- we were on the lookout for stocks that would be worth buying.  We figured a lot of stocks would drop on the disappointing earnings releases by Bank of America, General Electric, and IBM.

One company we had our eye on was Radio Shack (RSH).  Yes, that Radio Shack.  A lot of people wonder if the company's still around, but it is, and it's doing a lot better than it was before due to a restructuring effort.

One of the things the company has going for it is that it's conveniently located for most people,  Even after closing underperforming stores that accounted for a quarter of its locations, it still has nearly 6,000 stores in the United States.  And part of its product mix are things that are difficult to find in other places, like connectors and adapters, which are high margin products.

Radio Shack is also expanding into consumer electronics and wireless communications.  It carries phones from AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile.  T-Mobile was added to the product mix recently, and it has the potential, according to some analysts, to boost yearly earnings by $0.20 a share.

Margins are also increasing, and the company has about $2 a share in cash on its balance sheets.  According to Morningstar, in the last 12 months, the company generated $297 million in cash from operations and had free cash flow of $193 million.  Net margins have improved, coming in at 7.7 percent during the last 12 months, which is a 50 basis point increase from 2008.  And return on equity is at a respectable 22 percent.

But all of those things were taking place for a while.  So what would be a reason to by shares now?

Earnings.

Earnings for the third quarter will be announced before the markets open on October 26.  Given the increasing margins and the addition of T-Mobile, it is possible that earnings will surprise to the upside.  That, naturally, would cause the stock to pop.  Of course, it's also possilbe that earnings will surprise to the downside.  If that's the case, the stock will drop.

Given the possibility that we will be wrong, and earnings will surprise to the downside, it was important to build in some downside protection.  And that's what we did, by selling a $17.50 call for November.  We received $0.32 of downside protection in exchange for limiting our sale price of the stock to $17.50.  We bought the stock at $15.49, so that means we have topped our gains at 13 percent.  And we have some hedging against a loss, with the premium from the call representing 2.1 percent of our purchase price.

The consensus estimate for third quarter earnings for Radio Shack is $0.30.  The whisper number is $0.36.  So, if the whisper number is correct, we will see a pop in the stock, hopefully to the point where the options will be executed and the stock will be called away.

Techniques like this can be used by small investors to book higher returns.  You look at a stock, analyze it, and see if the signs point towards outperformance.  If they do, then you enter a position in the stock.  If you're right, you reap the rewards.  If not, you accept the loss, and learn a lesson.

Two days after the the Dow closed above 10,000 again, selling pressure is going to put that threshold at risk.  Market futures are pointing to a lower open as disappointing earnings reports from Bank of America, General Electric, and International Business Machines.

Bank of America, which is the country's biggest bank, reported its second quarterly loss in less than a year.  The company was unable to shake off the effects of the worst recession since the Great Depression.  The bank, which was the recipient of two bailouts from the government, reported a $0.26 per diluted share loss, which works out to a $1 billion loss.  In the third quarter of last year, the bank earned $1.18 billion, or $0.15 a share.

Analysts said that Bank of America's results show that the financial crisis is not over and that many banks are still facing difficulties.  A closer look at the earnings numbers shows that banks are still facing problems with bad loans.  Losses on mortgages and insurance more than doubled from $724 million to $1.6 billion.  And credit card losses ballooned from $167 million to $1.04 billion.  Write offs for uncollectible loans jumped by 11 percent to $9.62 billion.

General Electric, which is often seen as a proxy for the economy because it's involved in so many businesses, reported a drop in earnings of 45 percent.  The company reduced its real estate and consumer lending and also sold less medical devices.  This caused top line revenue to fall more than analysts expected, and that flowed to the bottom line.

Revenue at General Electric fell by 20 percent to $37.8 billion.  Large orders in the company's infrastructure division slipped by 18 percent, which was a better than the 44 percent drop seen in the second quarter.  Spending to shed workers and unprofitable units cost the company $600 million as buyouts and other payments were made.

GE's CEO said that the company was on track to recover, and that the third quarter was likely the low point for the company in the current economic downturn and recovery.

IBM exceeded earnings expectations, reporting a profit of $3.2 billion or $2.40 a share.  However, revenue fell short of analyst expectations, coming in at $23.6 billion.  Analysts had expected revenues to come in at $23.9 billion.

IBM's revenue shortfall, driven in part by lower than expected contract signings, were seen as a sign that businesses were not yet ready to begin spending again.  Signed service contracts dropped by seven percent, and consulting and systems integration contracts dropped by 16 percent.

The reports from BAC, GE, and IBM show that the economy, while improving, is still not out of the woods.  BAC's losses show the weakness in the consumer market, especially the increasing write offs.  GE's revenue drop, especially in the infrastructure division, show that companies are not spending on big ticket items.  And IBM's drop in service contracts shows that even IT spending, which was seen as something that companies would do in good times and bad, is facing problems.

All in all, today's earnings reports should serve as a sign for investors to stay away from irrational exuberance.

As you know, today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 10,000 for the first time in more than a year.  Naturally, there's a lot of attention being paid to the climb above the psychologically important level.  The push above the 10,000 mark was caused by good news released by the Commerce Department on retail sales and business inventories as well as better than expected earnings from JPMorgan Chase and Intel.

But it's important to keep a few things in mind.  First, the rally above 10,000 is great, but it gets the Dow nowhere near its peak from October 2007, when it closed at 14,165.

Second, the first time the Dow closed above 10,000 was March 29, 1999, more than ten years ago.  I'm sure that nobody would say that a return of zero percent over a more than ten year period is horrible.  Assuming that the Fed successfully kept inflation at two percent, that would mean that Dow 10,000 in 2009 is equal to Dow 8,203 in 1999.  So after inflation, Dow 10,000 today means that an investor is down 28 percent after inflation from the first time it crossed that threshold.

Let's put the Dow crossing the 10,000 mark into perspective here.  Back when it first happened, the United States was involved in a war, but not in Iraq or Afghanistan.  Instead, the United States was involved in stopping ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.  One question that was arising from the conflict was how journalists could cover the war raging in Kosovo accurately.  And if you told a person in 1999 that gold would be trading at over $1,000 an ounce and that oil would cost more than $70 a barrel and the Fed would have interest rates at zero, they'd have laughed at you.  The numbers back then were gold at $280 an ounce, oil at $16 a barrel, and the Fed funds rate at 4.75 percent.

Back then, the big boy band was the Backstreet Boys, and teenage girls would have listened to them on their CD players, not iPods.  The St. Louis Rams, instead of being a laughingstock, were on their way to a Super Bowl win.  And the Melissa virus spawned a copycat that computer security experts said was even more dangerous than the original.  The dot com boom was still going on, and people were worried about Y2K instead of H1N1.  Instead of a $1.4 trillion deficit, the government was running a $76 billion surplus

While it's great the the Dow has climbed back above the 10,000 level, instead of celebrating it, we should be looking back at the previous decade as the American equivalent of Japan's lost decade.  We had the dot com bubble burst, and then we inflated a new bubble in housing and watched that one pop, too.  But in the end, when it comes to stocks, we're right back to where we were a decade ago.

That certainly isn't a positive development, and it's not something we should be celebrating.

Stocks rallied today to new highs, although volume was light due to the Columbus Day holiday.  The Dow climbed by 0.2 percent to 9,886; the S&P 500 climbed by 0.4 percent to 1,076; and the Nasdaq was the laggard, essentially flat at 2,139.  The indices flirted with or hit their year highs, and the Dow was only 68 points away from the psychologically important 10,000 level during intraday trading.  And the S&P 500's close was the highest for the year as well as its best close since October 2008.

Why the surge in stocks, followed by a decline from intraday highs?  Some traders said it was due to the type of buying that was pushing the markets up to higher levels.  Much of the trading was driven by professional money managers buying stocks due to performance fears going into the last few months of the year.  When money is moving due to this kind of buying instead of buying stocks based on expectations of better earnings or economic news, intraday swings tend to be larger than normal.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's comment that it is likely that al Qaeda operatives are present in the United States, while obvious, also may have had an impact on the markets today.

Traders are mostly optimistic with earning season underway.  Alcoa kicked off earnings season on a positive note and analysts expect that trend to continue with companies like Intel and Johnson & Johnson climbing at least one percent ahead of their earnings release on Tuesday.  Other companies that will release earnings information this week include IBM, GE, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Bank of America.  Analysts expect earnings reports to be better than expected and stocks are expected to continue to climb.  As they say, the trend is your friend.

However, it's important to keep in mind that even if companies do report better than expected earnings, the estimates for the S&P 500 companies are for a ninth quarter in a row of declining profits. This is the longest losing streak for profits since the Depression.

Furthermore, even though the trend is your friend, some analysts are urging caution. They say that better than expected earnings are already priced into stocks and investor optimism is climbing as round numbers like Dow 10,000 are being approached.

Stocks definitely are priced for a strong recovery.  If one doesn't materialize, then disappointed traders may sell equities and cause a correction.  Investors need to keep this in mind as earnings season continues.

There have been many commentators who blame the blowup in the housing market on the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977.  The thesis behind this is that the law, which has been on the books for more than 30 years, is responsible for banks lowering their lending standards and giving loans to those who can't pay them.  Of course, these critics don't let the fact that the law has been on the books for decades, long before the housing bubble inflated and burst.  They further don't let studies which actually analyze data that concludes "the CRA cannot be rationally blamed for current problems in the mortgage market, much less for the U.S. financial crisis deter them from making these claims.

Now we've got more data that shows the problem isn't like it's characterized by much of the media.  The common perception is that the poor and middle class are the ones who are causing the problems.  The wealthy, many think, are immune.  Of course, this was what the pundits said about high end retailers like Nordstrom and Saks.  They said that their wealthy clients would keep spending regardless of the downturn, and same store sales showed this just wasn't true.

Zillow.com, a real estate website, decided to analyze the numbers to see if there was anything behind the anecdotes they've heard about the foreclosure problem moving up the income ladder.  Their conclusion is that it definitely has.

According to Zillow, the top third of the housing market now accounts for 30 percent of foreclosures.  During the peak of the housing bubble, houses in the bottom third of the home values made up 55 percent of foreclosures, with the middle third accounting for 29 percent and the top third totaling 16 percent.  That is what would be expected, as those who could afford higher end properties are most likely to be those who can afford the payments.

In July 2009, however, the numbers showed a far different story.  The bottom third's proportion of foreclosures plunged, dropping to 35 percent of all foreclosures.  The middle third showed some increase, comprising 35 percent of all foreclosures.  But the top third came in at 30 percent, which is almost a doubling of its previous rate.

The reasons for this, according to Zillow, are due to the increase in defaults on prime, Alt-A, and option ARM products.  The growth of delinquincies in these products, which far outnumber the number of subprime loans, is causing the number of more expensive homes in foreclosure to jump.



According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, prime loans accounted for 58 percent of all foreclosures in the second quarter of this year, up from 44 percent in the same period of 2008.  Subprime mortgages were a third of foreclosures, down from half last year.

Problems in the housing market are what dragged the economy into recession.  While many have called bottom in housing, it remains difficult to see how that can be the case if the number of foreclosures is rising.  It's even more troubling that the contagion has spread to the upper end of the market.

Investors who look at this data and see how stocks of housing companies like Toll Brothers and KB Homes have soared may want to take gains, or at the very least hedge against potential losses in their positions.

One of the groups that does quite a bit of advertising through Google adsense is the Timothy Plan.  They tag it as investing based on moral values.

I did a little digging to find out more about this investment group.  I've never heard of them before, and I pay attention to the financial services industry.  But with thousands of mutual funds out there and hundreds of firms, it would be impossible for me to keep up unless I was a full time investment advisor.

So, I clicked on the ad (and probably generated a little revenue for myself in the process) and was directed to the company's website.  I paged through the information on the site to learn more.

According to the fund website, the funds are " steadfastly committed to maintaining portfolios that do not contain the securities of any company that is actively contributing to the moral decline of our society."  I suppose that sounds good.  Who wants to invest in an immoral company?

So what criteria would get a company on the list of those "contributing to the moral decline of our society?" You can click on the ad if you want to see the full writeup on the website, but here's a summary for you.

• Abortion -- companies who provide abortion services, pay for abortion services, manufacture products that are used in abortions, contribute to groups like Planned Parenthood, or conduct research on fetal stem cells
• Pornography -- companies that distribute or produce pornography or who allow the distribution of it on their websites or own and operate adult facilities
• Anti-family entertainment -- companies that produce, distribute, or advertise on what the Timothy Plan calls "anti-family" material
• Alternative lifestyles -- companies that provide financial or material support to gays and lesbians
• Alcohol -- companies that produce alcoholic beverages
• Tobacco -- companies that manufacture tobacco products
• Gambling -- companies that operate gambling facilities or provide equiment to them.

Now, to me, that sounds like you'd kill off a whole lot of investing opportunities, but hey, whatever works.  Some people may call my investing technique of buying high yielding companies before their ex-dividend date and selling covered calls crazy and risky.  Whatever floats your boat, as long as it makes you money.  If your screening criteria kills all companies that offer benefits to domestic partners as a result of your no promotion of alternative lifestyles screen and thus stops you from considering 286 of the Fortune 500, including the companies that tend to be better performing ones, that's your call.

As long as you make money, it's all good.

Unfortunately, for the Timothy Fund, that is not the case.  Let's take the Timothy Fund Aggressive Growth Fund (TAAGX) as an example.

The results, according to Morningstar, are not impressive. TAAGX has lagged the average mid cap growth fund in every single annual period since 2005. So far this year, it has trailed the average mid cap growth fund by nearly 7 percent. Over the past three years, the gap is 5.8 percent and over five years, it has trailed by 3.3 percent. It should come as no surprise that this "earned" TAAGX a one star rating from Morningstar.

Now that would be bad enough. But check out the fees associated with this poor performance.

If you want to buy into this fund, you'll have to pay a 5.5 percent load. If you invest $1,000, that's $55 gone just like that. And then you will pay a management fee of 1.77 percent.

Compare that to a similar fund in the mid cap growth category, Vanguard Mid Cap Growth (VMGRX). Here, you will not pay an upfront load. And your management fee will be 0.55 percent. Vanguard is well known for its very low management fees, so maybe that's not fair.

Let's try Fidelity Mid Cap Growth (FSMGX). Here, the upfront load is zero, and the expense ratio is 0.67.

So, with the TAAGX, you're getting poor performance and overpaying for it.

The people who run the Timothy Plan claim to be standing for moral values and fighting against the decline of morality in our society.

Buy and Hold Plus would like to ask those who run the Timothy Plan a question.

How is ripping off investors a moral act?

 

Edited to add:

It should be pointed out that the Timothy Plan is doing nothing illegal.  Upfront loads are permissible, and the fees are clearly disclosed.  But when you charge a load upfront and then charge triple what other funds do and underperform, you are ripping off the investors.  Yes, the Timothy Plan is doing it legally.  But it's still wrong and dare I say immoral.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke stated the obvious at a press conference, and markets reacted badly.  A couple of the reasons why the Fed exists are to keep inflation in check and to help the economy grow by influencing interest rates.  At a press conference discussing the Fed's balance sheet, which has ballooned to record levels after the financial crisis of last fall, Bernanke said that the Fed will continue accomodative monetary policies "for an extended period."  No surprise there.

However, the next words in Bernanke's speech caused markets to react by dropping.  "At some point, however, as economic recovery takes hold, we will need to tighten monetary policy to prevent the emergence of an inflation problem down the road," he said. 

"When the economic outlook has improved sufficiently, we will be prepared to tighten the stance of monetary policy."

This, of course, should come as no surprise.  Anyone who thinks that the Fed can keep its target interest rate at zero to 0.25 percent and continue its policy of quantitative easing forever is delusional.  At some point, the economy will recover, and keeping interest rates at that level would spur inflation.

As the economy recovers from the worst recession in decades, investors are watching the Fed to see when they will start to remove some of the unprecedented measures they have implemented in order to shore up the financial system.  Recently released economic data shows that the recovery is not a strong or smooth one.  Last week, payrolls showed a much greater than expected drop but this week saw better than expected initial unemployment claims and retail sales figures. 

In other news this morning, the US trade deficit fell in August to $30.7 billion, down by 3.6 percent from July's revised $31.9 billion figure.  Analysts had been expecting an increase of $1 billion in the trade deficit.

The lower than expected trade deficit was seen as a result of increasing exports of cars to Canada as well as a drop in imports of oil.  American factories are benefiting from both the drop in the value of the dollar versus other currencies as well as the stimulus being implemented overseas, with over $2 trillion in government stimulus programs boosting demand.

One of the beneficiaries of this stimulus may have been Alcoa, which released better than expected earnings numbers and helped boost stocks yesterday.

Stocks climbed for the third time in four sessions today, as good news on jobs, retail sales, and earnings caused markets to rally.  In addition to gains in the major indices, hundreds of stocks hit 52 week highs.

The Dow was up 0.6 percent to 9,787; the S&P 500 climbed 0.8 percent to 1,065; and the Nasdaq advanced 0.6 percent to 2,124.  On the NYSE, 416 stocks hit 52 week highs and 177 stocks passed their previous 52 week highs on the Nasdaq.

Investors got good news before the opening bell rang, with initial unemployment claims down by 33,000 to a ten month low. 

Alcoa, which is the first Dow component to report earnings, added to the good news with an unexpected return to profitability.  The company, which is the world's largest aluminum producer and viewed as a leading indicator for the economy, reported earnings of $0.04, much better than the expected loss of $0.09.

Investors also got good news on the retail sales front, with a Thomson Reuters report showing that sales at 30 major chain stores increased by 0.6 percent versus September 2008.  However, many analysts warned that the comparison came against a very weak month last year, as the nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac combined with the implosion of Lehman Brothers to cause a huge slump in consumer spending.

Even the organization that represents retailers, the National Retail Federation, warned that continuing high levels of unemployment will cause consumers to be very frugal.  That is an ominous sign for retailers as the holiday season is less than a month away.

Nevertheless, analysts believe that the worst is behind for the economy.  They point to how commodities companies like Alcoa are early cycle plays and that Alcoa's better than expected earnings show how things are improving.

Signs that investors are still skittish remain, though.  Stock mutual funds showed net outflows of $4.2 billion in September, with bonds, which are seen as a safer investment choice, showed inflows of $9 billion.

According to the Federal Reserve, consumers reduced their debt by an annualized 5.8 percent in August.  Revolving credit, such as credit cards, dropped by an annualized 13 percent and non-revolving credit dropped by 1.5 percent.

The drop in consumer debt was greater than the consensus estimate of a reduction of $10 billion.  Consumers are focused on paying down their credit card bills as the continued weakness in the job market makes them nervous.  In addition, tight credit standards at banks are making it difficult for those who want to borrow to find lenders.

Americans are still carrying $2.46 trillion in debt.  Of this, $900 billion is revolving debt, and that's the debt that consumers are focusing on shedding.  Deleveraging has gone from Wall Street to Main Street, as consumers are following the lead of financial institutions and shedding debt.

August was the 11th month in a row where consumers reduced the amount of debt they're carrying.  Since consumer credit hit its peak of $2.58 trillion in the third quarter of 2008, consumers have reduced their debt by $116 billion.  Most of the debt reduction has come in revolving credit, which as dropped by $76 billion since the third quarter of 2008.

It remains to be seen whether or not the drop in consumer credit is due to a long term shift from borrowing to savings or if it's just a temporary reaction to a tough labor market.  The loss of seven million jobs has certainly contributed to the much higher levels of writeoffs by banks.  Banks have written off 11.5 percent of their loans as uncollectible, up from 10.5 percent in July.

Regardless of whether or not this is a temporary or permanent shift, the shedding of debt by the consumer means that it is likely that consumer spending will remain weak.  And that is going to make it very difficult for the recovery that many economists say we are in to be a strong one.  The threat of a "jobless recovery" is real.  If that is the case, then economists calling the recent rally in stocks and the optimistic outlook for the economy "irrational exuberance" may very well be right.

Australia's central bank, the Reserve Bank of Australia, surprised investors with an interest rate hike.  The bank hiked its main target interest rate by a quarter point to 3.25 percent.  This move was the first move by a major central bank to raise interest rates since the financial crisis hit last fall.

Australia's economy, unlike that of the much of the world, never dipped into recession.  It was insulated from the downturn due to strong demand for its commodities, much of it coming from growing countries in Asia.  Because it never entered a recession, Australia was likely to be one of the first countries to raise interest rates.

However, despite this, analysts didn't expect Australia to increase interest rates so soon.  Analysts said that other countries with economies that have large contributions from commodities, such as Canada and Norway, may raise interest rates soon.  On the other hand, countries like the United States and those in most of Europe are unlikely to do so.

The move by Australia, and hints of a rate hike from other commodity heavy economies, was seen as a sign that the global economy is into its recovery phase.

Not surprisingly, on the news, stocks rallied.  The Dow was up by 1.4 percent to 9,731; the S&P 500 rose by 1.4 percent to 1,055; and the Nasdaq rose by 1.7 percent to 2,104.

However, a number of well known economists said that equities may have risen on "irrationally exuberant" expectations for a recovery.  Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz warned of "big bumps" on the road to recovery, citing continuing job losses, commercial real estate, and housing as threats to a recovery.  He said that any recovery is going to be "well short of what we need to keep unemployment from growing."

Stiglitz joins New York University professor Nouriel Roubini and George Soros in predicting challenges for the economy and for equities.  Roubini, who correctly predicted the financial crisis, said that there is a significant risk of a correction in the fourth quarter of this year or the first quarter of next year as investors "realize that the recovery is not rapid."

Soros warned that the economic recovery in the United States will be "very slow" and that "the United States has a long way to go."

Some evidence that these men may be right could be found today in trading that occurred with the S&P Retail Index SPDR (XRT).  Despite a prediction from the National Retail Federation that holiday sales will decline by one percent this year, XRT surged by 2.5 percent.  Given that many of those sales will be rung up at high discounts, it's hard to see why a rally in retailers based on a one percent decline in sales is anything other than irrational exuberance.

While it's only early October, the National Retail Federation (NRF) has already come out with its projections for the holiday shopping season.  As you know, retailers depend on the holiday season for much of their revenue, and the fourth quarter is their busiest quarter.

The NRF is predicting that sales for the holiday seaons will decline by one percent.  While that's much better than last year's 3.4 percent drop or the 3.0 percent projections for 2009 as a whole.  However, it's far from a good report and according to the NRF, "falls significantly below the ten-year average of 3.39 percent holiday season growth."  Further, shoppers are expected to "focus primarily on practical gifts and shop on a budget."

As always, though, you can find someone who thinks otherwise.  Beacon Asset Managers writes that holiday "retail sales will surprise to the upside by one to two percent."  They recommend shares of retailers that sell to teens and children, sell boomer health products, or who are e-commerce focused.  Beacon expects that retailers in these areas "should have a bumper year."

Analysis of the report from CNBC can be found below.

in the first six months of the year, 917 jewelers closed their doors so far this year, versus 563 in the same period of 2008.

Citi said that "Tiffany will benefit from market-share gains given capacity withdrawal -- liquidations, store closures -- beginning in the fourth quarter of 2009 as consumer spending stabilizes."

If Citi is right, and Tiffany does better while the retail sector does worse this holiday season, it will prove that once again investors need to keep in mind that it is an market of stocks, not a stock market.

DISCLOSURE:  THE AUTHOR IS LONG TIF AND HOLDS CALLS ON C