[su_heading style=”modern-2-dark” size=”20″] Market Update [/su_heading]
The major indices continue moving sideways as the tape remains very split. Earnings roulette (Thank you Gary Kaltbaum/GaryK.com) continues in spades as we continue to see a handful of stocks gap up and gap down after reporting earnings. Apple broke below a key level of support on Monday and continued lower on Tuesday. The chart of Apple looks like a mirror image of the major indices, specifically the S&P 500. It raises the question: Does Apple’s big break of support mean the market will break below support (attached)? Only time will tell. We continue to tread lightly as the market remains range-bound and are waiting for a bullish catalyst to emerge and/or would like to see the market move out of range before adding more stocks to our portfolio.
[su_heading style=”modern-2-dark” size=”20″] Portfolio Update [/su_heading]
The Fed sounds like the boy who cried wolf. ATL Fed President Dennis Lockhart came out today and said the Fed is “close” to raising rates in September. This appears to be nothing more than the usual Fed “rhetoric” we have seen many times in recent quarters. We do not believe the Fed will raise rates until the data forces their hand. Remember the Fed has a dual mandate: help the economy/jobs AND keep inflation near its 2% Target. GDP missed estimates in the first half of the year and we are hard pressed to find one area of the economy that is firing on all cylinders. Separately, deflation remains more of a threat than inflation (imploding commodity prices anyone?). So why would the Fed raise rates if neither one of their mandates are being met right now? Put simply, we’ll believe the Fed when we see them actually raise rates. Until then, we’ll write it off as more rhetoric. In fact, if the data doesn’t improve, we wouldn’t be surprised to see the Fed print more money (QE4) to “reflate” asset prices.
[su_heading style=”modern-2-dark” size=”20″] FLS Portfolio [/su_heading]
Thankfully, the FLS portfolio is performing very well considering how the major indices have been acting in recent weeks. The service is navigating earnings season rather well with REGN helping today. We’ll see how TSLA performs after earnings.
Here is a snapshot as of 2:47 pm EST:
[su_heading style=”modern-1-dark” size=”18″] Positions [/su_heading]
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The service owns: TSLA +30.17%, XLF +1.21%, AMZN +21.85%, REGN +12.52%, UA +14.02%
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The service will exit: TSLA @ 245.77, XLF @24.03, AMZN @482, REGN @ 521, UA @ 92.77
[su_heading style=”modern-1-dark” size=”18″] Working Buy Orders [/su_heading]
We are comfortable with our current exposure so there are no new buy orders today
