Yes, Alcoa “officially” kicked off earnings season Monday night. But since they already pre-announced disappointing results, then this report was a snooze. Unfortunately there are no meaty reports to dig into until Tuesday January 17th when Citigroup and Wells Fargo get things going.
So with a light week of economic data and earnings season delayed ‘til next week, then our fortunes are tied to European headlines for the time being. On that front, the headlines have been a tad worse of late (Bond rates back on the rise. Banks stuffing money back into the ECB overnight mattress. And Greece asking people to take deeper haircuts on their bonds…more like a scalping). Yet investors are becoming immune to this news with stocks neutral to higher even as these headlines roll in.
Yes, I am bullish of late because I think the Euro-mess will be contained allowing the US economy and stocks to continue on the Muddle Through course. I just don’t want to become too numb to this information as not to respond properly if it truly gets worse.
Long story short, I am a bull sleeping with one eye open and a foot on the floor just in case I need to get bearish in a hurry. So far, so good on that front.
Pulling back to the big picture of the whole portfolio you can see that I bought quality companies in key industries with upside potential. So it is far from the riskiest portfolio I’ve ever put together. I would call it cautiously optimistic mix of stocks. And that’s because taking excess risk right now is unwise (see Europe, China etc). Yet it still provides upside given concentration on stocks that have earnings momentum and attractive valuations in their corner. Year to date that has generated a +3.9% return for RTA vs. +1.8% for S&P 500. Looking forward to more of the same kind of outperformance as the year progresses. |
发表于 2012-1-9 21:06
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