Tag Archives: Standard & Poor’s

BrokerPhone

Indices Hit Record Highs on Soaring Stocks

Benchmark indices hit record highs as stocks rallied yesterday, while Treasuries slipped, after the Federal Reserved announced it had gained sufficient confidence in the job market to begin tapering, promising to keep interest rates low. Both the U.S. dollar and commodities gained on the market.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) climbed 1.7 percent, its biggest advance in 8 weeks, and the Dow Jones Average (INDU) surged 292.71 points. The U.S. equity volatility benchmark gauge lost the most since October. The dollar skyrocketed to a five-year high against the yen and gained against most of its major peers.

Equities have been taking hits on all sides since May, when Bernanke announce that a tapering programmed would likely start this year. The S&P 500 plunged 5.8 percent in the period from 21st May through 24th June. After the Fed shocked the markets with its decision not to taper in September, the index regained lost points and set new highs.

The index had lost 1.5 percent from its last record reached on 9th December, on the speculation that improving U.S. economic data would prove sufficient for tapering to begin. The S&P has climbed a total of 27 percent this year, the mist since a 1997 surge of 31 percent.

Not a Banc De Binary trader?

Sign In
Graph With Stacks Of Coins

C and D Quality Stocks to Outperform A+ Grade Ones

Why would you ever want to buy stocks with worst-track performance on both earnings and dividends? According to the head of U.S. equity strategy at Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch unit, Savita Subramanian, because they are set to beat their best-performing peers next month.

To reach this conclusion Subramanian monitored the performance gap between the two worst-performing stocks and the two highest-rated stocks, as indicated by Standard & Poor’s. S&P uses a classification system of companies by assigning grades of A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, C, and D, based on each ones revenue and payout track of the past decade. According to Bank of American indices, C and D stocks fared close to A+ shares in January.

For the first 11 month of the current year, C and D stocks took the lead with about 17 percent points. For nine full years between 1987 and 2012 they came out first by over 10 points, every time performing better in the following January.

Subramanina, who is based in New York, wrote in her report: “This all bodes well for a low quality rally in January,” adding that the C and D shares exceeded their A+ peers by about 6.5 points for the month over the past 25 years.

Bank of America data indicated that stocks on the two lowest levels of S&P’s quality scale outperformed those on the top ranks for the last five years.

Not a Banc De Binary trader?

Sign In
BullDown

EU and US Indices Drop in Anticipation of Fed Meeting

The two-day Federal Reserved meeting scheduled for this month begins tomorrow and its advent has driven European and U.S. equity futures down along with silver. A slower-than-anticipated growth in Chinese manufacturing has sent Asian stocks near a three-month low as the yen strengthened.

Euro Stoxx 50 Index futures dropped 0.2 percent while Standard & Poor’s 500 Index contracts slipped 0.4 percent. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 0.6 percent and Japan’s Topix lost 1.3 percent as the yen gained against all 16 of its major trading peers. Gold and silver declined by at least 0.2 percent and natural gas lost 1.4 percent. Only Brent cruse gained 0.4 percent with rebels refusing to open the ports of Libya.

With the U.S. economy and the job market showing signs of improvement and following the bipartisan budget passed by lawmakers, economists foresee a greater possibility that the Fed will start tapering stimulus soon. Today’s reports may show increased manufacturing in both the U.S. and the euro region.

THe market has been anticipating the tapering for a while down and some consider that the Chinese economy will drop its pace even more, reaching more sustainable levels.

Not a Banc De Binary trader?

Sign In
Stock Market Money Jar

U.S. Stocks Fall as Stimulus Cuts Draw Nearer

The next Federal Reserve meeting is taking place next week fuelling speculations that stimulus cut begin as early as next next which caused the second consecutive drop in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

Cisco Systems Inc. dropped 1.6 percent while Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings plummeted 11 percent following a profit forecast that did not match analysts’ expectations. MasterCard Inc. (MA) gained 3.5 percent following the announcement that its board of directors approved to increase dividend by 83 percent and to split stocks by 10 for 1.

Although hitting a record level on 8th December, the S&P 500 lost 1.1 percent yesterday prolonging a two-day slide to 1.5 percent, marking the biggest slide since 7th November. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 129.6 points as the volume of daily exchange of stocks exceeded the three-month average by 6.5 percent.

The Quantitative Easing of the Federal Reserve helped the S&P 500 climb 167 percent higher than its bear-market low in 2009 and the benchmark gauge gained 25 percent this year and is competing with the advance of 2003 as the biggest annual increase since 1998.

Not a Banc De Binary trader?

Sign In
Unemployment

Index Bull Rallies On With Job Market’s Slow Recovery

Over the last five years the job market has been on its slowest recovery in decades, but it has kept share prices into an extended bull run with $14 trillion having been restored to the market.

Big companies’ reluctance to hire new staff is expected to propel the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index into its highest profits margins ever next year, surpassing the 10 percent mark. Investors, moreover, do not expect to see the market bull slow down its pace any time soon after Fed Chairman nominee Janet Yellen identified the staggering employment market as the greatest hindrance to reducing bond purchase.

Even as American employees have been battling with salary cuts and job losses ever since recession hit in 2008, the last 57 months have recorded phenomenal performances for investors who have benefited by companies’ reductions in expenses and record-low borrowing costs that have pushed the S&P 500 into a 167 percent climb. The great market bulls, moreover, foresee that for as long as the Fed keeps its focus on unemployment rather than inflation equities will keep advancing.

With worker compensation on the slide as companies and the ratio of U.S. salaries to earning having fallen to 3.2, its slowest since 1996, S&P 500 companies have seen their profitability rise increasing the profitability of each dollar of sale to a remarkable 9.9 cents this year.

Not a Banc De Binary trader?

Sign In
684px-Wall_Street_&_Broadway

U.S. Indices Rise with Improved Job Market

The Dow Jones Industrial Average had its first close over 16,000 as U.S. stocks rose on data showing an improved job market causing some companies to announce a repurchase of shares.

More specifically, Union Pacific, Johnson Controls and Ace gained at least 1.4 percent. Micron Technology Inc. jumped 6.3 percent, the most since August. General Motors Co. (GM) rallied 1.1 percent following the announcement of the U.S. Treasury Department to sell its remaining stake in the company. Target Corp. (TGT) fell 3.5 percent after reporting lower-than anticipated yield due to losses in its Canadian branch.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index gained 0.8 percent to 1,795.85 at 4 p.m. in New York, nearly eliminating the drop of the last three day. The Dow average climbed 109.17 points, or 0.7 percent, to a record 16,009.60.

The near record-high mutual-fund market and the deepening bond losses that threaten to fall even more on increasing interest rates have sent U.S. investors to stock mutual funds spending more money on them than they have in the past 13 years. So far this year sock funds earned $172 billion, the most since the 2000 overall of $272 billion, according to the estimates of Morningstar Inc.

Not a Banc De Binary trader?

Sign In