– Stock Market Companion – Current Holdings –

Nr.	Co.	Ticker	Action	Entry Date	Current Gain (Loss)
1	Boeing, Co.	BA	Holding	12/22/2011	+1%
2	DEX-One Corp.	DEXO	Sold Today	12/29/2011	+16.4% (Final)
3	Alcoa, Inc.	AA	Holding	1/3/2012	+3%
4	Dendreon, Inc.	DNDN	Holding	1/11/2012	-3%
5	Mitek, Inc.	MITK	Holding	1/12/2012	+4%
6	Cirrus Logic	CRUS	Holding	1/17/2012	+1%
7	Cree, Inc.	CREE	Purchased Today	1/18/2012	+1%

– Markets “At a Glance” –

(Please scroll down to the end of the report to see your favorite benchmarks – Dollar, Oil, Gold … closing prices and daily direction.)

 

Market	Price (Today’s Close)	Unit of Measure	Today’s Direction
SP-500	1,308.04	Index	UP = +14.37 points
DOW-30	12,578.95	Index	UP = +96.88 points
NASDAQ	2,769.76	Index	UP = +41.63 points

 

– Market Trends –

 

Trend	SP-500	DJ-30	NASDAQ
Short Term	Flat / UP	Flat / UP	Flat / UP
Intermediate	Flat	Flat	Flat
Long Term	Lateral	Lateral	Lateral

 

*Summary of terms from Trader Vic II-Principles of Professional Speculation (pg. 140-141)
*_________* Represents a change in trend rating.

 

– Market Perspectives –

 

For your added perspective, we’ve included this chart of the broader market (Successful stock investors develop and start with a minds-eye view of the broader market and keep it clear) –

 

SMC SP-500 ETF Daily Chart (Please click on the chart to see a bigger, easy to read chart on a separate browser tab window).

 

– Today’s Highlights –

When we reported last, the nation of France had just had their sovereign debt rating CUT and the U.S. equities markets were not sure what to do in response.  At Stock Market Companion, we suggested that –

“From an investors standpoint, our first question has to be – “Is the market already factoring this news into its current price?”  Our SMC answer is – to a far reaching degree, “YES.”  This is why the markets did NOT fall off a cliff today on this news.  We think that bond rating adjustments on the 1st world welfare states like France, help give politicians ammunition to make important policy changes.  They have an excuse to tell their electorate why certain social programs are being adjusted.  Bond ratings changes help them find a balance that has been sorely lacking over the past decade.

Remember however that the markets often need a few days to finally decide which direction they are going to go, in response to such foundational issues.”

So far, the markets are responding with a “ho hum” attitude to trouble in Europe as market participants pay more attention to the FAVORABLE earnings coming from U.S. corporations.  Alcoa (AA $10.03) kicked-off earnings with a LOSS (their 1st quarterly loss in over 8 quarters = 2 years), BUT gave a very favorable indication of aluminum demand for 2012 and is working hard to do their part to keep the supply lower in order to increase the aluminum ingot price.

J.P. Morgan-Chase came out with earnings that revealed excellent results for 2011 AND JPM CEO, Jamie Dimon mentioned that actions taken in late November to stabilize the short term lending in Europe were very favorable (but of course not guaranteed) for keeping trouble in Europe contained for 2012.

Today – Goldman Sachs (GS $104.80) came out with earnings that BEAT estimates and offered a glimmer of hope ahead.  This gave many financial stocks a boost today AND the rest of the market.

On the technology front, shares of Apple, Inc. (AAPL $429) marched higher into new high territory, with another brokerage / financial firm giving it an upgrade to $530 or so.

Our broad road-map – the S&P 500 ETF (SPY $130.77) inched ABOVE the October highs today and maintains its favorable posturing, albeit on lower volume.

 

 

– S.I.M.P.L.E.  Stock Investingtm –
– (Where each investment begins with a Story and ends with Earnings) –

Today it’s official – we are introducing our Stock Market Companion – S.I.M.P.L.E. Stock Investing Method, with the understanding that every investment begins with a story and ends with a consideration of real earnings.  We want to keep our investing SIMPLE and focused.  This is a format that will change lives and give users a pattern and routine for identifying excellent investments.

S = Story (What is / are the key catalyst(s) behind the company of interest?)

I = Investor Interest (Is the stock chart showing investor interest = buying or share accumulation?)

M = Market (Is the background market favorable for investing at this time?  This recognizes that 9 out of 10 stocks move with the overall market, according to decades long research from William O’Neil.).

P = Person or Product (Is there a particular person or product that makes the story work for this investment?)

L = Leader (Is the company a leader in its industry group or is its product a leader in its market?)

E = Earnings (Are current quarterly earnings and annual earnings growing?)

On Friday we wrote … “SHLD shares closed at $82.47 on October 27th and today closed at $30.99.  That’s an approx. -63% haircut in a 2.5 months.  The last three days has seen Mr. Eddie Lambert – the KEY SHLD director – purchasing $136.5 million and then another $5.5 million worth of stock on the open market.  This has our attention.  Sears Holding Co. operates Kmart stores as well as Sears. Nothing particularly good going on there, however this type of open market purchasing gets our attention (and others too)”  On Tuesday, the SHLD stock opened at $34.04 and JUMPED to $38.  There was nothing we could do.  It’s certainly not a stock story that we like very much – besides the insider buying component.

Over the last two days we have made two new investments and today closed our DEXO holding, with these SMC Intra-Day Updates –

Investment –

Dear Subscriber-Friend,

At Stock Market Companion today we purchased a few shares of a more speculative investment involving Cirrus Logic, Inc (CRUS $20.49).  The company made a favorable announcement on January 10th.

For protection, our stop is down at approx. $18.50 and our target on the shares to the upside is perhaps $26/share, which would represent an approx. +25% on our investment.

Please click here for a link to our short SMC Successful Investing Video describing our interest in CRUS today. To rewind or otherwise control the video, please use your right mouse button.

We are simply reporting our own actions in the market place.  Each investor is on their own.  Please see our disclaimer below.

Your – Stock Market Companion

 

Investment –

Dear Subscriber-Friend,

At Stock Market Companion today we have purchased shares of Cree, Inc. (CREE $24.24).

We have created two short videos to show you what we are seeing –

Video 1 = Story, earnings, and overall stock performance

Video 2 = Story (continued), today’s technical price action and what has piqued our interest.

Please don’t forget to right click your mouse on the video chart to bring up controls that will allow you to easily replay or stop the video.

We are simply reporting our own actions in the market place.  Each investor is on their own.  Please see our disclaimer below.

Your – Stock Market Companion

Profit Taking on Shares in DEXO-

Dear Subscriber-Friend,

At Stock Market Companion today we SOLD shares of DEXO at $1.95 AND increased our STOP on the remainder of our holdings to $1.86.

We don’t like the severity of today’s sudden pull-back in the shares.  We were hoping for a quiet, lateral consolidation to set in – but that’s not what the market is offering.

We are simply reporting our own actions in the market place.  Each investor is on their own.  Please see our disclaimer below.

Your – Stock Market Companion

 

– Benchmarks “At a Glance” –

 

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