– Stock Market Companion – Current Holdings –

Nr.	Co.	Ticker	Action	Entry Date	Current Gain (Loss)
1	Boeing, Co.	BA	Holding	12/22/2011	+1%
3	Alcoa, Inc.	AA	Holding	1/3/2012	+5%
4	Dendreon, Inc.	DNDN	Holding	1/11/2012	-9%
5	Mitek, Inc.	MITK	Holding	1/12/2012	+4%
6	Cirrus Logic	CRUS	Holding	1/17/2012	+6%
7	Cree, Inc.	CREE	Holding	1/18/2012	+11%

– 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	1,316	Index	FLAT = +0.62 points
DOW-30	12,708.82	Index	Down = -11.66 points
NASDAQ	2,784.17	Index	Flat = -2.53 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 –

The U.S. equities (stock) markets are quieting down.  Volume is low.  Here’s what we know now –

 

1. The broader market is in a clearly defined and robust UP-Trend.
2. We are in earnings season, which starts traditionally with Alcoa (Ticker: AA $10.23) announcing their earnings first for members of the DOW.
3. When J.P. Morgan Chase announced their earnings last week, their CEO Mr. Dimon said that he felt that the coordinated actions to improve liquidity in Europe (among banks) was very significant and had been well done.  He felt that that action perhaps greatly removed the specter of Big Trouble there for this year.
4. Greece bondholders have not yet accepted a deal to “voluntarily” reduce the value of their investments by up to -70%!  More surprises could be in store for the markets here.
5. Jobless claims are in a defined DOWNTREND in the U.S.  This is giving us clues that businesses are perhaps momentarily satisfied with their staffing levels for upcoming economic conditions.
6. The economy in the U.S. appears to be modestly improving.
7. The economy in Europe is still decelerating due to their sovereign debt troubles and uncertainties arising from them.  Germany’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) forecasts for 2012 have been reduced to below +1%.  That is very close to “0” AND can easily fall below “0”.  A traditional measure of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.
8. Stocks are improving in value.  Market leading stocks like Apple however are not simply “shooting” higher.
9. U.S. corporate earnings are strong.
10. The markets are rewarding companies who are performing well with increasing share prices.
11. Companies like Alcoa – who reported an earnings MISS – but also possible attractive aluminum prices ahead are being given the benefit of the doubt and share prices are increasing.

 

 

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

S.I.M.P.L.E. Stock Investing is built upon these core areas –

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?)

 

Today we’ve summarized the market and some individual stock stories with this 5 minute Stock Market Companion Successful Investing Video-

Please click here to watch it and please don’t forget to use your right mouse button to bring-up controls to replay, rewind, or stop the video.

 

– Benchmarks “At a Glance” –

 

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