– Stock Market Companion – Current Holdings –

Nr.	Co.	Ticker	Action	Entry Date	Current Gain (Loss)
1	ZAGG, Inc.	ZAGG	Holding	2/28/2012	+1%
2	Eight by Eight	EGHT	“Toe-In” Holding	3/9/2012	-12%
3	EBAY	EBAY	HOLDING	3/14/2012	-4%
4	Ford Motor Co.	F	Holding	3/15/2012	-4%
5	Linked-In	LNKD	Holding	3/26/2012	-3%
6	Molycorp	MCP	Holding	3/29/2012	+1%

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

– Market Trends –

*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 markets were pushed down today by news of Spain possibly not able to meet its obligations.  In the U.S. this news about Spain was important as it triggered some profit taking, but at Stock Market Companion, we feel that markets were particularly NEGATIVELY impacted by the company Sandisk’s PRE-ANNOUNCEMENT that earnings and DEMAND are going to be weaker than expected.  The company will report more fully on April 19th.  Sandisk’s memory devices are required across the technology landscape, so when they give a signal that demand is weakening, that sends a strong signal to investors.  The tech sector and the banking sector were both heavily impacted today.

Market sentiment can be perhaps summarized as entering a period of cross-currents.  We’ve experienced a strong rally in the marketplace and there is plenty of room for profit taking, while the market maintains its overall bias.  The short term trend may now even be turning negative, but we believe that this current uptrend will maintain its overall bias.  Abrupt challenges to this uptrend could of course occur – caused by a geo-political event (like an attack on Iran) or other calamity or change in overall economic climate of significance.

Here’s what we know –

1. Recent Federal Reserve Beige Book results tell us that the U.S. economy is continuing to expand very modestly.
2. Yesterday’s release of Federal Reserve Meeting Minutes from mid-March surprised market participants a bit due to the mention of the Fed’s ability to pull-forward its plans for monetary tightening = possible interest rate hikes.  This should surprise no one.  The Federal Reserve has been holding rates down for a long time and plans to continue to keep rates low.  This doesn’t mean that they cannot make changes to their policy and take wise, preemptive steps to avoid getting behind the inflation fighting curve.  Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has proven that he is willing to take action when necessary – and it will be necessary for him at some point to make at least significant symbolic steps to stay ahead of inflation – by raising rates a 1/4 or a 1/2 point in increments that would be reasonable and useful.
3. Weekly new jobless claims in the U.S. are trending down = a sign that employment is at least stabilizing.
4. Today’s March ADP Employment Report  numbers indicate that another approx. 209,000 jobs were added to the nonfarm, private business economy from Feb. through March.  Please click here for the full report.
5. Employment Reports for both December and January were revised HIGHER today = indicating more growth than was expected occurred.
6. Politically and from a standpoint of fiscal conservatism, the White House and the Republican held U.S. House of Representatives are at complete opposite ends of the spectrum – but after last year’s wrestling match and with this year’s election ahead – neither appear willing to take chances to try to make helpful changes to our U.S. fiscal expenditure overload.
7. The U.S. automotive industry posted Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) figures for new car sales that reached early 2008 levels for the first time.  In February, the SAAR rate of new car sales reached 15 million.  Friends, this is good news.  March numbers however declined a bit.  We can simply say this – the U.S. automotive industry is on the mend.
8. New housing starts and sales remain very distressed.  However – prices for new and existing home sales strengthened a bit recently, new housing starts improved, and interest rates for a 30 year fixed rate mortgage remain very low (approx. 4%).
9. Corporate earnings are strong.
10. The European Union is currently experiencing a mild recession.  This is reducing orders for goods out of China and causing China’s growth also to falter.  We are seeing very little strength in the materials environment pricing like steel and copper or aluminum.  If the shares of leading companies in these sectors – like Freeport McMoran (FCX) for copper, or U.S. Steel, or Alcoa sink further we will be looking to pick some up at a steep discount.

European Monetary Union (EMU) rim nations that are over-indebted – like Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland, and Portugal will continue to capture attention.  Today the news was negative about Spain’s ability to meet obligations.  This will continue for a long time into the future.

– S.I.M.P.L.E. Stock Investing Method tm –

– (Where each investment begins with a Story and ends with Earnings) –

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

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

I = Institutional 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?  Don’t Fight the Market! We know the vast majority of stocks move in the direction of the overall market).

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?)

We are holding shares in these companies –

• Ebay
• Eight by Eight (EGHT)
• Ford
• Linked In
• Molycorp
• Zagg

We were stopped out today on our Advanced Investor Opportunity holding, Research in Motion.

We like the stories of each of the above listed companies.  Ebay, Linked-In, Zagg, and Eight by Eight are technology stocks that could get pushed around some.  Linked-In in particular needs momentum to keep going, so we will see what we should do there.  We do not want to step too quickly to the sidelines on these stocks.

We believe that we have entered a period of time that – overall – favors equities (stocks).

At the request of a member-friend, we will review Southwest Airlines (on Friday) and Priceline.com (on Monday), as well as continue to seek company stories that are compelling.  Monsanto for instance reported excellent earnings today.

– Benchmarks “At a Glance” –

–Data Source : Financial Visualizations Inc.