Complacency & the Critical Eye

SYNOPSIS
On a one-week basis, all of the major indexes we track were to the downside, except for Nasdaq, which managed a 0.7% gain. Nasdaq also leads our index list on a trend basis now, followed by the S&P/TSX Small Cap Index, then the S&P 500. In other words there’s no clear leader when comparing US vs Canadian markets.

ProfiTrend Portfolio… Our PTP annualized growth rate is now at 144%, after a set-back in part due to a failed option trade (which was outside the scope of our normal trading strategy.) Regardless, 144% is still well ahead of the comparable stats for the S&P 500 (25%) and the S&P/TSX Composite Index (23%).

State Street Investor Confidence Index… The latest results from this key measure of “smart money” confidence have just been released for the month of June. Institutional investors continue to pour billions into equities as they pull money out of “riskless” bonds. The current global index is at 119.5. 100 is considered the neutral point in the balance between risky (stocks) and riskless (bonds) asset holdings.

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Topic of the Week… Complacency & the Critical Eye
This week’s topic underlines the importance of applying some critical thinking when reading anything that you hope might improve your skills as a do-it-yourself investor. Absorbing the material like a sponge just isn’t enough. You need to be constantly assessing the quality of what you read as you read it. We illustrate this by dissecting a recent “investor tips” article from a financial newspaper. It was pretty much randomly chosen, and the critique applied there is generalizable to other articles like it. Along the way, we also have a look at the latest financial media buzzword, “complacency”. It may quickly become another media verbal platform to mislead investors, just as “volatility” has been for the past seven years.

Featured Video… Speaking of complacency, my kid brother, Bob (Robert E. Whaley, PhD), who created the VIX volatility index, has stooped to a Fox News TV interview this past week. In spite to that, he actually tells a great story about the history of the index and what the subdued VIX levels really mean right now.