Today's Portfolio Review

The G20 meeting presents a quandary here. While this week's clarity from the Fed represents a significant improvement in the near-term environment, the potential for bad news from the Trump/Xi dinner could easily push things the other way.

We currently see the odds of "bad" news as about 30%, "great" news at about 10%, and the odds for market "friendly" news (meaning some sort of truce where the two sides agree to keep talking) at about 60%.

As such, we may add to our holdings today - in the Market Leadership or Top Gun Stocks section. But there is no guarantee as we still have to meet and make decisions. Just wanted to give you a heads up.

Here is the current positioning of the portfolio and our member ratings:

Effective Net Market Exposure Explained
The Effective Net Market Exposure is the "net long" position of the overall model portfolio after factoring in the impact of leveraged long positions such as SSO and QLD and/or short positions. Leveraged ETFs such as SSO are designed to deliver approximately twice the daily return of the underlying index. Thus, a 10% holding in the SSO equates to a 20% "net long" position to the portfolio.

Current Rating Explained
This is our rating for the day. The Current Rating tells you what action we would take if we did not currently hold the position. A "Buy" rating means we would be willing to purchase the position at current prices. A "Strong Buy" suggests this would be our first choice to buy. A "Hold" rating indicates we would not make new purchases at current levels. And a "Sell" rating indicates we will likely exit the position in the near-term.

Positions Can Change
Positions often change during the trading session. Remember that we ...

The State of the Markets:

It didn't take the news-reading algos long to find what they were looking for in Jerome Powell's speech yesterday. And to his credit, the Fed Chairman didn't make it difficult for either the computers or ...

It didn't take the news-reading algos long to find what they were looking for in Jerome Powell's speech yesterday. And to his credit, the Fed Chairman didn't make it difficult for either the computers or mere mortal analysts to understand ...

Don't look now fans, but there might be some hope creeping into the stock market. With just 23 trading days left in the year, there seems to be some hope that we've seen the bottom of the recent pullback.

To ...

For most investors, 2018 is turning out to be a tough row to hoe. Suddenly, nobody is talking about global synchronized growth, low inflation, the benefits of tax cuts, and 20% earnings growth. No, all that is now so 2017. ...

A busy few days of entertaining family in Colorado provided a reprieve from the keyboard and the markets over the weekend. Thus, I'm going to let the indicators do most of the talking to start this holiday-shortened week.

Briefly, the ...

The State of the Markets:

A busy few days of entertaining family in Colorado provided a reprieve from the keyboard and the markets over the weekend. Thus, I'm going to let the indicators do most of the talking to start ...

Monday was another volatile day on Wall Street as the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 602 points. Granted, problems at Apple (AAPL) and Goldman Sachs (GS) accounted for 170 of those points. And yes, the machines were clearly at work ...

When stocks enter a corrective phase, the main question investors tend to ask themselves is, has anything changed from a macro point of view?

One of the problems with trying to answer this question is that corrections generally are born ...

The State of the Markets:

When stocks enter a corrective phase, the main question investors tend to ask themselves is, has anything changed from a macro point of view?

One of the problems with trying to answer this question is ...

Today's Portfolio Review

Despite the recent "bounce," we continue to maintain a modestly defensive position (net long exposure currently stands at 89% and each of the strategies holds some cash) at this time. The reason is simple. Historically, when the ...

The State of the Markets:

I've got an early meeting (who's idea was it to schedule a board meeting for 7:00am on a Monday??) and I am traveling the rest of the week, so I'm up early and would like ...