That Was No Fortune Cookie

China had a surprise for us today. While all eyes were on Europe, Oil and the jobs report due out on Friday, China tapped us on the shoulder and dragged the market down quite a bit.

This was the market update sent to the Salve Lucrum Family at the close today:

Boys And Girls;

If you read the blog from last night I apologize as the header was copied from Thursday post. I do not know how that happened, but it was the weekend post to be sure.

As I suggested, most eyes are waiting for Friday's job report. Since everybody is sitting on ready, any surprises give us the jitters. Well China was a surprise.

They lowered their growth estimates from an annual GDP of 8% to 7.5%. Still it is a very robust rate compared to the rest of the world. By comparison, our rate is just at or below 3%. However when a huge economy like China knocks a half point off the table, people cringe.

Oil was poofing up today as the Isreal/Iran rhetoric heated up. Our own leader chimed in today saying "We got your backs." To the ever important block of Jewish voters. He might stop to consider what $160.00 a barrel oil would do for his re-election bid before fueling the war of words between Iran and Isreal.

Let's take a quick look at the Core Holdings today.

AAPL came down a tad today, probably in reaction to the Chinese GDP adjustment. Perhaps they will only sell 90 million iPhones instead of 100 million this year. The drop created a nice pop in the calls we sold last week. The calls are up 57%. If you are not in AAPL, this is a brief buying opportunity.

MSFT was right in line with the overall market.

XOM buoyed up a full point on creeping gas prices. Something to keep in mind that we are seeing gas prices creep up, but with The UK and Europe both feeling the effects of weaker currencies, they are paying record prices for gasoline. Converted to US Imperial, they are paying about 9 bucks a gallon. Yeah that would change the traffic on the 5 freeway in a hurry.

CELG in line with the market.

UNFI had a great day, up almost 3%. The reason again is a bit cloudy, but I am thinking it is ahead of earnings so some institutional interests are coming into play.

GWW beat the market, which considering the Chinese news is a very bullish sign for the stock. Can't see a specific reason, other than they are well positioned for a positive economy.

MGRC up in volume and I can not explain the market beat today. The relative heavy volume tell me institutional buying.

Non-Core holdings include LQMT, GNTX, EPAY (see below), and TGH.

Watching NUAN, PCLN, RAX, ULTA (Cramer and IBD are hot on this one), INVN, EC (an interesting energy play), PNRA (pattern looks interesting), and FIRE.

If you have any questions, let me know.

Bottomline Technologies EPAY as a reminder sells electronic-payment invoice and document-automation services to corporations and financial institutions. The stock dropped a bit (2%) last week after a new 52-week high. Last Monday, Bottomline announced that it would pay 20 million for a division of Intuit (Think Quicken and Quicken Books). The deal looks to lower current earnings a bit, but EPAY's Software As A Service division is growing and this acquisition will eventually improve margins according to The Street.com and Morningstar. The dip creates a nice entry point.

Brian

More Bad News For Boomers

The WSJ had a decent article about the ratio of retirees to workers in the US. Not a pretty picture. The article was supported by a Mr. Arnott of Research Affiliates from Newport Beach. For the first time in history, this year the population of senior citizens will rise faster than the working population.

So what does that mean to me and you as investors? As the onslaught of retirees take their money out of play, demand for stocks will diminish. (I just shaved about 900 words into one coherent sentence. Your welcome) Expected returns of 8-9% as many boomers were promised will like be left to geniuses like me and actual returns for most will be a point or so above inflation.

Food for thought. Keep your return expectations in mind and when you use those retirement calculators scale back the returns to a more realistic 5-6%.

Give or Take A Day

You hear me talk a lot about accumulation days and distribution days. In today's IBD there was a great article about distribution days by Donald Gold. I want to digest the article a bit more, and tomorrow I will give you a summary and explain how they can be an important tell as to knowing when to hold them and knowing when to fold them and knowing when to walk away and knowing when to run.

Salve Lucrum  

China had a surprise for us today. While all eyes were on Europe, Oil and the jobs report due out on Friday, China tapped us on the shoulder and dragged the market down quite a bit.

This was the market update sent to the Salve Lucrum Family at the close today:

Boys And Girls;

If you read the blog from last night I apologize as the header was copied from Thursday post. I do not know how that happened, but it was the weekend post to be sure.

As I suggested, most eyes are waiting for Friday's job report. Since everybody is sitting on ready, any surprises give us the jitters. Well China was a surprise.

They lowered their growth estimates from an annual GDP of 8% to 7.5%. Still it is a very robust rate compared to the rest of the world. By comparison, our rate is just at or below 3%. However when a huge economy like China knocks a half point off the table, people cringe.

Oil was poofing up today as the Isreal/Iran rhetoric heated up. Our own leader chimed in today saying "We got your backs." To the ever important block of Jewish voters. He might stop to consider what $160.00 a barrel oil would do for his re-election bid before fueling the war of words between Iran and Isreal.

Let's take a quick look at the Core Holdings today.

AAPL came down a tad today, probably in reaction to the Chinese GDP adjustment. Perhaps they will only sell 90 million iPhones instead of 100 million this year. The drop created a nice pop in the calls we sold last week. The calls are up 57%. If you are not in AAPL, this is a brief buying opportunity.

MSFT was right in line with the overall market.

XOM buoyed up a full point on creeping gas prices. Something to keep in mind that we are seeing gas prices creep up, but with The UK and Europe both feeling the effects of weaker currencies, they are paying record prices for gasoline. Converted to US Imperial, they are paying about 9 bucks a gallon. Yeah that would change the traffic on the 5 freeway in a hurry.

CELG in line with the market.

UNFI had a great day, up almost 3%. The reason again is a bit cloudy, but I am thinking it is ahead of earnings so some institutional interests are coming into play.

GWW beat the market, which considering the Chinese news is a very bullish sign for the stock. Can't see a specific reason, other than they are well positioned for a positive economy.

MGRC up in volume and I can not explain the market beat today. The relative heavy volume tell me institutional buying.

Non-Core holdings include LQMT, GNTX, EPAY (see below), and TGH.

Watching NUAN, PCLN, RAX, ULTA (Cramer and IBD are hot on this one), INVN, EC (an interesting energy play), PNRA (pattern looks interesting), and FIRE.

If you have any questions, let me know.

Brian

Bottomline Technologies EPAY as a reminder sells electronic-payment invoice and document-automation services to corporations and financial institutions. The stock dropped a bit (2%) last week after a new 52-week high. Last Monday, Bottomline announced that it would pay 20 million for a division of Intuit (Think Quicken and Quicken Books). The deal looks to lower current earnings a bit, but EPAY's Software As A Service division is growing and this acquisition will eventually improve margins according to The Street.com and Morningstar. The dip creates a nice entry point.

More Bad News For Boomers

The WSJ had a decent article about the ratio of retirees to workers in the US. Not a pretty picture. The article was supported by a Mr. Arnott of Research Affiliates from Newport Beach. For the first time in history, this year the population of senior citizens will rise faster than the working population.

So what does that mean to me and you as investors? As the onslaught of retirees take their money out of play, demand for stocks will diminish. (I just shaved about 900 words into one coherent sentence. Your welcome) Expected returns of 8-9% as many boomers were promised will like be left to geniuses like me and actual returns for most will be a point or so above inflation.

Food for thought. Keep your return expectations in mind and when you use those retirement calculators scale back the returns to a more realistic 5-6%.

Give or Take A Day

You hear me talk a lot about accumulation days and distribution days. In today's IBD there was a great article about distribution days by Donald Gold. I want to digest the article a bit more, and tomorrow I will give you a summary and explain how they can be an important tell as to knowing when to hold them and knowing when to fold them and knowing when to walk away and knowing when to run.