Utilities Select Sector SPDR (XLU)

All Comments on XLU

  • commenter
    Larry the
    Hunt
    Oct 14 07:41 AM
    Tuesday Outlook: Everything But the Kitchen Sink [view article]
    David: re recession into depression

    "The way to do that is to take all of your money out of the stock market. This will mean that businesses must shrink. You may lose your job as a result"

    Stock price has very little if anything to do with business contraction and expansion. Yes it can impact cap ratios in banks, leveraged buyouts, and the quantity of new capital through stock sales. It doesn't help, but I don't think that it is a determining factor in the economy - that's a tail wagging the dog story. I do agree if businesses aren't growing through natural demand and reinvestment of earnings, there will be stagnation, recession or worse.


    Reply
  • commenter
    mr.g
    Oct 14 06:53 AM
    Tuesday Outlook: Everything But the Kitchen Sink [view article]
    over sold/ to far to fast - for now this is a correction nothing more - as for 250 billion going into banks coffers it will buy time nothing more . US banks are overleveraged by 46% the US gdp -yes the market is calming down so what does that mean for the near future slow selling off of stocks to continue -
    2.3 trillion dollars(a little less than france's gdp) in europe isnt going to be enough either -
    if you were still in the market now or tomorrow would be the time to sell while the perma bears go for broke
    Reply
  • commenter
    David White
    Oct 14 02:33 AM
    Tuesday Outlook: Everything But the Kitchen Sink [view article]
    Oh yes, at this point in time, the futures are up substantially. It is currently looking like tomorrow will be another up day. Even if that fades as the day wears on. Remmeber the markets zigzag up. When all you hear is good news about actions the government is taking, it is unlikely that the bottom will suddenly fall out of the markets. Many people are profiting (using PUTS and short sales) from the panic they are trying to instill in the average investor. Be smart. Listen to the real news, not the gloom and doom propaganda of profiteers. If fears are easing (and the VIX does seems to be going down), don't feel the need to sell out. It is unlikely the market is going down. It is more likely the market is going up. Don't contribute your money to someone else's coffers. Reply
  • commenter
    David White
    Oct 14 02:27 AM
    Tuesday Outlook: Everything But the Kitchen Sink [view article]
    I keep hearing people compare this crash to the1929 crash. I am embarassed that there are so many people running scared. Certainly there were the bad mortgages. Then there was the complete drying up of the commercial paper market. Everyone was scared all the banks would fail. Some have. Some were saved by buyouts. The $700 billion dollar bailout should rescue us from that fate. Apparently the U.S. government is going to invest $250 billion in U.S. banks. This should provide at least the big ones with enough capital to tide them over through this tough period. The Fed is now buying commercial paper. This is already helping the commercial paper market. The housing market even had good news last week, when the number of houses sold went up for a change (even though they sold at lower prices). The Wells Fargo buyout of Wachovia is going through. Mitsubishi is buying into Morgan Stanley. Everything is turning rosy. The market bounced off a strong support point last week. There is strong support at $82 and $85 on the SPY. After that there are no strong support points until the $42 to $45 range in the SPY. The SPY hit $83 and change last week intraday. It bounced upward. There is every indication that this is at least a near term bottom. It may turn out to be the longer term market bottom we have all been hoping for. Only time will tell that. However, it does look like a strong bounce for the moment. The immediate big bank failure fear is gone. The belief is that the government and the Fed are slowly bringing the commercial paper market back. The government has promised several actions to shore up the housing market. This is starting to be a little bit less worrisome, especially if there are further programs enacted to further shore it up. In normal market bounces, the market goes up in zig zag lines for about a month or more. It appears we should be able to expect this again. Perhaps it will be better than that. Perhaps we have hit bottom. Only time will tell that.

    Still this is not another coming of the great depression. How do I know that? I look at history. Look at the changes in the laws. Look at the improvement in the Fed and the Treasury. In the 1920's the market just kept going up, unreasonably so. People were so happy with it they invested as much as they could, so they could get richer faster. This meant that many people were heavily margined. In those days the laws allowed up to 90% margin (i.e. you only had to have 10% of the stock value to buy it). When the margin calls started coming in the great crash, everyone had to sell. Those that were not as heavily margined had to sell to avoid losing all they had because a lot of people were heavily margined. The result was that almost all investment in stocks ended. With no money from the stock market to feed their expansion, etc., virtually all businesses shrank. They could do nothing else. The housing market collapsed then too. A lot of people lost everything. This is why the margin requirements law was changed. This is why many people today have no margin at all. They just own stocks through mutual funds. People like Jim Cramer did not help the situation. There was some severe panic. That should be lessening.

    This is likely a bad recession. Perhaps it is comparable to the mid 1970's recession. However, there is no reason to believe it should be a great depression unless we make it into one. The way to do that is to take all of your money out of the stock market. This will mean that businesses must shrink. You may lose your job as a result. If you stop spending because you are scared, business's profits will fall drastically. People will lose there jobs. Again there will be a cascade effect. As FDR said so many years ago, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. It is this fear, this panic, that can really destroy our system. Have a little faith in the government. Have a little faith in your economic system. Spend prudently, but spend. Invest prudently, but invest. The sky is not falling. Don't make it.

    My personal belief is that this is at least a rally off a near term low (which may have been an actual bottom). The big profit is to be made in the early stages of that rally. Listen to the fear mongers, and you will miss it. If you do invest, monitor the markets. If we start getting a lot more news about bank failures, or the commercial paper market drying up, or even about a lot of businesses going bankrupt, then consider selling again. However, you should not make all that a foregone conclusion by insisting on a death spiral, when it doesn't have to happen. Sometimes "fear" really is the thing we have to fear most.     Reply
  • commenter
    granger
    Oct 11 02:41 AM
    Market Strategy: Sector vs. Style [view article]
    One of the best article I have read. Great info, very insighful tool for understanding price performance. Thank you. Reply
  • commenter
    The World's
    Worst Stock
    Picker
    Oct 06 01:05 PM
    My Website
    How Do Commodities ETFs Compare to ETNs? [view article]
    The article is very informative. Thanks. Reply
  • commenter
    ETF STER
    Oct 06 12:18 PM
    How Do Commodities ETFs Compare to ETNs? [view article]
    You had my attention until you decided to turn this into an internet advertisement of your newsletter.

    I think that Seeking Alpha should send you a bill.     Reply
  • commenter
    gamma65
    Oct 05 01:18 AM
    My Website
    What To Do in a Rebuilding Year [view article]
    The equity and bond markets have benefited from a long period of low inflation, but ongoing and massive central bank liquidity injections point to a far less benign environment of elevated inflation ahead. Research by our firm, Agcapita Farmland Investment Partnership (Calgary, Canada based agriculture private equity firm – farmlandinvestmentpart...) shows investors must be prepared to rotate into asset classes with different characteristics. During the last commodity bull market & high inflation period in the 1970’s, equities materially underperformed farmland.
    - Western Canadian farmland went from around $100/acre to $550/acre (550% total return and 176% in inflation adjusted terms);
    - Cash held in a money market account barely kept ahead of inflation (6% inflation adjusted return); and the
    - S&P 500 index returned less than 2% per year (a loss of almost 50% in inflation in adjusted terms)

    We believe the world is still in the early stages of this current commodity bull market. When agriculture commodities prices are compared against their previous inflation adjusted highs they are significantly discounted implying scope for further increases:
    - Corn is US$ 5/bushel currently compared to US$16/bushel in 1974,
    - Wheat is US$ 7/bushel currently compared to US$27/bushel in 1974
    - Canadian farmland is C$ 660/acre currently compared to C$1,100/acre in 1981

    Another interesting metric is the long-term average ratio of the Commodities Research Bureau Index versus the S&P 500 which is currently around 1.5 times. Simplistically, this ratio indicates how much S&P 500 stock you can buy with a fixed basket of commodities. Some important points:
    • During the commodity bull market of the 1970s, the ratio was consistently higher than 2 times for over 10 years – it peaked at almost 4 times.
    • The ratio is currently at around 0.5 times - significantly below the 1.5 times long-term average, just slightly above the 0.15 all time low reached in 1999/2000 and still very far below the almost 4 times multiple reached in the last commodity bull market. We still appear to be at an all time low relative valuation between “hard assets" versus "stocks.”
    • If history is a guide, the ratio of hard assets to stocks will have moved much higher before this commodity bull market is over.
    • How? Stocks will continue to fall and/or commodities will continue to climb – most likely a serious combination of both as investors, fearing inflation, rotate out of stocks into commodities – the cycle of “inflation, rotation, hard assets”.
    Agcapita is a Calgary based, agriculture private equity firm that allows investors to cost effectively allocate a portion of their portfolios to hard assets in the form of Canadian farmland via its professionally managed Agcapita Farmland Investment Partnership. Agcapita Farmland Investment Partnership is the third in a family of private equity funds which has grown to almost $100 million in assets under management. Agcapita’s investment team has over 40 years private equity and fund management experience and over $1 billion in total career transactions and previously managed a group of emerging market funds with almost C$500 million in assets for one of the largest banks in Europe.

    Reply
  • commenter
    johnthebear
    Oct 01 08:48 AM
    Tuesday Outlook: Bailout Brouhaha [view article]
    So much depends on the "package"!

    They have it all wrong.

    Freeze interest resets from Jan 2008 for 3 years.

    To heck with lenders making more money!

    Got to stop foreclosures NOW!

    Government cannot manage vacant houses!

    The "package stinks" and I don't trust Paulson since he was part of the reason we are here with the stupid Fannie-Freddie Fraud beginning in 1995.

    All the top democrats, Dodd, Oboman, Frank are at the root of the problem along with Franklin Rains!

    How can we trust any of these LIARS?     Reply
  • commenter
    icandoitdon
    Sep 30 04:40 PM
    Don't Fight an Expensive Bull Market [view article]
    "The earnings yield of the S&P 500 is significantly above that of the 2 year note making the market currently 70% undervalued. Its hard to argue that stocks aren't the cheaper investment at this point. "

    wake up.

    the 2 year note is artificially depressed, yielding almost nothing, precisely because it is a flight to safety trade. as far as the earnings yield is concerned, current estimates for the s&p 500 are virtually worthless.

    the market is 70% undervalued. sure it is. in your dreams.     Reply
  • commenter
    alajac
    Sep 30 09:51 AM
    My Website
    Don't Fight an Expensive Bull Market [view article]
    PROTEST THE FED`S EXTORTION RACKET
    A WRITE-IN ELECTION CAMPAIGN TO REVOLUTIONIZE RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION AND TAXATION
    The `HOW TO FIX THE ECONOMY` plan addresses three problems with America`s economic system which are destroying our financial security.

    Problem 1.
    America`s National Debt is approaching 10 trillion dollars and the system is less than 100 years old. Nice work. If human bodies worked like America's currency supply, every time kids grew a little they would need to take out a loan so they could buy a transfusion of new blood. We can do the same things for ourselves that the Federal Reserve does without creating any debt at all.

    Problem 2.
    The Income Tax law was drafted by the same rich guys who invented the Federal Reserve system. They came up with a way to tax us `cash cows` while simultaneously avoiding paying taxes on their own wealth. A kid right out of college shouldn`t be paying a greater percentage of his accumulated wealth in taxes than Bill Gates. We need a flat, transparent, automatically-collecte... taxation system which corresponds closely to `benefits previously received`.

    Problem 3.
    Thanks to automation, robotics and computers, the days of plentiful, highly-paid jobs employing vast numbers of manual and mental laborers are gone.
    Remember the days when there were millions of jobs that paid well enough to buy a house, two cars, an RV and a cottage on the lake...and still save plenty for retirement? If you do, then you`re pretty old. For most of us, those days are gone and they`re not coming back. To address this problem we need to either `kill off a lot of people` or else develop a new resource distribution model suitable for a world where jobs are going the way of `the buggy whip`.

    The solutions in the plan were developed from the following premises.
    1. Life is inherently unfair. The only legitimate function of government is to counter that unfairness.
    2. Whatever story they tell you, it`s always and only about `the money`.
    3. The results of any system depend on the incentives the system creates.
    4. Cooperation is not communism. When they try to tell you it is, remember #2.
    5. Property is actually owned by whoever can defend their claim to it.
    5. Within a framework of proportionately equal costs and benefits for all, advantage should fall to those born into the worst circumstances.

    Tell Congress we need a TOTALLY NEW DEAL!
    Replace the Federal Reserve System
    with U.S. Government Debt-Free Money,
    Replace the Income Tax with a tiny, flat tax on `Benefits Received`,
    and Create Better Social Security for ALL

    WRITE-IN Alan Jacquemotte for U.S. President
    More by and about alan can be found on U4Prez.com (user=alajac) and classmates.com
    Send no money, just make copies of the plan and hand them out.



    HOW TO FIX THE ECONOMY a plan to stimulate the economy, lower taxes, start paying off the National Debt, alleviate poverty and decrease crime
    by replacing our OLD economic system with a NEW system based on
    a new and debt-free U.S. currency to replace Federal Reserve Debt-Money,
    a 0.5% tax on electronic transfers to replace the Federal Income Tax and the IRS,
    and $1000 per month government privatization compensation for legal U.S. residents

    The problem is always THE SYSTEM, never just `the people who screwed up`. Until we fix THE SYSTEM, similar bad things will keep on happening. Fault for the credit scam lies not with the banks and borrowers who lost their shirts and homes, but with our predecessors for allowing this SYSTEM to become law, and with ourselves for not getting rid of it earlier.

    The primary problem with the OLD SYSTEM is that `our` money (actually the Federal Reserve`s Debt-Money) leaks its purchasing power like a bucket with a hole in the bottom leaks water. The Fed dollar currently buys less than 5% of what it bought in 1913. (To view a video that makes the problems inherent in our use of the Fed`s Debt-Money much clearer, do an online search for `Zeitgeist Fed`.) There is NO BENEFIT AT ALL in having a Central Bank (well, none for us) compared to having the U.S. Treasury print and distribute to ourselves our own debt-free money, and THE ONLY DIFFERENCE between having a central bank (like the Federal Reserve System) or not, is that ``One system costs us 95% of our wealth every hundred years and puts us and our posterity into mind-boggling debt until the end of time``... and the other one doesn`t. So the first thing we need for our NEW SYSTEM is our own, debt-free U.S. Government currency, backed by the value of all of the property within the nation`s borders. Bankers will tell you this will cause the end of civilization. It won`t.
    Another problem is that the OLD SYSTEM`s income-based taxation creates wasteful tax avoidance behavior, requires an expensive tax reporting industry and an intrusive collection bureaucracy, and is, arguably, a form of `involuntary servitude`. Under a NEW SYSTEM, we could replace all income-related taxes with a one-half percent, automatically-collecte... electronic transfer tax (also known as a `debit tax`) which would be avoidable by business transactions that used only cash or barter. This change will not only rid us of the IRS (saving us the billions of dollars that are currently spent on `tax reporting`), it will also end the OLD SYSTEM`s penalization of work and entrepreneurism, as well as freeing up further untold billions currently spent on `tax avoidance`. (Also inhibits market speculation.)
    The third problem with the OLD SYSTEM is that, because governments privatize all of their claimed property (allocating it however they like), everyone winds up being denied their natural right to free access to all property without being compensated for that loss. That`s not a problem for those with access to capital and property ownership, but for the rest of us, it is totally unfair and creates a slanted playing field upon which wealth tends to gravitate to the rich and well-connected. Free-market or socialist, every government`s allocation method results in `denial to everyone of free access to all land`, for which ALL governments should provide compensation.
    Consequently, our NEW SYSTEM should pay to every legal adult resident $1000 per month (of the new, non-Fed, non-Debt-Money) which can REPLACE ALL FORMS OF PERSONAL AND CORPORATE WELFARE AND SUBSIDIES, no financial qualification required and no restriction on earning additional income (saving us billons in Social Security and Welfare bureauracracy costs and leaving Congress very little to do). Compensation for minors should be held in a trust fund to avoid incentivizing `baby factories`. Since everyone gets the same amount of compensation, this plan does NOT redistribute wealth, but will be of most help to those with the least accumulated wealth. Besides its immediate and direct assault on poverty, the benefits of this part of our NEW SYSTEM should include a reduction in crimes of all sorts, more jobs at better pay, better childcare, more rural homesteading, better maintained urban areas, no more `homeless veterans`, less intrusive and cheaper government with lower military-related expenses and a safer world in general. We can expect residents of other countries to insist their governments either copy our NEW SYSTEM or else apply for U.S. statehood (as Texas did in 1845) as soon as the see how well this NEW SYSTEM works.
    HEALTH CARE...the AMA and FDA work to constrain competition in order to maximize the medical and pharmaceutical industries` ability to extort unconscionable prices for services and substances that should be affordable out-of-pocket. We need to train up thousands more doctors and other healthcare professionals and to decriminalize and unbridle access for adults to WHATEVER drugs adults feel they need and let the market work to make prices of normal medical help and pharmacology affordable. TO KICK OUR CRUDE (OIL) HABIT, Congress could add on a 10% surcharge at the gas pump, bump it up another 10% every 6 months, and rebate the surcharge revenue in monthly equi-dollar amounts to every registered car OWNER, regardless of how much they drive. The surcharge will incentivize cheaper alternatives which will rapidly come to market, no government subsidies or mandates required.
    HELP ME SEND THIS MESSAGE to candidates running for Congress in 2010 and 2012. In order to get elected, you will need to pledge to help us THROW OFF the predatory Federal Reserve System and devise a NEW SYSTEM, one that ``provides new Guards for our future Security``. We can send a very clear message to those candidates with a MASS WRITE-IN CAMPAIGN for an unknown candidate running for no other purpose than to send that message. (That`s where I come in.) With the major parties fielding candidates who seem to be decent people but who are apparently unaware of the damage the present system is causing to us NORMAL folk, and with the 3rd parties addressing only symptoms rather than the BAD SYSTEM at cause, this election is the ideal time to vote for REAL CHANGE, not just new faces. I will register as a write-in candidate in every state from which I get emails expressing support. Pass this message along to several people every day (or, even better, to everyone you know today, and to everyone you meet from now on). IF EACH OF US EVERY DAY CONVINCE EVEN ONE OTHER PERSON TO JOIN US, OVER ONE BILLION PEOPLE CAN BE `ON BOARD` IN 30 DAYS. Get out (and online) and DO IT! For questions or more info, email alan_jacquemotte@yahoo...
    MAKE COPIES OF THIS PAGE AND HAND THEM OUT. THE HARDER WE PEDAL, THE FASTER WE`LL GET THERE.






    Reply
  • commenter
    4263mike
    Sep 30 09:12 AM
    Tuesday Outlook: Bailout Brouhaha [view article]
    Just got this message when I tried to contact my US Representative

    "Messaging Service Unavailable
    The House of Representatives is currently experiencing an extraordinarily high amount of email traffic. The Write Your Representative function is therefore intermittantly available. While we realize communicating to your Members of Congress is critical, we suggest attempting to do so at a later time, when demand is not so high. System engineers are working to resolve this issue and we appreciate your patience."

    AND, you want these guys to manage $700B with no strings attached (you really want to know where the &700B went, sorry due to ext ordinary demand, we stopped keeping records) and after that, run your health care (sorry, that life saving operation is temporarily unavailable) plus any other socialized program they can think of? Heaven help us if they succeed!!
    You think its just an isolated government bungle? Try buying gold coins from the US mint; sorry, we ran out.
    Reply
  • commenter
    peterthepain
    ter
    Sep 30 04:57 AM
    My Website
    Don't Fight an Expensive Bull Market [view article]
    yes...down first...earnings will fall...sure we'll go up...in time!
    but down first eh?     Reply
  • commenter
    Stone Fox
    Capital
    Sep 29 07:22 PM
    My Website
    Don't Fight an Expensive Bull Market [view article]
    The earnings yield of the S&P 500 is significantly above that of the 2 year note making the market currently 70% undervalued. Its hard to argue that stocks aren't the cheaper investment at this point. Reply
  • commenter
    RCA
    Sep 29 11:28 AM
    My Website
    Don't Fight an Expensive Bull Market [view article]
    "However, for these two key people, one of whom will soon be the elected leader of the most economically powerful nation in the world..."

    I would rephrase that to say, "the formerly most economically powerful nation in the world."

    I'm not sure that we will survive this current crisis and maintain anything resembling economic (let alone moral) leadership. The "liars and criminals" you cite, just may have taken us over the brink to the point of no return becuase of their philosophy of "Greed is good for me. The rest of you be damned!"

    The next few months will be very interesting, to say the least. We are at a watershed moment in American history. Whatever happens with the financial services industry, the credit crisis, the bailout, and the elections, we will emerge from it all a very different nation. It will be a brave new world. God help us!     Reply
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