Published January 6, 2017
Looking at the Wall Street Journal’s chart below of the 2016 performance of myriad asset classes and indexes, we were struck by just how overwhelming the investment landscape can be. The list below does not even include all the indexes and subsectors available to investors. Nor does it begin to contemplate individual company stocks, options or futures on any of these securities, or bonds. From the thousands upon thousands of choices, we have made our focus the Nasdaq 100 index traded by the ticker symbol QQQ. Trading QQQ is our default. However, our website provides a Ticker Tool which allows you to input the stock, bond, currency, or commodity symbol of your choice to see how our model performs when applying it to that symbol. For more on how to use our Ticker Tool see the FAQ of the Week section after the asset class performance charts.
Charts 1: Asset class performance for 2016
No doubt 2017 will give us an entirely different list of winners and losers.
How to use our Ticker Tool
Our Ticker Tool gives you the results of our models applied to the investment vehicle of your choice. To get to the Ticker Tool, go to the Results tab and scroll all the way to the bottom of the page. Here, we seek to find out how investing in Google (Alphabet) using our Turbo Model would have performed.
Chart 2: Applying our Turbo Model to investing in Google stock
Market Update
Investors kicked off 2017 in upbeat fashion rising +0.9% on positive economic data out of China. Domestically, construction spending and an index of manufacturing activity both rose, leading investors to feel more comfortable about the late 2016 stock market gains. Stocks added a further +0.6% Wednesday with auto sales stronger than expected. Stocks held flat Thursday despite weakness in retail shares as department store heavyweights Macys (M) and Kohls (KSS) expressed concern over weak holiday sales. Bond yields made their first notable move of the year slipping back on the release of minutes from the Federal Reserve’s December meeting.
Those notes showed a Fed perhaps less unified on a path of aggressive rate hikes in 2017 than investors previously thought. A rather lackluster employment report did little to dampen enthusiasm for stocks in this first week of the year. Investors pushed shares higher Friday with the Nasdaq Composite outperforming on strength in several online retailers along with positive moves in biotech.
Warm wishes and until next week.