Financial Select Sector SPDR (ETF)

• Sector Analysis: Cyclicals Away!

  By Declan Fallon - May 20, 2013 | Tickers: XLY, XLF, XLK

  The strength of a rally can be gauged by how sectors are performing relative to one another. These relationships can determine if a rally has room to run, or if things are about to turn. Rallies are best fueled by the support of cyclical sectors, but typically struggle when monies are channeled into defensive sectors.

  Sector performance can be viewed from two perspectives: the past six months, when this phase more »

• 3 InvestmentsThat the Bull Market Forgot

  By Adem Tahiri - May 19, 2013 | Tickers: CSCO, GLW, XLF

  Investors everywhere are wondering if now is the time to sell their stocks. With stocks at all time highs who can blame them? It seems that everything has doubled or tripled in price, since the 2009 lows, and the market is now much higher than it was before the crash of 2008.

  But what about the stocks that missed the bull run?

  There's a select group of stocks that more »

• Tuesday April 23 Notable Upgrades And Downgrades

  By Jayson Derrick - April 23, 2013 | Tickers: BAC, XLF, JCP, NFLX, PFI, YUM

  As earning season is in full force many analysts and investors are taking a second look at many companies. Quarterly results and future guidance released by management is often more than enough to warrant an upgrade or downgrade. Here are some notable companies with changes in ratings and why it is important for your portfolio.

  Upgrades

  
  

   Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX)

  What happened?

  So far Netflix is the clear winner in the more »

• Would You Climb Mount Everest Without a Guide? (Part II)

  By Justin Carley - April 15, 2013 | Tickers: BRK-B, XLF, GS

  U.S. equity markets are at all-time highs and each trading day offers opportunities for the media to hype what could be numerous new highs before a notable market correction unfolds. How is your portfolio doing? Is it at all-time highs? Has it beaten the S&P 500? In this second of a three part series, I further dive into a simplistic and effective way for any investor to beat more »

• JP Morgan’s Earnings Tell the Story They Want You to Hear

  By Peter Pham - February 5, 2013 | Tickers: BAC, XLF, JPM

  JP Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) recently reported a massive increase in quarterly income in its Q4 results that seems to defy any concerns related to the volatility of the global economy. The better than expected results have come thanks to a mix of lower tax rates, an improved performance from the corporate and investment banking units of Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and a large reduction in loan loss reserves more »

• Citi and Bank of America Miss on Litigation Costs

  By Peter Pham - January 27, 2013 | Tickers: BAC, C, XLF

  Despite headlines (and some data) to the contrary, mortgage difficulties and increasing litigation costs plagued both Citigroup (NYSE: C) and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) fourth quarter results. Both of them have been looking to focus on even more cost cutting measures.  While the housing market may be improving somewhat, there is still not only a ton of shadow inventory weighing on prices but also the continued hollowing out of more »

• Why We're Chasing Banks, but Not One in Particular

  By RJ Towner - January 10, 2013 | Tickers: BAC, C, XLF, WFC

  During the past year, and particularly in the past several months, the performance of large US banks has been strong. As Valuentum members are aware, we were anticipating this expected outperformance when we added exposure to the banking sector in January 2012 .

  Shares of Citi (NYSE: C), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) have all rallied at least 5% during the past more »

• QE3 Won't Keep Financial Stocks Bullish for Long

  By John Mylant - September 18, 2012 | Tickers: BAC, XLF, JPM, WFC

  Remember when “another bombshell” was dropped on us about 100 days ago now by JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM)?  A huge credit derivative loss thought to be am amazing $2 billion mushroomed into about $6 billion. But do investors really care about this? It is a minor re-occurrence of something bigger in 2008 when the government stepped in bailing out most of the major banks. Memories seem to be short when good more »

• Lessons from JP Morgan´s Stranded Whale

  By Andrés Cardenal - May 11, 2012 | Tickers: XLF, JPM, UBS, WFC

  JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) came out of the financial crisis in a better position than most other banks, so the company had earned a reputation as a relatively solid risk manager. But investors received a nasty surprise on Thursday when they learned that the bank had lost more than $2 billion in a complex trade which was supposed to hedge other positions in the portfolio and reduce risk.

  The operation, which more »

• Citigroup Investors were Right to Say No

  By Andrés Cardenal - April 20, 2012 | Tickers: BAC, C, XLF, JPM, WFC

  55% of Citigroup (NYSE: C) shareholders said no to the bank´s executive pay package, this may have been unexpected by many, but it´s clearly a rational decision. The fact that shareholders are starting to wake up and applying a deeper scrutiny to companies and their payment practices sounds like a very healthy trend that needs to be incentivized in the interest of fair corporate practices and transparent incentives more »

• Preferring Preferreds for Income

  By Michael Gayed - January 26, 2012 | Tickers: XLF, IEF, PFF

  “I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.” - Anatole France

  With low yields and the Fed's stated intention to keep interest rates depressed until at least 2014, its become a harder and harder environment for income-oriented investors to collect cash flow from their positions. As I have noted in prior writings on several financial websites, there appears to be the growing possibility that 2012 ends up more »

• Winners and Losers in Banking

  By Michael French - January 25, 2012 | Tickers: BAC, C, FITB, XLF, USB

  The US banking sector has been having a rough time for the past few years.  The future is not going to be getting easier anytime soon.  The IMF just announced that the European debt crisis is going to hurt world growth in 2012.  This is a fear shared by many come to life. World growth for 2012 has been revised down to 3.5% from previous estimates.  This number is more »