HARRIS ON A CONSPIRACY OF BIG FOOD COMPANIES
“Vice President Kamala Harris, this week’s presidential front-runner [claims]... that a conspiracy of Big Food companies is artificially driving up the prices of groceries, taking advantage of consumers to boost their bottom line.
My question is: If this claim is true, why aren’t these
companies doing better? Most of their stock performances stink. Their profit
margins stink. Their net income stinks. Some conspiracy.
Shareholders in Tyson Foods — aka Big Chicken — have earned 3% total since the start of the COVID-19 crisis in March 2020. That’s including dividends. Three percent. In four years. Booyah! Campbell Soup shareholders, over the same period, have earned 25%, again including dividends. ConAgra Foods which makes everything from Chef Boyardee to Vlasic pickles: 33%. J.M. Smucker : 32%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 SPY is up 100%.
If there’s one thing I hate more than a greedy, profiteering, price-gouging conspiracy, it’s a greedy, profiteering, price-gouging conspiracy that doesn’t make any money....
... Meanwhile, the real bandits gouging us are based in Silicon Valley and are eagerly donating to both political parties. Are the politicians going to crack down on them? Stay tuned.” Story at...
Baloney in aisle seven as Kamala Harris takes on ‘Big Grocery’ (msn.com)
My cmt: Of course grocery “greedflation” isn’t true. Like most politicians, she is lying for political purposes. No one could be that stupid...could they?
"Don't criticize what you can't understand." –
Bob Dylan.
PROFIT MARGINS – as reported in audited SEC documents.
Tyson Foods: 1.4%
Avg. Grocery Stores: 1.6% (If Grocery stores were responsible for 10% inflation, how come they only made 1.6% profit?)
Kroger: 2%
Ford: 3.8%
United Health Care: 4.3% (Remember that Obama told us that health insurance companies were gouging us and that was why we needed Obamacare? It was a lie.)
Exxon Mobile: 10%
Verizon: 14%
Apple: 25%
Nvidia: 57%
“I think we want to be cautious about the gradual creep
of regulations and bureaucracy... If the government keeps making more rules
without doing away with others that are not working, eventually, we will be able
to do nothing... That’s an important rule for government to ensure that the
rules are correct and that the incentives are what we actually want them to be
for... [Where the government goes wrong is]“when they want to not just be a
referee on the field, they want to be a player on the field.” – Elon Musk from
CNBC at
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/10/elon-musk-government-is-the-ultimate-corporation.html
MARKET OUT OF LINE WITH REALITY (WSJ)
“I’ll consider three gauges here, the CAPE, the forward PE and the Fed Model. All show that the offers being presented by Mr. Market—as legendary investor Benjamin Graham personified it—are unattractive for large U.S. stocks at present. They are expensive not only compared with the past but compared with smaller stocks, foreign stocks, corporate bonds and Treasurys, too...
...Ben Graham was talking about individual stocks and bonds when he said that a margin of safety is “the secret of sound investment [distilled] into three words.” But the principle applies to the market as a whole: Buy when valuations offer no margin of safety, and you shouldn’t be surprised when your portfolio doesn’t do particularly well. Right now there’s not much margin of safety.” - James Mackintosh, Senior Markets Columnist, WSJ. Commentary at...
https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/markets-are-way-out-of-line-with-reality-according-to-these-measures-1209f9fb
My cmt: Valuation metrics are hard to compare over market history. Markets are driven by supply and demand. Now there is a new generation of investors. According to Schwab, “15 percent of all current U.S. stock market investors say they first began investing in 2020.” There are also fewer stocks than there were 25 years ago. More investors chasing fewer stocks = higher prices. The article describes hits and misses for the three market measures CAPE, the forward PE and the Fed Model. None are in my system.
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Monday the S&P 500 rose about 1% to 5608.
-VIX slipped about 1% to 14.65.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined slightly to 3.875% (compared to this time, prior trading day).
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
XLK – Holding since the October 2022 lows.
XLK – added more 7/26. This reestablishes the position I had before this recent weakness.
UWM – added 7/15.
QLD – added 7/24.
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
The Bull/Bear Spread remained well to the bull side at 2 Bear-signs and 20-Bull. (The rest are neutral. It is normal to have a lot of neutral indicators since many of those are top or bottom indicators that will signal only at extremes.)
The Bull/Bear, 50-Indicator spread (Bull Indicators minus Bear Indicators) dipped from +20 to +18 (18 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators). The 10-dMA is rising; the trend in price is clearly up.
TODAY’S COMMENT:
Markets were up again today. I noticed that investors in the Rydex, long/short funds were betting strongly to the short side going into today’s trading day. My guess is that those investors were watching the number of days that have been up recently. Before today, the S&P 500 had been up 7-days in a row. They figured the Index wouldn’t go up again Monday. They were wrong. It was probably a good bet normally, but after a pullback, such as the near 9% correction that bottomed 2 weeks ago, some exuberance is not unusual. Monday, however, I did get some overbought signs from two indicators.
The Overbought / Oversold Index is overbought. This is a
breadth indicator and is a decent short-term indicator. Further, there have
been too many up-days in the last 10-days. Both suggest a down-day for Tuesday
and possibly a relatively short pause in the advance. By themselves, they don’t
have much longer-term implication.
LONG-TERM INDICATOR: The Long Term NTSM indicator
remained HOLD: VOLUME is bullish; VIX, SENTIMENT & PRICE are neutral. (This
indicator is more valuable for Sell-signals and during major Bear Markets.)
{The important major BUY in this indicator was on 21
October 2022, 7-days after the bear-market bottom. For my NTSM overall signal,
I suggested that a short-term buying opportunity occurred on 27 September 2022 (based
on improved market internals on the retest), although without market
follow-thru, I was unwilling to call a buy; however, I did close shorts and
increased stock holdings. I issued a Buy-Signal on 4 October, 6-days before the
final bottom, based on stronger market action that confirmed the market
internals signal. The NTSM sell-signal was issued 21 December, 9 sessions
before the high of the 2022 bear market, based on the bearish “Summary of 50”
indicator.}
BOTTOM LINE
I’m bullish. What’s not to like.
ETF - MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily) ETF ranking follows:
The top ranked ETF receives
100%. The rest are then ranked based on their momentum relative to the leading
ETF. Utilities are leading momentum due to
the flight-to-safety trade. I think
Technology (XLK) is probably the best ETF to own now based on recent price
action.
*For additional background on
the ETF ranking system see NTSM Page at…
http://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/exchange-traded-funds-etf-ranking.html
DOW STOCKS - TODAY’S MOMENTUM RANKING OF THE DOW 30 STOCKS (Ranked Daily)
The top ranked Stock receives
100%. The rest are then ranked based on their momentum relative to the leading Stock.
For more details, see NTSM Page at…
https://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/a-system-for-trading-dow-30-stocks-my_8.html
MONDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)
My basket of Market Internals remained BUY. (My basket of Market
Internals is a decent trend-following analysis of current market action, but
should not be used alone for short term trading. They are most useful when they
diverge from the Index.)
...My current invested
position is about 75% stocks, including stock mutual funds and ETFs. I’m
usually about 50% invested in stocks when markets are stretched; my current
stock position is above the norm. (75% is my max stock allocation when I am
strongly bullish.)
I trade about 15-20% of the total portfolio using the
momentum-based analysis I provide here. When I see a definitive bottom, I add a
lot more stocks to the portfolio, usually by using an S&P 500 ETF as I did
back in October 2022 and 2023.
“Vice President Kamala Harris, this week’s presidential front-runner [claims]... that a conspiracy of Big Food companies is artificially driving up the prices of groceries, taking advantage of consumers to boost their bottom line.
Shareholders in Tyson Foods — aka Big Chicken — have earned 3% total since the start of the COVID-19 crisis in March 2020. That’s including dividends. Three percent. In four years. Booyah! Campbell Soup shareholders, over the same period, have earned 25%, again including dividends. ConAgra Foods which makes everything from Chef Boyardee to Vlasic pickles: 33%. J.M. Smucker : 32%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 SPY is up 100%.
If there’s one thing I hate more than a greedy, profiteering, price-gouging conspiracy, it’s a greedy, profiteering, price-gouging conspiracy that doesn’t make any money....
... Meanwhile, the real bandits gouging us are based in Silicon Valley and are eagerly donating to both political parties. Are the politicians going to crack down on them? Stay tuned.” Story at...
Baloney in aisle seven as Kamala Harris takes on ‘Big Grocery’ (msn.com)
My cmt: Of course grocery “greedflation” isn’t true. Like most politicians, she is lying for political purposes. No one could be that stupid...could they?
Tyson Foods: 1.4%
Avg. Grocery Stores: 1.6% (If Grocery stores were responsible for 10% inflation, how come they only made 1.6% profit?)
Kroger: 2%
Ford: 3.8%
United Health Care: 4.3% (Remember that Obama told us that health insurance companies were gouging us and that was why we needed Obamacare? It was a lie.)
Exxon Mobile: 10%
Verizon: 14%
Apple: 25%
Nvidia: 57%
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/10/elon-musk-government-is-the-ultimate-corporation.html
“I’ll consider three gauges here, the CAPE, the forward PE and the Fed Model. All show that the offers being presented by Mr. Market—as legendary investor Benjamin Graham personified it—are unattractive for large U.S. stocks at present. They are expensive not only compared with the past but compared with smaller stocks, foreign stocks, corporate bonds and Treasurys, too...
...Ben Graham was talking about individual stocks and bonds when he said that a margin of safety is “the secret of sound investment [distilled] into three words.” But the principle applies to the market as a whole: Buy when valuations offer no margin of safety, and you shouldn’t be surprised when your portfolio doesn’t do particularly well. Right now there’s not much margin of safety.” - James Mackintosh, Senior Markets Columnist, WSJ. Commentary at...
https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/markets-are-way-out-of-line-with-reality-according-to-these-measures-1209f9fb
My cmt: Valuation metrics are hard to compare over market history. Markets are driven by supply and demand. Now there is a new generation of investors. According to Schwab, “15 percent of all current U.S. stock market investors say they first began investing in 2020.” There are also fewer stocks than there were 25 years ago. More investors chasing fewer stocks = higher prices. The article describes hits and misses for the three market measures CAPE, the forward PE and the Fed Model. None are in my system.
-Monday the S&P 500 rose about 1% to 5608.
-VIX slipped about 1% to 14.65.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined slightly to 3.875% (compared to this time, prior trading day).
XLK – Holding since the October 2022 lows.
XLK – added more 7/26. This reestablishes the position I had before this recent weakness.
UWM – added 7/15.
QLD – added 7/24.
The Bull/Bear Spread remained well to the bull side at 2 Bear-signs and 20-Bull. (The rest are neutral. It is normal to have a lot of neutral indicators since many of those are top or bottom indicators that will signal only at extremes.)
The Bull/Bear, 50-Indicator spread (Bull Indicators minus Bear Indicators) dipped from +20 to +18 (18 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators). The 10-dMA is rising; the trend in price is clearly up.
Markets were up again today. I noticed that investors in the Rydex, long/short funds were betting strongly to the short side going into today’s trading day. My guess is that those investors were watching the number of days that have been up recently. Before today, the S&P 500 had been up 7-days in a row. They figured the Index wouldn’t go up again Monday. They were wrong. It was probably a good bet normally, but after a pullback, such as the near 9% correction that bottomed 2 weeks ago, some exuberance is not unusual. Monday, however, I did get some overbought signs from two indicators.
I’m bullish. What’s not to like.
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily) ETF ranking follows:
http://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/exchange-traded-funds-etf-ranking.html
DOW STOCKS - TODAY’S MOMENTUM RANKING OF THE DOW 30 STOCKS (Ranked Daily)
For more details, see NTSM Page at…
https://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/a-system-for-trading-dow-30-stocks-my_8.html
MONDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)
