It's A Bad Idea To Bet On Only The Biggest Stock In The Market
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You Should Bet The Overall Market, Not Its Biggest Company (John Del Vecchio)
A fascinating chart from John Del Vecchio: how the largest company, by market cap, performed during their time ranked No. 1, versus overall market performance. As you can see, the market wins in a landslide:
Gold Isn't Looking Too Good (Bloomberg)
Gold prices will close the year at $1,550 an ounce, according to a Bloomberg survey. That's 7.5% less than at the end of 2012 and the biggest drop since 1997. "It’s the end of an era,” Soc Gen's Michael Haigh, who correctly predicted the collapse a month ago, told Bloomberg. “ETF flows and hedge fund flows have gold changing direction for the first time in a long, long time. Prices are going to be dropping.”
The 20 Most In-Demand Employers On LinkedIn (LinkedIn)
From LinkedIn, which used proprietary data to determine which companies job seekers and networkers were most interested in contacting. It's simple, but it seems like a good proxy for growth and brand recognition.
LinkedIn/Ritholz
Bears Cannot Convince A Pullback Is Imminent (Price Action Lab)
Sure, things have gotten a bit choppy, PAL's Michael Harris writes, and bears may try to convince us that a pullback is imminent. They will be wrong, based on this chart, he says.
Harris: "The technical picture is pretty clear from the above chart and any bear who tries to rationalize otherwise is experiencing cognitive dissonance. Stock market bears who see that the market is on a strong uptrend since the beginning of this year try to rationalize their position by blaming the FED, QE and claiming that the market is manipulated. This is a terrible psychological state of cognitive dissonance, similar to what a smoker experiences when he knows that smoking kills but tries to rationalize his decision to buy cigarettes by denying the validity of the studies that show a high death rate amongst smokers."
Italy's Equity Market Turning A Corner (David Kotok)
The storm in Italy appears to have abated, at least for now, after the election of a new coalition government led by anti-austerity candidate Enrico Letta, David Kotok says. Italian equities rallied big in April: EWI, the Italian stock ETF improved 13.07% for the month, 3x the 3.57% gain in the main Germany ETF. The iShares MSCI EMU Index ETF, EZU, which covers the Eurozone markets, advanced by 6.34%. There's more. Kotok: "The bond market welcomed political developments in Italy, permitting the country to auction 3 billion euros of 5-year bonds at 2.84% and 3 billion euros of 10-year bonds at 3.94%, the lowest auction yields for such bonds since October 2010. Another indication of the improvements in the market’s attitude towards Italy is the increase in Italy’s bank deposits in March. Some had feared the debacle in Cyprus would lead to stress in the banking systems of other peripheral economies."