Though ‘Cyber Monday’ is technically today, I can’t help but think Black Friday’s online shopping results – a day traditionally focused on in-store sales numbers – are at least as telling as the consumer clues we’ll find when today’s (and the weekend’s) spending results are tallied.
In any case, we can already start drawing some conclusions [...]

We’re still not looking to add any new positions just yet, but we’re certainly finding some that are highly interesting. Most of the ones that we’ve previously mentioned are still on the radar, but there are a few new ones that could be purchased soon. They are (in no particular order)…
Republic Services Inc. (RSG)
The buy [...]

Though it’s a little off our normal beaten path, I think it’s a chart worth bringing up not because the chart itself is so interesting, but because of what the chart means. I’m talking about the chart that compares the Chinese Yuan to the U.S. Dollar. President Obama traveled to China last week in an [...]

A few days ago I posted an updated sector rotation chart. However, that’s only half the picture of the current market environment. I’m just as interested in market cap (large, mid, small) and style (value versus growth) rotation. It just so happens that e really hadn’t seen any… until now.
With our last look on October [...]

Though I still don’t want to add any new trades to the portfolio until we get a healthy, marketwide pullback, there are a handful of stocks I’ve got my eye on. Some of them have already been mentioned, while I’ve also got a few new ones. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s on the radar.
All [...]

I just wanted to post a quick update for tonight to show you what we looked like after getting into Smith International (SII) a couple of days ago. Though the allocation still isn’t where I want it to be, for a portfolio of only four stocks, it’s not bad. Bear in mind that 60% of [...]

A handful of times over the past few weeks I’ve mentioned the importance of using sector rotation to your advantage, since the benefits can be tremendous (far more than most investors assume). Well, today I’ve got an updated sector rotation chart that (1) illustrates what I’m talking about, and (2) has already guided me – [...]

Though it’s been three weeks since I mentioned the possibility of adding Smith International (SII) to the portfolio, don’t think for a minute the idea hasn’t been floating around the whole time. Other ideas have popped up in the meantime (like the additions I made to the watchlist on the 4th), but all ideas are [...]

I don’t kn0w how much of the bigger-picture stuff you guys follow. Sometimes economic data  like consumer credit levels seems so academic and so long-term, that the impact on our portfolio is impossible to really define. It all matters though, so we’re going to take a step back today and see if we can figure [...]

In yesterday’s portfolio update I talked a lot about what was going on with our current positions, but only mentioned in passing some of the stocks that may eventually become positions. Since it’s the future trades that matter most though, I want to walk all of us through part of the though process of turning [...]