Fellow Investor, The last few days of the first quarter are here. And what a quarter it's been! We saw the end of two governments in the Middle East (Egypt and Tunisia). Two more are teetering on the brink (Syria and Libya). We saw oil prices spike above $100 a barrel. We saw the Prime Minister of Portugal leave office. There was massive flooding in Australia and a devastating earthquake/tsunami in Japan. And amazingly, stocks look poised for an end of quarter run that should challenge 1,335 resistance on the S&P 500. Who knows, we may even see new highs above 1,344 this week. The S&P 500 is now posting a solid 5% advance for the quarter. It's on pace to finish with gains close to last year's 1st quarter, which was the best since 1998. *****Oil prices and stocks reversed early weakness yesterday. Oil stocks could be the best stocks to trade for the next couple of days as funds window dress for the end of this quarter, and the start of the next. If you're not familiar with the term "window dressing", it refers to the tendency of fund managers to add hot, top performing stocks to their books as the quarter ends. Funds may also try to goose returns with a little buying. Take oil, for instance. If you were a fund manager and didn't own oil stocks as oil prices ramped from $85 to $105, well, you might look a little silly. Your investors might start asking questions... In order to avoid answering embarrassing questions like "how did you miss that giant move for oil stocks", you might go ahead and purchase some oil stocks so you can say "see? I hold oil stocks." (Of course Wyatt Investment Research advisory service Global Commodity Investing members had access to a fine investment report in Bakken oil stocks, available HERE.) Yes, fund managers do make mistakes. And they sometimes try to gloss over those mistakes. To the fund manager, appearances are sometimes more important than performance. Because when you buy a fund, you don't get those expenses back if you're not happy with the performance. It's quite different in the "newsletter biz." Sure, I have to encourage members to pay subscription fees for my advisory publications. But my readers stay because of outstanding performance. Every Wyatt Investment Research subscription comes with a full money-back guarantee. If a member doesn't make money from our research, he or she can get their money back no questions asked. In my opinion, this a far better business model than managing a fund. *****A poll from Reuters shows that analysts now believe oil prices will stay above $100 a barrel through 2013. Funny, 4 months ago, analysts were forecasting an $80 average sale price for oil this year. Oops. It's clear to me that most oil analysts do not truly consider the state of supply and demand. There is a limited supply of oil, and the only thing that reduces demand is recession, and those are temporary. Oil supply and demand are on a collision course. If I were a fund manager, doing a little window dressing with oil stocks, I wouldn't sell them. At least, not until they'd quadrupled, or more. *****Private payrolls added 201,000 jobs in March. That's good, but not good enough. Nonfarm Payrolls report on Friday is expected to show 190,000 new jobs. *****Earnings season is right around the corner. Stay tuned... Until tomorrow, Ian Wyatt Editor Daily Profit |
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