Month: February 2022
If January Predicts the Rest of the Year, Investors Could Be Hurting
The month of January 2022 is over, and it wasnât a pretty one for investors. The Standard & Poorâs 500 closed at 4516, down 251 points, or 5.3%, for the month. Now, for some more potential bad news: If you believe a popular stock barometer, the market pain might just be getting started.
Thatâs because two patterns in January have historically predicted the direction of the stock market for the rest of the year with a high degree of accuracy, according to the Stock Traderâs Almanac.
The January Barometer
What is known as the January barometer indicates that as the S&P 500 goes in January, so goes the year.
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If the S&P 500 has positive returns in January, the overwhelming amount of time the market will end up with positive returns of 5% or more for the year. And if the S&P 500 has a negative return in January, the overwhelming amount of time the market will end up with negative returns of 5% or more for the year.
Going back to 1950 through the end of 2021 the January barometer has registered major errors in only 12 years out of the 72 years in this period. This gives it an 83.33% accuracy rate.
For those 12 years there were three where January was positive and the S&P 500 ended the year negative, and there were nine years where January was negative and the S&P 500 ended positive.
In 52 of the other 60 years if January was up the S&P 500 ended the year decisively positive, and if January was down the S&P ended the year decisively in negative territory.
In the remaining eight years the S&P 500 ended the year flat. Which means it was less than 5% above or below where it started the year. Put another way, the January barometer didnât predict a meaningful loss or gain for those eight years.
If we eliminate these eight flat years, we would then have the January barometer correctly predicting the direction of the stock market in 52 out of the last 72 years which would be a 72.2% accuracy rate.
Negative Januaries Spell Trouble
Negative Januaries have been harbingers of trouble ahead. There have been 29 of them since 1950.
While nine resulted in decisively positive returns for the year (meaning returns of better than 5%), in 100% of the down Januaries they were followed by a new or continuing bear market, a 10% correction or a flat year.
Down Januaries were also followed by substantial declines sometime later in the same year averaging -13%. This is not good news for advocates of the January effect.
Januaryâs First Five Days
The other pattern to watch is Januaryâs first five days. In 47 out of the last 72 years, during the first five trading days of January the S&P 500 was up. This was then followed by full-year gains in 39 of the 47 years.
This means over this time period, 82.98% of the time when the market was up during the first five days of the year, it ended the year with a positive return.
Unfortunately, that wasnât the case in January 2022. The S&P finished the first five trading days of the year down â although not dramatically â by almost 90 points, or 1.9%.Â
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Judging by history, itâs tougher to tell what that might mean for the rest of the year, because in the other 25 years where the first five days in January were negative, the results were much less predictable. In 14 of these 25 years the S&P 500 ended with a gain, and in 11 of the 25 years it ended the year with a loss.
This means only 44% of the time was the market negative for the year (11 out of 25 years) when the first five days were negative, giving it only a 44% accuracy rate.
The average gain across all 25 years was roughly 1% a year as compared to the 13.7% average gain per year across the 47 periods where the first five days in January were up.
The Bottom Line
To summarize, since 1950 the direction of the S&P 500 in January, known as the January barometer, has accurately predicted the direction of the stock market for the year 72.2% of the time.
And when the return on the S&P 500 during the first five days of January has been positive, the stock market has had a positive return for the year roughly 83% of the time.
There are certainly pundits who consider these trends to simply be dumb luck, almost like voodoo economics. Others take these two trends very seriously.
While I wouldnât bet my entire 401(k) plan on it, if you think these two January statistical trends are more than just dumb luck, you might consider using this information, along with other relevant data, in making modest tweaks to your level of stock exposure.
And if nothing else, keep your fingers crossed that the market in 2022 defies these two trends and ends the year higher. Â
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Explaining 401k Early Withdrawal Penalties
Do you dream about a retirement where you escape away to your cabin in the woods, or one where youâre flying your grandkids to Europe for an epic vacation? Making this dream a reality requires tucking money away for the future. And for many people, the place to do that may be within a 401(k) […]
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The 15 Best Neighborhoods in Omaha for Renters in 2022
While you can get an Omaha steak here, there’s so much more to see.
The post The 15 Best Neighborhoods in Omaha for Renters in 2022 appeared first on The Rent.com Blog : A Renterâs Guide for Tips & Advice.
How to Read the Balance Sheet of a Company for Investment
Alphabet (GOOGL) an Analyst Favorite Ahead of Q4 Earnings
The earnings calendar is jam-packed for a second straight week, with more than 20% of S&P 500 companies set to report. Among them is Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL, $2,630.45), which will unveil its fourth-quarter earnings report after Tuesday’s close.
Similar to other mega-cap stocks, GOOGL has had a rough start to 2022, down around 10% for the year-to-date. Still, Alphabet remains a long-term outperformer on the charts, with shares up about 43% over the past 12 months.
Analysts see even bigger long-term gains for GOOGL stock too. The average price target among those following Alphabet that are tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence is $3,365.86, representing implied upside of almost 28% over the next 12 months or so.
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Plus, of the 47 analysts following GOOGL, 31 say it’s a Strong Buy and 15 call it a Buy. This compares to just one who has a Hold rating on the stock, with not a single Sell or Strong Sell to be found.
Truist Securities analyst Youssef Squali is one of those with a Buy rating on Alphabet. “GOOGL remains one of our favorite names going into the fourth-quarter earnings season as we believe it will show sustained signs of recovery especially in Search and YouTube, on the back of slightly easier year-over-year comps,” he says.Â
The analyst is targeting top-line growth of 25% over Q4 2020, and expects to see broad-based improvement across all digital marketing channels following another strong holiday season.
UBS analyst Lloyd Walmsley is also expecting strong Q4 results from GOOGL. Walmsley points to the research firm’s fourth-quarter ad checks, which suggest Google was a prime beneficiary of the reallocation of social media budgets.
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“Google Search and YouTube sounded the best out of all the ad platforms in our checks, with a number of advertisers indicating that they are seeing demand for the platforms and improvements being made across both,” he writes.Â
The analyst has a Buy rating on GOOGL ahead of earnings. He believes it’s the “safest name to own [among online ad companies] into earnings season,” but warns that it’s also a crowded play.
As for Alphabet’s upcoming report, analysts, on average, are looking for a 26.8% year-over-year (YoY) spike in revenues to fuel a 22.5% jump in earnings per share (EPS) to $27.32.
PayPal Stock Struggles Ahead of Earnings
PayPal (PYPL, $160.84) will report its fourth-quarter earnings after Feb. 1 close. Shares are trading at their lowest level since June following the recent stock market crash.Â
Oppenheimer analyst Dominick Gabriele thinks any additional weakness in the payments processor could create a buying opportunity. “[I]n a big market selloff or further correction below the current ~$160 stock price level, we would slowly build a position throughout the first half of 2022,” he says. The analyst has an Outperform rating on PYPL, which is the equivalent of a Buy.
And there are certainly near-term risks to PayPal. “We see a combination of slowdown in e-commerce/penetration of e-commerce to total retail sales, worries of lower-multiple super app business revenue contribution, and a headwind of eBay for reasons of recent underperformance,” Gabriele writes.Â
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Many of these same concerns were voiced by PYPL when it offered up lower-than-expected Q4 guidance back in November. Specifically, John Rainer, chief financial officer of PayPal, pointed to headwinds from eBay’s payments migrations, as well as “retail supply chain and labor market concerns” as reasons why the company took a cautious stance for the three-month period.
PayPal forecast fourth-quarter earnings of $1.12 per share on a revenue range of $6.85 billion to $6.95 billion. This is roughly in line with analysts’ consensus estimates for earnings of $1.12 per share (+3.7% YoY) on revenue of $6.86 billion (+12.2% YoY).
Analyst: Ford Motor Well-Positioned to Navigate “Chip and Ship” Issues
Ford Motor (F, $19.28) will report its fourth-quarter earnings after Thursday’s close. Analysts, on average, expect earnings to surge 32.4% YoY to 45 cents per share. Revenues are projected to rise to $35.5 billion, a more modest 6.9% improvement over the year-ago figure.
Analysts will also be looking for updates to any “chip and ship” issues for the automaker. “We do see the chip issue continuing to run through 2022,” said John Lawler, Ford’s chief financial officer, in the company’s third-quarter earnings call.Â
As for the “ship” part of the equation, “[P]erhaps our biggest job, in my opinion, is to break the constraints we have in manufacturing and our supply chain so we can get these products out to these customers,” CEO Jim Farley said in that same call.Â
Still, CFRA Research analyst Garrett Nelson (Buy) believes Ford is the most well-positioned among traditional automakers to handle these challenges. “While the company’s language has been cautious, we believe that primarily reflects management’s desire to underpromise and overdeliver,” Nelson adds.
Karee Venema was long F as of this writing.
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One Dozen Home Staging Tips for Homeowners Trying to Sell
If you want to sell your home faster and for the highest possible price, you may find that it helps to thoughtfully stage it with potential buyers in mind. Even in a hot real estate market, staging can be a useful tool. First impressions can be critical as buyers must decide quickly how much to […]
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How to Deal With a Burned Out Boss
What boss burnout might look like
How to address your bossâs burnout
Lead with empathy
Check in with an ask
Name the impact
- He needed his teamâs enthusiasm to infect customers with the same. But Claraâs micromanaging was creating anxiety which was tempering their enthusiasm.
- His teamâs spirit of experimentation was being hampered by Claraâs quickness to anger. Their fear of her temper was pushing them to make only safe (boring) choicesânot the bold ones he needed.
- He was striving to empower his team to make decisions. But Claraâs micromanagement was encouraging them to âcheckâ every decision with himâwhich was exhausting and inefficient.
Offer to partner
- Offer to be an extra set of eyes on the full list of their prioritiesâmaybe you can help them cross a few items off or postpone something for a month.
- Spot a piece of work on their list that you have the capacity and skill to take on, and offer to do so.
- Share a few of your favorite rest-and-recharge strategies – maybe your boss needs a reminder of the importance of taking quick breaks throughout the day.
- Ask if thereâs anything you can do differently to help minimize their stress or anxiety. Would a brief, daily update email from you offer assurances that all is on track?