It looks like President Obama said the magic words in his State of the Union address as the market is charged higher Wednesday morning. However, the Dow has now pulled back below the 12,000 level after poking through. The President's opening remarks pointed to a roaring stock market as evidence of a recovery, making it clear that he will do everything in his power to see that continue.
Market Willing to Win Ugly
Sometimes when your high flying offense isn't clicking, you have to be willing to get it done ugly. We have noted over the last week that the action has been extremely sloppy, which is often a sign of an imminent correction. To this point, however, the market remains resilient as ever. And who can really be surprised? While the first half of 2010 brought some indecision in the markets, the end of the year saw improving economic data, policy decisions designed to boost asset prices and stoke inflation, and a massive shift of capital from bonds to equities.
Markets do correct at some stage, and it is prudent to get cautious when you see warning signs, but at this point it has not paid to get short. Continue to look to buy the dips in strong fundamental stocks and sectors. Some momentum darlings like cloud stocks are having a tough time as investors look for lower risk opportunities. The cloud debacle illustrates the point that, even as a technical swing trader, you cannot simply ignore valuations.
Microsoft Breaking Out
We
touted Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) this morning as a good long-term value play that looked set to break out of a month long technical base, and the stock is breaking out nicely this morning. The flight away from small-cap growth into mega-cap stocks bodes well for MSFT, which is an attractive play on several different levels. The company has become an attractive value play while providing some growth upside due to its exposure to cloud computing and desire to innovate once again. The company now also pays a dividend of 2.5%, only 0.1% below the 10-year treasury note yield.
Ags and Cloud: In Which Sector Should You Buy the Dip?
Both the cloud computing sector and agricultural sector were slammed last week on news. This week we have been watching each group closely to see whether or not they are buying opportunities. After watching the technical action and taking into account valuations, it feels like one will be a stud and the other a dud in 2011.
In cloud, weak outlook from F5 Networks, Inc. (FFIV)
triggered a sell-off in the entire group.