(By Louis Basenese) Words mean little on Fridays in the Wall Street Daily Nation.
Instead, we let pretty pictures do the talking for us.
So I'll (mostly) shut up now…
Mutual Funds Really Suck in 2012…
Unless you're completely clueless, you already know the average mutual fund manager fails miserably at beating the stock market each year. But in 2012, they're especially terrible!
Only 13% of actively managed funds were beating their benchmark index by at least two-and-a-half percentage points at the end of last week.
"Mutual funds are having the worst year we can calculate," says Thomas J. Lee, JP Morgan Chase's (NYSE: JPM) Chief U.S. Equity Strategist. I'll say!
Is it any wonder that investors keep flocking to passively managed, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) instead? Not to this guy!
Election Rally, Here We Come!
I couldn't be happier that the Presidential race is heating up. And it's not because I want to force-feed you my political views like some grumpy readers think I'm always doing.
It's because stocks love Presidential election years. Take a look:
I've alluded to this strong tendency before (see here, here and here). But the correlation this year is uncanny and worthy of an update.
Especially when sell-side strategists are so bearish on stocks. Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Sell Side Consensus indicator just fell to 43.9 at the end of July. That's the lowest level ever in the indicator's 27-year history.
You can take this contrarian dose of optimism or leave it! All I know is that I'm certainly encouraged by Wall Street's negativity, and I'll be voting for stocks in 2012!
How Do You Like Them Apples?
On Monday, I told you to expect it. And it happened!
The latest reading of the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-City Composite Index rose 2.2% in May, marking the second month of gains.
You can't dismiss the uptick as an anomaly, either. Not when prices in all 20 cities in the Index experienced monthly gains.
So forget LL Cool J. Go ahead and call it a (real estate) comeback! Of course, we've been predicting it for months. (Here's proof.) Maybe now you'll believe us? But probably not.
That's it for today. Before you sign off, do us a favor. Let us know what you think about this weekly column – or any of our recent work at Wall Street Daily – by sending an email to feedback@wallstreetdaily.com, leaving a comment on our website, or catching us on Facebook, or Google+.
Ahead of the tape,
Louis Basenese