Stocks Flatlined In Bifurcated Trading; Can Reform MAGA?

Maybe investing should be a little more like Wednesday's activity: boring. Slow. Uninteresting, aside from the continuance of the Dow-NASDAQ dichotomy.

Back in the mid-90s, with the advent of the internet and the CNBCs of the world, stock trading became more akin to fantasy sports than serious investing. Day-trading became the norm, volatility increased and the natural outcome was to favor professionals who had the tools, skills, and patience to ply the market with the requisite aptitude and attitude.

Today's algo-driven compression chamber that is called a "market" is a far cry from the staid and simple concepts of just a generation ago. Prior to the internet explosion of online brokerages and sophisticated strategies, buy and hold was the norm. Investment advisors - at least the honest ones not tied to commissions or performance - put people's money into solid companies with deep backgrounds, decades of dividend payments and reasonable price-earning ratios.

Investors today throw money at companies such as Tesla (TSLA), which hasn't made a dime in earnings. That nomenclature was also the trademark of the dotcom boom and bust. Pets.com, Beyond.com and other pie-in-the-sky, profitless, promising companies fell to the waysides in 2000 after being hyped non-stop on message boards and from boiler room operations such as those prominently featured in movies like "The Wolf of Wall Street."

Not to say that there aren't new-age companies that deserve the backing of the investing public, but it's a crowded space, and valuations on companies like Google (Alphabet, GOOG), Amazon (AMZN) and others are out in the stratosphere somewhere, reflecting future growth of mammoth proportions which may or may not come to fruition.

That's probably why the aforementioned Dow-NASDAQ see-saw exists. Investors in Dow stocks (30 blue chips) are quite a bit more circumspect and conservative than the punters and speculators on stocks covered by the NASDAQ. They're also more likely to hold - or even add to positions - during downturns rather than sell outright and go looking for the next momentum-chasing darling of the day.

In the past, rules and regulations on banking and investment houses kept speculation at reasonable levels. All of that changed with the internet, 24-hour financial news, and, most importantly, changes to the Glass-Steagall act under President Bill Clinton in 1999. Clinton signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed SOME of the provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act, most notably, those measures which kept the banking business separate from the investment business.

Certainly, the new requirements struck a blow for free markets as the original Glass-Steagall act of 1933 was a response to wide-open conditions which contributed to the Great Depression. But, Clinton's new liberalness may have been a step too far. Since the enactment of Gramm-Leach-Bliley, the US economy has suffered the dotcom crash, the Great Financial Crisis of 2008-09, and various distortions of Federal Reserve policies like ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policy) and QE (Quantitative Easing).

Now that the Fed seeks to unwind its bloated balance sheet and normalize interest rates, perhaps it's time to call out the real culprit of financial repression: widespread advantageous policies for the banking sector which crowd out and frustrate individual efforts. While a democratization of the investing world has occurred to some degree with crowd-sourcing, the regulations surrounding the nascent rise of small offerings continue to throttle companies and potential investors with needless rules and strictures.

In a true free market, there would be 1/10th the number of regulations in place today, and most of them would be foisted upon the high-profile trading houses of Wall Street, not the start-up companies that must wade through SEC regulations and countless pages of blue sky laws.

For America to be great again, maybe boring isn't the way to go, but unfair rules which favor the well-heeled over start-ups might need to be examined and revised.

In the meantime, despite the promise of crowd-sourcing and online trading, small investors will continue to be subject to unfair trading practices which puts the interests of Wall Street far ahead those of Main Street.

At the close, Wednesday, September 12, 2018:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 25,998.92, +27.86 (+0.11%)
NASDAQ: 7,954.23, -18.25 (-0.23%)
S&P 500: 2,888.92, +1.03 (+0.04%)
NYSE Composite: 12,990.10, +37.80 (+0.29%)

Retailers Post Losses, Send Stocks Reeling Before Late-Day Recovery

Stocks finished lower, but well off the lows set earlier in the day, as Macy's and other retailers continue to under-perform the broader market.

The retailer reported earnings well below expectations. Kohl's, Penny's, Sears, Nordstrom and Dillards were also big losers on the day. Macy's same-stare sales plummeted 5.2% in April.

The demise of brick-and-mortar retailing is a continuing trend that shows no sign of abating as Americans turn to online retailing as their preferred buying methodology. Store closing in malls and shopping centers around the country have only accelerated as company CEOs seek ways to cut costs and salvage what remains of a buggy-whip-type industry.

Alongside retail, cable companies and network broadcasters could be next, as consumers, enraged over continued increases in television subscription services, cut the cord and elect to go completely wireless.

These trends should continue until most of North America sees malls and cable and phone lines as mere remnants of a wired, consumer-driven past.

At the close, 5/11/17:
Dow: 20,919.42, -23.69 (-0.11%)
NASDAQ: 6,115.96, -13.18 (-0.22%)
S&P 500: 2,394.44, -5.19 (-0.22%)
NYSE Composite: 11,563.60, -35.38 (-0.31%)

Paradigm Shift in Advertising

The hipster intellectual of the 1960s, Marshall McLuhan, had a wealth of opinions about media and advertising, so much so that his famous phrase, "the medium is the message," became the buzzwords for a generation of great advertising companies through the latter half of the 20th century.

McLuhan also once opined, "Advertising is an environmental striptease for a world of abundance."

If he's right, and he probably is, 21st century advertising is already proving to be a show Cirque du Soleil would be hard-pressed to replicate. With the merging of the technologies of radio, print, TV, the internet, mobile devices and social media, it's of paramount importance today to not only get the message right, but the media as well.

To do so, most companies look for an established Advertising Agency with a track record of successful campaigns, an edgy dynamic and useful understanding of all media technologies.

A print ad in a local newspaper or a radio drive time spot just doesn't cut it anymore, now that people's attention is being diverted not only by television, but by catchy internet sites and messaging through Facebook, Twitter and other social media.

That's why it's important for businesses to seek out not only the best and the brightest, but an agency that "gets it," or, as That! Advertising Agency puts it, one which "gets THAT!"

A continuing shift from the traditional to digital advertising creates an environment perfectly suited to this company, experts not only in creative and placement, but also in the fields of marketing, public relations, design and all of the new media, from the social networks to targeted, trackable internet campaigns.

Today's ad agency has to have focus and vision, plus a background in traditional print, TV and radio with a bent toward the wireless, digitized future.

Small Change, But a Big One

Please excuse the ambiguousness of the headline. Today's market movements were minimal, but the impact - for those paying attention - could be huge. Yesterday it was noted that while the Dow stumbled, the NASDAQ was having somewhat of a banner day, posting a gain of 20 points, which is close to 1% on that index.

Today was affirmation of our best hunch - that traders were moving away from Dow stocks and large caps to techs, mid-caps and small-caps. Contemplating the huge sums being paid by private equity to take certain companies private, it's obvious that there are a lot of undervalued companies out there. The private equity vultures are primarily interested in major names with established brands - a somewhat disturbing trend in itself - so the small and mid-caps are going to get the lion's share of attention during this summer's trading outside the M&A speculators.

Dow 13,539.95 -2.93; NASDAQ 2,588.02 +9.23; S&P 500 1,524.12 -0.98; NYSE Composite 9,900.96 +3.50

There's a caveat to the trade and it's called timing. Once the S&P tops its previous high, all bets are off. The markets could - and should - go on an unprecedented tear to the upside, similar to what the Dow has done over the past month and change. While the S&P will capture most of the headlines, the NASDAQ will be humming along with even more spectacular gains.

Remember, that since the downturn in 2000, the Dow has come all the way back and then some while the S&P is teasing us with a new all time high.

Advertise on Blogs
Choose your own colors, dates and message for maximum impact.
dtmagazine.com/customtext.html

Meanwhile, the NASDAQ has recovered only half its heft since the crash. Surely it was overbought back then, but by 2500 points? Doubtful. Figure that the top 20-25% of the Naz was real froth, so we're looking at an achievable number of 3,800 to 4,000 in relatively short order.

While that may sound like a stretch, take into consideration that the Naz crossed back over 2000 in January 2004 and has taken more than three years to gain just another 600 points. All the money that was being made on the Dow and S&P is going to get reinvested, and the most likely place for that to occur is on the NASDAQ and especially in computer and related devices, internet plays and generally anything that involves using a computer chip.

Computers and the internet don't use gas, and that's a major consideration. Media companies that are not newspapers should also do well, as will any disruptive technology company.

Advancing issues were better than decliners by a 4-3 margin. New highs outnumbered new lows, 433-68. The US dollar continued to show strength against most European currencies, though the weakness against the Yen (Japan) and Yuan (China) is still a concern. Oil dropped $1.30 to $64.97, gold and silver were down (again) and that's a wrap.