Financial Planners Fort Myers— End of 1st Quarter

Today marks the end of the 1^st Quarter of trading for 2012.  The markets have seemingly been in rally mode for the past four months and to this day have not shown any clear signs of breaking down and reversing course.  The media has been hooting and hollering that the short-term top is here and that investors should been running for the exits.  Well, the stock market generally does not rise or fall when everyone expects it to do so.  For this reason, please try and block out the noise of the media who are paid to create stories and spin information around.  If there’s a change in your situation, you’ll want to consult with your financial advisor, but otherwise it’s generally a good idea to stick with your plan.

To quote Jessie Livermore-- (Famous Investor)

“They say you never go broke taking profits.  No you don’t.  But neither do you grow rich taking a four-point profit in a bull market.”

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. 

Eric Marvin, CFP®, CRPC®

JPT033012-553

Financial Planners Fort Myers— Bank Rally

Yesterday was another Fed Day for 2012 and the global markets got off to a good start with anticipation of what Ben Bernanke might say come mid-afternoon.  Well, after the markets digested the Fed news we actually started trending lower up until Jamie Dimon the CEO of J.P. Morgan made the announcement of a dividend hike and a stock buyback plan.  Almost immediately the major banks all started to rally on the news in anticipation that there would be more dividend increases and stock buybacks among other firms.  In fact, some have speculated that because J.P. Morgan came out with their news early that it caused all of the stress tests to be released ahead of schedule.  Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is at new highs and is looking to break past the critical level of 1400.  Only time will tell if it can break through or prove to be a  resistance level.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. 

The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index.  Investors cannot invest directly in an index.

Eric Marvin, CFP®, CRPC®

JPT031412-423

Financial Planners Fort Myers— Uptrend Continues

The uptrend in the markets have resumed higher after some fairly heavy selling during Tuesday’s session.  As I have been saying for quite some time now, one cannot assume the uptrend is over until several factors begin to change.  These include looking at things such as moving averages, support levels, volume, breadth, etc.  As I write this we are waiting for news out of Greece to hopefully move one step closer to turning the corner in the European Sovereign Debt Crisis.  Only time will tell what will happen in Europe, but betting against the uptrend without a significant change in the factors mentioned above may prove to be costly.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. 

The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index.  Investors cannot invest directly in an index.

Eric Marvin, CFP®, CRPC®

JPT030812-367

Financial Planners Fort Myers— Don’t Expect a Correction When Everyone Expects a Correction!

If you have been a bear on stocks for 2012 your year has probably been filled with lots of anxiety and nervousness about the continued increase in the global financial markets.  Now that we are approaching multi-year highs in the S&P 500 everyone is coming out of the woodwork to call a top and alert everyone to plan for a correction.  History often reminds us that when everyone starts to expect a sell-off to happen it often never materializes. 

It is important to remember that the markets can remain irrational for longer than most can remain solvent.  The moral of the story is that it is very difficult to try and time the top of any market, let alone one that continues to slowly move higher along the way.  This type of market never really shows characteristics of being overbought, thus making it extremely difficult to time.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. 

The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index.  Investors cannot invest directly in an index.

Eric Marvin, CFP®, CRPC®

JPT030212-342