Tag: Active Investing

$INDA and $EWZ : two ETFs to invest in G20 stock markets

ETFs are an efficient way of investing in markets or sectors for which one would otherwise have to hold multiple positions to reproduce. This is especially true is you have a limited capital to invest, say up to 10k Euro or Dollars.

We opened a 2% position in $EWZ which reproduces the Brazilian stock market. While the outbreak seems to be nearing the peak only now over there, the stock market fall has been so significant that some of the stocks in that market are greatly undervalued, e.g. Petrobras. As always, we will be vigilant and prepared to act if the outlook changes.

We also hold a 2% position in $INDA which mirrors the Indian stock market. I have opened this one due to a favourable technical pattern, something I do rarely as I am mainly guided by fundamentals when selecting stocks and ETFs.

Brazil and India

At present I have 21 open trades (4 of which at $SQQQ trades bought at different price levels). When I am fully invested, I target having 30-40 open trades with an average percentage of 3% each, though some positions may be higher or smaller depending on the strategy. It is very important to be diversified across the various sectors but also to have enough positions to avoid being severely affected by a major swing in an investment with too high a relative weight. While this limits the potential for greater gains, it does protect you on the downside and makes your portfolio more resilient.

Here are the 4 trades in my eToro portfolio from this past week (May 18th to May 22nd):

  • $AMAT +5%
  • $XLK +2 %
  • $DUE.DE +2% (thanks to the positive Zew numbers in Germany, we might be back)
  • $EWZ +2% (we might be back in this one too)

The US stock market is up about 3% this week and 5 of my positions have outperformed them, namely $KO, $SYF, $USO, $IRM, $VIAV. The European stock markets have also grown by about 2%.

In my eToro portfolio I am 35% in cash, 8% in hedges and the rest are long positions in stocks and, to a lesser extent, ETFs and cryptocurrencies.

$SQQQ as a hedge proved to be a winner

Over the past two weeks the market has been quite choppy, especially intraday, but overall it has continued to hold. In fact, the Nasdaq has gained 4.4% and the S&P500 1.1% while the Dow was basically flat at -0.2%.

The difference in performance can be explained by the stocks which compose these indices, with the Nasdaq obviously being packed with many technology stocks which have been outperforming most indices. To give a couple of examples, one of the technology ETF $XLK is up 5.1% this past two weeks, and the so called FAANG stocks are all above 4% with $NFLX up 9.4%.

The relative lack of technology stocks in the European indices, which are dragged down by many bank stocks ($XLF), is the main reason why the European stock markets have been laggards. The financial sector was already suffering from the dovish monetary policies of various areas of the world, with negative interest rates in Japan and Europe for example. The pandemic has only increased their pain as money printing continued everywhere, including the US.

Some say that March 23rd is when the markets bottomed: since then the 3 main US indices have recovered a lot of the previous losses due to the pandemic crisis with a gain ranging between 27 and 31%, while the European stock market has only rebounded by 14%. When they say that it is a market of stocks rather than a stock market, what they mean is that you have to pick the right indices if you want to invest in ETFs, or the right stocks if you want to have more chances of beating the market.

Here are my top 3 winners for these past two weeks:

$SQQQ +6.96% (this is a hedge)

$AMAT +5.07%

$BMY +4.51%

The earnings seasons is not over but its pace is certainly slowing down with a lot fewer companies reporting earnings next week: the one I will be watching most closely is $BABA on Friday.

If you want to see which stocks, ETFs and currencies I own in my eToro portfolio, please follow this link.

Have a great weekend everybody and invest responsibly !

Featured stock of the month: $CHTR Charter Communications

Charter Communications (ticker: $CHTR ) is a media sector company which provides cable services to residential and commercial customers in the United States.

It offers subscription-based video services and also provides internet services as well as other media-related services.

The company was founded in 1993 and is based in Stamford, Connecticut.

As of the end of last year it had 29 million residential and small and medium business customers.

It has a market cap in excess of 100 billion USD and can therefore be categorised as a large cap stock.

While it is currently trading at a trailing P/E of 61, it has a forward P/E of 26.6 which does not make it expensive considering that it is a growth stock with excellent track record.

In fact, based on current estimates, it is expected to grow its earnings by 45% over the next 5 years which corresponds to a 5 year expected PEG ratio of 0.84, implying that it is currently trading at a discount.

As it is a growth stock it does not offer a dividend. Despite that, it has profusely rewarded its investors over the past years, with more than a 36% capital appreciation per year in the last 3 years and a stunning 30% per year over the past 10 years. For comparison, investing in a S&P500 ETF over the same 10 years would have yielded a 9.4% annual return.

YTD the stock is actually up, sporting a 3.9% increase, while the S&P500 is down 11.8%.

Charter communications is also a primus inter pares (first among equals) as it has fared better than its peers and outperformed $XLC (a popular communications services ETF which also features the stock amongst its holdings) by 36% over the past year.

The stock has a beta of 0.8 which makes it less volatile than the stock market average.

The company reported Q1 earnings on May 1st missing expectations. However, it showed a significant rise in customer numbers as well as in revenue which made the stock go up after the earnings release.

From a technical analysis perspective, the stock is well above the Fibonacci 61.8% retracement line from its mid February 2020 highs which may indicate further short-term upside potential.

CHTR

If you want to find out which other long positions I hold in my eToro portfolio, please follow this link.

 

$CSX, $VIAV and $RR.L are my top 3 winners this week

Seven winners this past week ! Out of these, 3 were opened and closed in the same week and the rest I owned since earlier in 2020.

The top 3 winners where $CSX with a 10% gain in 5 days, $VIAV with a 5.01% gain in 2 weeks and $RR.L with a 4.90% gain in one day. While the future remains uncertain for Rolls Royce, I will look for opportunities to go back into CSX Transportation in the near future; also we still hold a 2% position on Viavi Solutions.

This week we have also gone back into Coca Cola (ticker: $KO ) which is a long term investment. The stock has dropped a lot and seems to have now stabilised with a potential breakout in sight. The dividend yield is 3.6% at these valuations and the stock goes ex-dividend early in June.

Aroundtown (ticker: $AT1.DE ) has been badly hit during this corona virus crisis, just like most of the real estate companies. We have previously invested in $AT1.DE and made a decent profit out of it. As the sector stabilises, it seems a good moment to go back in as it offers capital appreciation potential and sports a 5.2% dividend.

Just as the sentiment was turning on Thursday, I added to my $SQQQ position which played out really well as a hedge: the US markets were down between 2.5 and 3.2% on Friday, whereas my eToro portfolio was only down 0.39%. This highlights the importance of having hedges in times of volatility as the market can quickly change its course.

At this time, I am 58% in cash and have 5% in hedges (inverse ETF): if you don’t have enough cash, you won’t be able to take advantage of bargain stocks that will come your way in the future.

If you want to find out about all the positions in my eToro portfolio follow this link.

 

Four more winners, $TWTR and..

In a mixed week for the US stock market, ended on April 24th, we have made four more successful trades:

$TWTR +4.1%

$SYF +3.5%

$VLO +2.0%

$LH +2%

For some of these companies, under normal market conditions, I would continue to hold, rather than sell to lock in a small profit, however these are no normal conditions ! There is so much complacency right now and the market seem to price in not only the Fed interventions but the possibility that, if things get worse, the buying could extend to securities also.

Having said that I remain only 50% invested in my eToro portfolio so that a sudden market drop would not hurt as much and would give me enough fuel to enter more long positions after it stabilises again.

We have also initiated the following long positions last week:

$SQQQ this is a hedge for the reasons above

$PTON this is to attempt a ride on a popular stock

..plus another one which you are welcome to check out in my eToro portfolio.

The earnings season is in full swing: enjoy and invest responsibly !

 

A successful short term trade on $EHTH

Another week of consistent recovery for the US stock market as well as for many others around the world. I remain cautious and still hold onto some hedges because this sudden reversal cannot be fully trusted and due to it being reportedly fueled by a short squeeze for the most part.

While I like to make investments for the long term, I do occasionally perform short term trades and this week I have managed to pull two off! One of them could be traded on eToro and related to eHealth (ticker: $EHTH ). What happened is the classic short selling amplified by the media, with a stock which was trading at 136$ until last week and dropping to below 100$ on Wednesday. I took the opportunity, bought at 99$ and exited at 114$ over the course of two days ! I believe the stock has the potential to go even higher and if I was a more aggressive investor, I would hold on to part of it, but decided to lock in the profit this week.

20200410

There were two more positions we closed this week, on two of the food-related stocks owned in my eToro portfolio, both with a 5% gain, Conagra Foods (ticker: $CAG ) and General Mills (ticker: $GIS ). These were both sold with the automatic sell function available on eToro. I am ready to get back into these two but when any my positions goes above a 10% gain, I have a take profit ready at 5% in order not to give up all the profit if the stock price goes down passed that mark. I then set up a price alert to be notified if the price goes up again past the sell price and re-evaluate my view on that particular stock.

I am also very satisfied with this week’s recovery in my $WFC position, with a 26% jump in just 4 trading days.

So now I am 49% in cash on my eToro portfolio and continue to look for more investment opportunities. One from my watchlist I am prepared to jump into is $BABA , but that will depend on how next week goes.

Enjoy the long weekend and for those who celebrate it, have a happy Easter !

 

Beating the #market

Another week in red has gone by, with the three major US stock market indices losing between 1.7 and 2.6%.

Perhaps the most significant development, however, relates to the price of #oil which has finally seen a spike from the lows of the beginning of the week. This is thanks to the expectation that the major producers may soon agree to cut production which should better align supply with the reduced demand. I have tried to play this with a very short term trade but didn’t actually succeed as I sold my $USO position too quickly with a marginal loss. It has taught me another lesson about how pointless short term trades can be, at least for me, as I am fundamentally a long term investor. Always invest in what you understand ! I did however benefit from a 12% gain in my Occidental (ticker $OXY ) position.

This week I have started a new long position in ConAgra Foods (ticker is $CAG ): I don’t expect it to work wonders, as it is a value stock, but to actually provide a single to low teens return within the next year or so and therefore some stability to my portfolio. I have bought it on Tuesday and have already achieved a 4.28% gain. It also pays a 2.8% dividend and the next quarterly ex-dividend date is expected in late April. I felt the timing was right as they have increased their guidance and now see FY20 adjusted EPS earnings per share above the high end of $2 to $2.07.

A similar investment made earlier in March is in General Mills (ticker is $GIS ) which this week has gained 9.4% !

Here is a simple graph created with Yahoo Finance to compare these two stocks with the three major US indices for this past week. How did your portfolio fare compared to them?

20200404

I currently have 14 long positions in my eToro portfolio and 9 out of 14 have beaten the US market this past week. Ultimately, beating the market is the most important goal.

Be an active investor and invest responsibly.

Have a great weekend, all !

Has the #market bottomed ?

If anyone claims to have the answer to this question, they really don’t know what they are saying because the truth is nobody knows. So the best thing to do is to objectively assess what is going on, to invest responsibly and be patient.

This past week has been another rollercoaster with the US markets rallying more than 13% as you can see from the $SPY (an ETF which reproduces the SP500 index), however the #volatility has not moved much, with a weekly reduction of just over 1% (see $VXX the ETF which reproduces the VIX). This means that it is too early to call the bottom in my opinion.

SPY

All investors who are predominantly long are obviously pleased to see this week’s jump, don’t get me wrong, but there are many examples of rallies which have followed large drops. Look at what happened during the 2008 crisis for example, there were 6 positive jumps between +9 and +19% on the way down. Before the market finally bottomed in Q1 2009 the volatility was greater than 30.

File 28-03-2020, 15.14.28

So what can investors do in the meantime ? Be patient and take one day at a time. As I have a long term horizon and the market has already dropped a lot, I did do some nibbling this past week, focusing on dividend payers with a good valuation such as $BMY, but I still have a large cash position overall as I don’t reckon it is time to go all in yet.

I have also increased my hedges, by upping my position on a double inverse SP500 by 50%. One might ask, why enter or increase a long position on a stock while at the same time increasing a short position ? The answer lies in the time horizon, once again. I invest long when there is upside potential in the long term (most of the times), whereas I introduce hedges when markets are volatile, therefore in the short term. If there is another drop next week, my loss will be reduced; if it goes up again, I will gain less but hedges are typically a smaller percentage of one’s portfolio so the loss is limited. In fact, I wish I could always lose on my hedges !!!

If you are interested in seeing what additional stocks I might get long on when the conditions are right, please keep reading my weekend updates !

Stay safe everyone and invest responsibly.

 

The #US journey towards #energy independence in 2 graphs | #ActiveInvesting