SYNOPSIS

Volatility (as measured by VIX) briefly hit an all-time low last week. Investors are totally oblivious to geopolitical issues, and perhaps they should be. Such events are simply distractions from the real science of investing. Did the winner of the French election on Sunday affect your stock picks this week? I know it won’t affect those involving the ProfiTrend Portfolio. Closer to home, this most recent round of quarterly earnings reports has been phenomenal. S&P 500 earnings grew by 13% in the first quarter, the index’s fastest year-over-year growth since the third quarter of 2011, according to Goldman Sachs. About 50% of firms have beaten earnings forecasts, above the long-term average of 46%. Further, 41% of companies have exceeded revenue estimates, the most positive ratio of surprises in almost six years. A weaker dollar has also contributed to investor optimism. The US Dollar Index has fallen to its lowest level since right after the US presidential election, down by 4.5% from a 14-year high reached December 28.

PTP… Our ProfiTrend Portfolio APAR (annualized price appreciation rate) continued to improve this past week to 67% from 55% a week earlier. The S&P 500 APAR improved by a few more points, while the TSX APAR declined to 7% from 13% a week earlier.

Last Week in the Indexes… The Canadian small cap indexes (S&P/TSX Small Cap Index and S&P/TSX Venture Index) continued to decline substantially last week, while most of the US indexes improved between 1.5% and 2.3% over the week.
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PTA Perspective… Contracts for Difference (CFDs)… Are They Right for You?

Almost everyone knows what buying and selling stocks are all about; and probably most investors know that there are other ways to trade stock indexes, commodities, currencies, bonds, and more exotic financial instruments through something called futures and options. What about CFDs? …contracts for difference? Although these instruments have been available since the 90s, we rarely encounter anyone who’s heard of them. That, in spite of the fact that they’re enormously popular in 26 countries. Why? Because the USA is not one of those 26 countries! Since Americans consider the US the centre of the universe, the US biz media won’t even consider talking about them. They might as well be imaginary! And since the Canadian biz media take their lead from south of the border, Canadians don’t hear much about CFDs either. Nonetheless, you should know what they’re about, whether you invest in them or not. That’s this week’s topic.

Seasonality… We think that we did a nice job of debunking the proposition that you should stay out of the stock markets in May through October in our report two weeks ago. All the same we like to direct readers to counterarguments that are well researched and reported. For that reason, this week we link you to Brooke Thackray’s recent 12 page report documenting his bias toward staying out of the markets until November. We’ll let you decide for yourself.