My portfolio – July Update – earnings season
Q2 earnings season is upon us. The first few reports have been decent but it is way too early to know whether the expected growth rate of 6.5% is realistic. Q1 results were strong and if that continues through the end of the year then we could be in for more solid performance in the stock market. My portfolio has been the beneficiary of that performance as I’ve seen 9 straight months of growth. The S&P has been positive in 7 of those 9 months as well so that certainly helped. It wasn’t just tiny increments either as 5 of the last 7 months have seen bumps greater than 10k.…
Amazon’s taking over the world and the much talked about death of retail
Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods Market was the headline this Friday and it sent a whole sector of retail into a tailspin as the thought of competing with Amazon had investors worried about the future of the grocery space. It’s true that Amazon and online shopping in general has had quite an effect on retail as can be seen by the many store closures in the past two years. Companies like Sears, Macy’s, J.C. Penney and many others are closing hundreds of stores this year and will likely continue to do so in the next few years. There are two reasons for this destruction in retail. The main reason is…
My portfolio – June update – rising market
It’s always nice to have a rising market. The S&P 500 was up 1.35% since the last portfolio update which can only mean good things for the portfolio. Q1 earnings season is in the books and the results were quite excellent. The S&P 500 showed 13.9% earnings growth y/y, the highest since Q3 2011. It’s true that a good portion of that was driven by the energy sector. That sector had a pretty easy comparable but even exclusive of that, the growth rate was a solid 9.7%. Maybe the rising market will continue with those type of results! According to factset, the expected growth rate for Q2 is 6.6%. That’s…