Following recent corporate earnings and management comments that have come out of late, I've noticed several things:
- the housing market is continuing to rebound and mortgage servicing companies are seeing strong demand
- the Federal Reserve is also seeing economic growth expand, although slightly, and recently said at a board meeting that they were planning to keep interest rates at historically low levels thru 2014
- based on recent comments out of General Electric, Urban Outfitters, and several large restaurant chains, it appears that Greater Europe economies (and consequently stock markets) may be bottoming out....as in the economies and markets have been so bad over the past 5+ years that now we might start seeing some positive developments (b/c of this, I've started picking up some shares of General
Electric b/c they have such a large presence in Europe and I'm also looking to start investing in the Abeerdeen International Mutual Fund which is one of the best performing European Mutual Funds out there
- I've been buying Facebook around $25/share as I think the stock has become too cheap not to own
- I've also started buying into Linn Energy as I believe we will see the costs of energy start to rise as we enter the summer months and global economic growth picks up (the company also pays a dividend of almost 9%
- I'm monitoring economic growth in Latin America b/c Caterpillar recently came out and said that of all the global regions (Europe, Asia, U.S. etc), Latin America has shown the greatest demand for Caterpillar's equipment...could be a sign that things are turning around for the continent - I'm also watching Brazil as the country is in the midst of preparing for the World Cup and the next Olympics, both of which will involve a build out of infrastructure and economic growth as the country prepares to host the both massive events
As far as anything else, the markets are on track for the 17th straight up tuesday.....that is the first time that has happened since 1927....while that random streak scares me a bit as I believe the markets need to rest a bit before they get overheated/overbought.
We shall see...
On a different note, let us all keep those in Oklahoma in our thoughts and prayers
