Beat the Market

Tech continues to soar, Retailers suffer. The WSJ reports that China is near finalizing a $47.4B investment fund to finance semiconductor research and startup development. The move comes as China wants to increase its tech independence during a period of heightened relations with the US. A similar fund was launched in 2014 and raised $21.8B. SOXX +1%. Treasury yields have little change. TLT -0.16%. Crude +0.13% to $69.81. Gold +0.02% to $1,314.90. UUP +0.21%. WTI June crude oil jumped above $70/bbl intraday for the  first time since November 2014. Trump tweeted that he would announce his decision on Iran sanctions at 2 pm tomorrow from the White House; oil prices have run higher in recent days, partly on the belief that Trump will take a hard line on the deal. Winners Nvidia +4% as Bank of America Merrill Lynch reiterates its Buy rating with $300 PT. ER will be on Thursday. ILMN +4.9% reaches all-time high again. BABA +3.4% , will retest $200 soon. YY +7.4%,...

Major indices almost lost all the early gains (as White House tried to ease trade war tension) in the late hours. The Nasdaq was up more than 2% at the session high, but closed the day with just a 0.5% advance. Market is very vulnerable these days. The selloff might be triggered by FBI action ---- raided the offices of Trump's longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. Robert Mueller is getting closer to Trump. I expect Trump to stir both domestic and foreign policies in the coming days to migrate public attentions from his endless scandals. Treasurys: 30-year +0.09%. 10-yr -0.04%. 5-yr -0.03%. TLT +0.16%. Crude +1.97% to $63.28. Gold +0.36% to $1,340.90 . UUP -0.25%. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has released Facebook ( FB +0.5% ) chief Mark Zuckerberg's testimony. Not much new info. Zuckerberg apologized and pledged to do more to protect users' privacy. Syria used chemical weapon again! Trump said he will make a decision in the next 24 to 48 hours abo...

Rising Treasury Yields have been a hot topic in the past few weeks, which is blamed to be the reason behind recent  market correction. Some people are totally panicked as 10-year yield approaches 3%. I would suggest to " Keep Calm and Carry On ". In this article, I would like to give you some background, and possible trend. US Treasuries Basically US treasuries, including short-term and long-term, are the national debt of United States (国债). US currently have debt of $20T . Debt/GDP ratio is 104% in 2017 , as shown in the chart below (grey bars represent recessions). As comparison, China Debt/GDP ratio is 46% in 2016; Japan is 238% . The debt falls into two broad categories: Intragovernmental Holdings and Debt Held by the Public. Intragovernmental Holdings $5.6T, 30% of total. This is the portion of the federal debt owed to 230 other federal agencies, such as the Social Security Trust Fund. This part is not affected by market. Debt Held by the Public $1...

Some new investors are sometimes confused about dividend. In this article, I will try to answer some basic questions, and introduce dividend growth strategy. First Question: What is Dividend? Dividend is a sum of money paid regularly (typically quarterly) by a company to its shareholders out of its profits (or reserves). As a company declare the coming dividend, you may see three dates: ex-div date , record date and payable date . The ex-div date is the date after which people buying shares would not be entitled to the dividend. If you buy shares prior to the ex-dividend date, you will receive the dividend. If you buy the shares on, or after the ex-dividend date, the seller keeps the dividend. You don't need to worry about record date, which is usually ex-div +1. Payable date is when you receive the dividend. Example : $1 div, ex-div 2/1, payable 3/1. You need to hold the stocks by the end of 1/31 (regular hours). If the stock price is closed at $100 on 1/31, it will s...

It is very important to plan your retirement  as early as possible.  Why? It is because the money you put into investment will grow fast. If you put $1k into your retirement account at age 20, it will grow into $15k when you reach age 60, assuming 7% annual return rate. As comparison, if you put $1k at age 30, it will only grow into only $7.6k, about half of the former case! One popular topic these days is to get retired early, for instance, at the age 50. Assuming the average yearly expense (including medical cost) is $100k and you live to age 90, you need at least $4M by age 50. Of course if you plan to get retired at age 60, then the retirement fund will be smaller ( $3M ). There is a new phrase " Million Dollar Poor "  ---- $1M may only support you from age 70 to 80 --- retire @ age 70 and decease @ age 80. In this article, I would like to introduce the possible stable income sources for retirement. (This is a brief introduction, for more details, p...

What is Sector Rotation? Sector rotation is an investment strategy. Major players in the market move money from one industry sector to another in an attempt to beat the market. In order to understand sector rotation, we need to study the market cycle and economy cycle. Market Cycle and Economy Cycle Both have 4 stages: bottom, recovery (bull market), top, recession (bear market), which is shown in the following chart. However, market (in blue) usually move ahead of the economy (in yellow) for a few months. Market will reach top when the economy still looks great. However, the interest rate and inflation would be high at that moment. In bull market, investors prefer to rotate into financials/transportation (early bull), technology/capital goods (middle bull), basic industry (late bull). Money rolls into energy and gold/silver at the market top. As the bear market starts, healthcare and non-cyclical become attractive. During the downtrend, utilities would be the only survi...

Military defense stocks are doing extremely well after the electron. Most of them reach all time high. With the threat from North Korea in mind, I would like to pay my revisit of my DOD (Department of Defense) Stocks: (not holding any of them at this point, used to hold LMT and UTX) If you have good picks in this group, please share with me by commenting. Among the eight stocks, BA returns 96% in a year (highest), and UTX returns 18% (lowest) PE in range of 18~28 Div in range of 1.0~2.6% BA General Dynamics Corporation Price now: $255.46 Market Cap: $151B PE: 22 Div: 2.2% Return in a year: 96% HON General Dynamics Corporation Price now: $142.67 Market Cap: $109B PE: 22 Div: 2.1% Return in a year: 24.5% UTX General Dynamics Corporation Price now: $117.71 Market Cap: $94B PE: 18 Div: 2.4% Return in a year: 18.2% LMT Lockheed Martin Price now: $312.86 Market Cap: $90B PE: 24 Div: 2.6% Return in a year: 33.1% GD General Dyn...

Here are some useful internet resources I use to do my homework. Stock Information 1. Yahoo finance: I would like to say, it is the best product of yahoo, yahoo sports used to be good too; 2. Google finance: I switched from yahoo to google a few years ago. It shows real-time price and clear interface. Surprisingly, Google recently announced that they will cancel the portfolio feature soon. I may switch back to yahoo finance. 3. Morning star to learn Mutual Funds  https://www.morningstar.com/funds.html Market Futures Bloomberg futures  https://www.bloomberg.com/markets/stocks/futures Also commodities  https://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commodities  where you can find the price for crude/gold/corn...... After-hour Trading Info http://www.nasdaq.com/quotes/after-hours.aspx Market News and Forum https://seekingalpha.com/market-news   My favorite site to get news. Here you can discuss your opinions with other investors, read their analysis artic...

I am currently using Robinhood, Capital One Investing (Sharebuilder) and Vanguard. I will also briefly introduce Charles Schwab, Scottrade, E-trade and Motif. Robinhood (updated) It is definitely  the best for beginners. If you decide to open an account, you are welcome to use my referral. ( http://share.robinhood.com/minweis ) Both you and me have the chance to get free stocks. Good luck! Pros: No commission! No minimum. No settlement period (used to be 3 days). Easy to use. Start from $10/month, you can borrow money and trade after-hour. From Dec. 2017, you can also trade options. Cons: Smartphone is required (they started to provide web service from Dec 2017). Server could be slow in busy trading hours, although it has been improved a lot recently. Some foreign stocks can not been traded yet. The last, you may need to charge your phone for multiple times if you trade a lot. Capital One Investing Pros: Convenient to transfer fund if you have Capital One banking accou...