FYI: Corporate America is starting to take a stand on gun control, and now it’s time for more Boston money managers to say something, do something.
Many of our marquee investment firms own shares in gun companies, including Springfield’s American Outdoor Brands, which made the AR-15 assault rifle used in last month’s killing of 17 high school students and teachers in Parkland, Fla.
The list is long, the names illustrious: Fidelity Investments, State Street, Putnam Investments, John Hancock. Even the state pension fund, which invests $72 billion for government workers, holds gun stocks.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2018/03/01/time-for-fund-giants-step-gun-laws/Qrxlyv3ZERMfLdpalTbVXO/story.html

Hello,
This week Old_Skeet's market barometer finished the week with a reading of 151 putting the S&P 500 Index in the middle of fair value on the barometer's scale. In addition, I am finding that short interest has dropped from 1.4 days to cover to 1.1 days.
The three main data feeds that feed the barometer are a breadth feed, an earnings feed along with a technical score feed. Generally, a higher barometer reading indicates there is more investment value in the Index over a lower reading. Thus far this year the low weekly reading of 127 (extremely overbought) came on 1/26/2018 with an S&P 500 Index valuation of 2873 and the high weekly reading of 159 (undervalued) came two weeks latter on 2/9/18 with an Index valuation of 2620. The barometer's weekly reading moved about 20% from high to low while the Index's valuation moved about 9%. With this, there has been some good range movement in both the Index's valuation and also in the barometer's reading from extermely overbought to undervalued. This week the Index reads as fair value on the barometer's scale at 151.
Within Old_Skeet's 500 Index Compass there was a shake up in the lead pack this week with XLI (industrials) losing it's legs and XLK (technology) finding it's legs and moving into second place within the pack. XLF (financials) remains a pack hound with XLY (discretionary) still keeping the lead and has remained my spiff hound since early October. Indeed it has had a good run.
Within Old_Skeet's Global Compass there was also a shake up in the lead pack this week with VTI (domestic stocks) losing ground and AXJL (Asia ex Japan) moving into third place within the pack. GSP (commodities) holds second place while EEM (emerging markets) remains the lead hound and is also my spiff hound.
One of the questions I was recently asked is how do you know when to call off the hunt?
I'll call the hunt off when 1) I get tired of hunting and/or 2) the stock hounds lose momentum and can not out run the fixed income hound (AGG) or their bogey hound (SPY). Seems, both the bogey hound and the fixed income hound currently leads the income proxy hounds of XLU (utilities) ... XLRE (real estate) ... XLP (staples) ... XTL (telecom) along with XLE (energy).
Thanks for stopping by and reading.
Have a great week ... and, I wish all "Good Investing."

"The rounded end of the can is filled with an air bubble vacuum, which makes it easier to get the sauce out," he explained.
http://www.delish.com/food/a44521/cranberry-sauce-cans-upside-down/

Thanks @Chinfist...though a new fund, ARTTX ranks #1 in M* Large Blend category (3month & YTD). I'll keep an eye on this one. At $32 M AUM...it has some room to grow.

Also, David featured ARTTX in July 2017 (scroll down a ways to read his article):
https://mutualfundobserver.com/2017/07/launch-alert-artisan-thematic-fund-arttx/
Artisan Thematic Website:
thematic-team/thematic-fund-

Another fund that did well today was ARTTX. It did not go up as high as POAGX or OGIYX, but it did go up 1.85%. Not too shabby. As of January 31, 3 of its top 5 holdings are in the defense sector (Harris Corp, Northrop Grumman, and L3 Technologies) and the other 2 are Salesforce and CME Group. Unsure if this accounted for it's good return as according to Morningstar the turnover percent has been 170 %. The manager could have been opportunistic in other areas. I have been impressed with this young fund so far.

FYI: The stock market was spooked early Friday as steel and aluminum tariffs proposed by President Trump fueled more market uncertainty, but major stock indexes recovered nicely in afternoon trading, with tech stocks leading the way.
Regards,
Ted
Bloomberg:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-01/asia-braces-for-stock-drop-as-trump-rattles-nerves-markets-wrap
Reuters:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-stocks/wall-street-set-for-weekly-losses-on-trade-war-fears-idUSKCN1GE1MS
MarketWatch:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stocks-set-to-pick-up-on-selloff-as-trade-war-fears-rattle-investors-2018-03-02/print
IBD:
https://www.investors.com/market-trend/stock-market-today/nasdaq-up-1-1-and-dow-reverses-so-has-the-stock-market-put-in-a-bottom/
CNBC:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/02/us-stock-futures-dow-data-earnings-fed-and-politics-on-the-agenda.html
AP:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FINANCIAL_MARKETS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Bloomberg Evening Briefing:
https://www.bloomberg.com//news/articles/2018-03-02/your-evening-briefing
Bonds:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/02/bonds-and-fixed-income-data-on-the-agenda-for-investors.html
Gold:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-snaps-3-session-skid-to-end-sharply-higher-amid-trade-war-talk-but-fails-to-avoid-weekly-loss-2018-03-02/print
Oil:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/oil-maintains-gain-after-small-rise-in-us-rig-count-2018-03-02/print
WSJ: MarketS At A Glance:
http://markets.wsj.com/us
SPDR's Sector Tracker:
http://www.sectorspdr.com/sectorspdr/tools/sector-tracker
SPDR's Bloomberg Sector Performance Pie Chart:
https://www.bloomberg.com/markets/sectors
Current Futures: Mixed
https://finviz.com/futures.ashx
Quote

@Maurice This is in Warren's letter to BlackRock's Fink:

In your January 12, 2018 Annual Letter to CEOs, you explained that companies have a duty to positively contribute to society. In that letter, you called for a "new model of shareholder engagement - one that strengthens and deepens communication between shareholders and the companies that they own." You wrote that, "[ to] prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society." Now it's time to put your money where your mouth is.

Note the word "engagement." Warren is asking Fink to be true to his own words and those words in recent months from Fink's own mouth and pen have been about engagement, not divestment. Many articles have been written about Fink's recent letter that Warren is citing in which he promises to engage with companies, including this one:
https://nytimes.com/2018/01/15/business/dealbook/blackrock-laurence-fink-letter.html
BlackRock's policies about the importance of engagement are also clear:
https://blackrock.com/corporate/about-us/investment-stewardship
I'm fairly certain you yourself have commented on Fink's stance, and it's well known that as an index fund provider that has to track a benchmark it is far easier for BlackRock to engage than divest. Engagement has been its longstanding claim and now Warren wants the company to live up to that claim. There is no reading between the lines here.

Trump's current tweet:
"When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy!"
5:50 AM - Mar 2, 2018
Good and easy to win? We really shouldn't elect someone who doesn't read.

@larryB,
My parents talked about the great depression and what made it worse.

In 1930, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act raised tariffs on 20,000 goods Americans bought from abroad. Imports fell significantly, but Canada and other countries retaliated and a trade war ensued, crushing exports and worsening the Great Depression.
It’s unlikely many remember the specifics. You’d have to be over 80 to remember Smoot-Hawley firsthand, and perhaps over 45 to have learned about it in school.

Imported Chinese steel is small comparing to other countries. So this is a red herring.
Other exports to China can be impacted negatively. Like it or not, import tariff cuts both ways.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-42798941

Thursday evening.....yuck! 10:35pm bells and all is not well.
With the view of Asia having a face slap again for their March 2 trading; I don't imagine the early risers in Europe will be in a good mood. It appears our remaining U.S. equity will receive another boot in the arse, barring a late afternoon rally arising from the thinnest of air.
The overwhelming positive performers of 2017, being large growth, have finally given way to the large sell areas today; being the group with the largest losses.
Best to all. Pillow time here.
Catch

Wondering about the status of SPHD, which seems to be getting pummeled YTD (-6.5%) because of its holdings in Utilities, Real Estate and other interest-sensitive stocks. I have built up pretty large cap gains since I bought it a few years ago. It's definitely in the wrong sectors right now, especially compared to something similar like SCHD. Opinions about SPHD?

While some UITs are open-ended, "traditional" UITs are not part of the "open-ended fund world".
From the SEC: "A UIT typically will make a one-time 'public offering' of only a specific, fixed number of units (like closed-end funds)."
https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/answersuithtm.html
The major exceptions are ETFs that are structured as UITs. Since ETFs do continuously offer to buy and sell shares (albeit just to authorized participants), they can be viewed as open end funds. (I'm using a generous definition of open-end here; technically only mutual funds are open end funds; see SEC Investment Company Fast Answers.)
It is precisely this exception that highlights the next error in the intro, viz. that UITs have only $85B in net assets. The original ETF, SPY, is a UIT. It alone has $275B in assets.

FYI: Mutual funds and Unit Investment Trusts are both investment vehicles that allow investors to own a pool of different stocks, bonds or other asset classes in one single unit.
Mutual funds seem to be the clear leader in the open-ended fund world, with more than $16 trillion in net assets as of 2016. Unit Investment Trusts (UITs) are much less popular and only have around $85 billion in net assets as of 2016. Even though both mutual funds and UITs allow investors to buy a single diversified portfolio in one investment, there are several similarities and differences between them.
Regards,
Ted
http://mutualfunds.com/education/mutual-funds-vs-unit-investment-trusts-uits/

@ Hank: You don't think the Linkster would have missed this, do you ?
Regards,
Ted :)
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/39159/top-stockpicker-t-rowe-price-has-boosted-bonds-cash-allocations#latest

The notion that Warren is suggesting divestment with her letter is false. Engagement and divestment are two different things and both can be effective in their own way. This article goes into the differences and what money managers like BlackRock can do:
https://medium.com/the-esg-advisor/mutual-funds-that-own-gun-stocks-need-to-divest-or-engage-2196647257d7
I don't see anything dramatically affecting returns by requesting that money managers engage with gun companies and companies that do business with gun companies. Moreover, the long-term impact to returns could actually be positive as there is now reputational and potential litigation damages from manufacturing certain types of guns and supporting a trade group--the NRA--with extreme and largely unpopular political views. I don't for instance think that Delta disassociating itself from the NRA is just a politicized response. It's good business sense. There are a lot more non-gun owners and sensible gun owners who want this nonsense with AR-15s to stop. If I'm the CEO of Delta, I have to think that to continue to associate with an extreme political group like the NRA is bad for business.

@ bee &MFO Members: My Dillard's Preferred Stock DDT 7.50% was up .16% yesterday.
Regards,
Ted

PRSNX up a penny, +0.09%. Everything else stunk up the place, except that PREMX was flat-even. Entire portfolio was down by -0.55%.

"And for comparison, something along the lines of 40,000 people are killed in the USA in automobile accidents. Where is that outrage?"
Likely meant as a distraction, but it's instructive to compare auto safety and gun safety. History might teach us something.
Autos are dangerous machines. Still, the auto industry opposed safety measures because it felt that this wouldn't sell cars. Gradually, several states instituted their own safety regulations, and in 1968 various federal regs went into effect, including requiring seatbelts in passenger cars.
http://www.autonews.com/article/19960626/ANA/606260818/1964-brought-seat-belts-for-every-buyer
How effective has this federally mandated safety measure been? Via the CDC:
"Seat belts reduce serious crash-related injuries and deaths by about half.
"Seat belts saved almost 14,000 lives in 2015."
https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/seatbelts/facts.html
Hard to know what a comparable reduction in gun injuries would be with safer guns:
"Since the [Dickey Amendment] passed in 1996, the United States has spent about $240 million a year on traffic safety research, but there has been almost no publicly funded research on firearm injuries."
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/news/2016/06/13/the-cdc-isnt-banned-from-studying-gun-violence-its-just-too-scared-to-do-its-job

Obviously a subject of scorn and ridicule with the rest of my portfolio, but please...amuse me.
FSRPX UP!!! 0.15% -
Top 25 actually looked pretty good for a down day (top 10 holding make up 71%...total of 44 holdings):

@Maurice

And is Sen Warren's solution of divesting the right one?

Nowhere in Warren's letter to BlackRock did she recommend divestment. She is talking about engagement as one of the largest shareholders and owners of gun securities, which BlackRock's Fink claims he will do anyway. Also, there is a real question now from a corporate governance perspective whether manufacturing AR-15s and other assault rifles is good for gunmakers' businesses. There is increasing legal liability and potential permanent damage to their brand from making those specific kinds of weapons. So why not engage with the gun manufacturers? At least if you're going to attack her position, get it right before doing so.