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July 4,2011 The Bull Market Alive and Well

Video Market Update:   watch?v=oOvkbOMpLi4 (6 minutes)

Happy Easter.

Video Summary:

Last week earnings releases from the technology sector drove the market to strong gains.   But the real leader last week was the emerging market sector.  For instance, South Africa, South Korea, Thailand, Emerging Europe, and Indonesia gained 3-5%.   Below are a few US stocks I profile in the video that hit new highs last week.  This is the type of behavior I would expect to see in a strong bull market.

Stocks below have a market cap greater than $10 billion:

1. International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM): Up 2.14% to $168.28. International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) provides computer solutions through the use of advanced information technology. The Company’s solutions include technologies, systems, products, services, software, and financing. IBM offers its products through its global sales and distribution organization, as well as through a variety of third party distributors and resellers.
2. Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ:ORCL): Up 1.88% to $34.75. Oracle Corporation supplies software for enterprise information management. The Company offers databases and relational servers, application development and decision support tools, and enterprise business applications. Oracle’s software runs on network computers, personal digital assistants, set-top devices, PCs, workstations, minicomputers, mainframes, and massively parallel computers.
3. SAP AG (NYSE:SAP): Up 1.79% to $66.62. SAP AG is a multinational software company. The Company develops business software, including e-business and enterprise management software, consults on organizational usage of its applications software, and provides training services. SAP markets its products and services worldwide.
4. EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC): Up 1.75% to $28.45. EMC Corporation provides enterprise storage systems, software, networks, and services. The Company’s products store, retrieve, manage, protect, and share information from all major computing environments and mainframe platforms. EMC operates offices around the world.
5. Vanguard MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSE:VWO): Up 0.86% to $50.71. Vanguard Emerging Markets ETF is an exchange-traded fund incorporated in the USA. The Fund seeks to track the performance of the MSCI Daily TR Net Emerging Markets USD Index. The Fund invests its assets in the stocks that make up the Index, holding each stock in the same proportion as its weighting.

Thank you for reading , Enjoy the week.

Video Market Update:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xkCmi4ARrM (11 minutes)

Summary:  (US Technology, REITS, Health Care, Dow Jones Transportation Index, Oracle, Google, Open Text, LULU.

The US and global markets continue to trade in a tight range for the past several months.  Looking over different asset classes (Technology, health care, Real Estate, Materials) all seem to be undergoing a shallow correction.  Yes the Tsunami had a short term effect on the markets but US small cap stocks and emerging markets powered right back.  The Dow Transports sits only a few points below its high made two weeks ago.  Financial stocks are lagging while energy and biotechnology continue their up trends.  The market correction does not appear over and could retest the lows established during the Tsunami.

I will be using this correction to invest remaining cash back into the market.  Many stocks and ETFs are forming sound bases which is constructive and necessary for a healthy bull market to continue.  The economic recovery is on track.  Recent earnings and sales of many key companies have been strong and better than expected job growth numbers are encouraging,  another sign this recovery is just in the early stages.

If you are sitting on cash in low yielding money market accounts and want better returns over the next 1-3 years I would stay away from the bond market at this time and focus your portfolio on growth equities.  I am expecting the current shallow correction  to last a few more weeks or months and then a break to new highs as we begin climbing the excitement, thrill and euphoria stages of the bull market.