Investing

Today the market seemed to be spooked by the latest payroll employment report. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), nonfarm payroll employment rose by 115,000 in April. The official expectation was for 160,000, although the whispered number was 125,000 to 150,000. What is most interesting is that in actuality, nonfarm payroll employment rose by 896,000 in April. Let [...]

Ken Solow is the Chief Investment Officer of Pinnacle Advisory Group, and Sauro Locatelli is the Quantitative Analyst. Ken: Sauro, we need to have a clear and understandable way to explain “Beta” to our clients, since we use the term all the time. Can we simply say that if a fund has a Beta of 0.5 that means that the [...]

Despite the fact that stocks have had a good week, with the S&P 500 up a little more than 1.5%, we still view the market as being in the midst of a consolidation period, as Rick recently wrote. Why do we believe this, considering that the S&P is now about 1% below its April 2nd high of 1,419? For one [...]

The NASDAQ 100 is dominated by Apple. At 18% of the index, the Apple earnings report last night had a huge effect on the chart. From the end of March through yesterday, the index fell from 2795 to 2625, driven largely by a 14% drop in Apple. But after the massive earnings number reported last night, the index surged higher [...]

Pinnacle managed accounts are globally diversified. Most investors readily acknowledge that diversification is a benefit in its own right, since it tends to reduce portfolio volatility and helps investors avoid large investment mistakes. Global diversification offers more of the same: By owning stocks in different countries, you presumably get to invest in equities that have low correlations to the U.S. [...]