No Four-Day Losing Streak All Year

The S&P 500 closed at yet another all-time high today (2,082.17). The index is closing in on its all-time inflation-adjusted high from March 2000. This gets a little difficult because we never know what that is in real time, but as of November 30, the all-time inflation-adjusted high works out to 2,099.82.

The S&P 500 is currently less than 18 points away from that. Since we probably had deflation again this month, the inflation-adjusted high is a few points lower, but we won’t know for sure until the next CPI report in mid-January.

One remarkable stat is that the S&P 500 hasn’t had a four-day losing streak all year. That’s amazing. We’ve never gone a full calendar year without doing that. Eight times we’ve had three-day losing streaks this year. All eight times, day four resulted in a rally.

Our Buy List continues its furious fourth-quarter relative-strength rally. With five trading days left (really, 4.5 with tomorrow’s early close), our Buy List is 0.86% behind the overall market. Through today, our Buy List is up 11.79% on the year compared with 12.65% for the S&P 500. At one point in September, we were trailing the S&P 500 by more than 5%. For Q4, we’re beating the S&P 500 by a margin of 9.78% to 5.57%.

Ten of our Buy List stocks are up more than 20% this year. As is often the case, the losers in your portfolio hurt you more than the winners help you.

In the middle of the day, Stryker ($SYK) shot higher on news that it’s planning a takeover of Smith & Nephew ($SNN). I’m not sure why anyone would be surprised by this but the stock gapped up to a new high. It seems like this deal has been in the works for a long time. All we’re waiting for now is an official announcement. Shares of SNN gained 9.37% on the day. Interestingly, shares of Medtronic ($MDT) dropped 2.38%.

Our big winner on the day was Express Scripts ($ESRX) which rallied another 4.31% to a new 52-week high. I never realized the Hep C drug war could be so profitable.

Posted by on December 23rd, 2014 at 5:47 pm


The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.