You have to be impressed by the government’s recurring ability to stop the market from completely falling apart. In July, we most certainly would have seen the demise of Fannie and Freddie had it not been for the swift reassurance to the market that the “S” in GSE (Government Sponsored Entities) not only stands for “Sponsored” but in fact stands for Supported, maybe even Saved.
Perhaps it’s just easy for the government to talk big when you have the world’s richest tax base backing you up. Either way, the S&P 500 fell just 0.84% in July. The Dow climbed 0.43%. The Nasdaq was actually up 1.42% on strength in smaller cap and biotech stocks. All investment-grade bonds were essentially flat for the month. Higher-risk bonds – notably mortgage-related debt – continued to drop, making their yield over safe bonds more attractive. International stocks were much weaker as the great foreign investing boom continues to unwind. The MSCI EAFE index was down 3.21%.
In such an environment, we’re quite happy with the performance of our Powerfund Portfolios with returns that ranged from -0.68% to positive 2.49%. Our moves last month into junk bonds hurt a little. Our funds that short, particularly the new riskier ones, helped a lot. One of these new short funds posted gains of over 20% in July, as did our biotech sector ETF - among our biggest one-month gains ever. It typifies how bizarre market behavior has been lately that a fund that shorts and one that is long can both be up over 20% in the same month.
Harbor Bond (HABDX) had another weak month relative to bond indexes with a 0.51% drop – proof that Bill Gross has moved into higher risk credits a little too early.
Nakoma Absolute Return (NARFX) was back to delivering market beating returns with a 2.03% jump for the month of July. We noted we’d need to see commodity-related stocks tank for this fund to pick up. They did and it did.
Healthcare is finally in high gear. What started as just mild outperformance a few months ago is going like gangbusters now. Healthcare Select SPDR (XLV) was up a solid 5.01% in July.
The 1.81% drop in the Vanguard Growth ETF (VUG) was surprising given the move up in the Nasdaq, but this fund is large-cap weighted so missed much of the bounce in smaller-cap stocks.
Anything foreign or global had a pretty bad month in July, and Janus Global Research (JARFX) was no exception dropping 4.18%. Janus as a company may have gotten a little too attached to commodity related stocks in the boom, something to watch because they did the same thing with tech stocks in the late 1990s.
The Aggressive Portfolio jumped 2.06% in July.
You have to be impressed by the government’s recurring ability to stop the market from completely falling apart. In July, we most certainly would have seen the demise of Fannie and Freddie had it not been for the swift reassurance to the market that the “S” in GSE (Government Sponsored Entities) not only stands for “Sponsored” but in fact stands for Supported, maybe even Saved.
Perhaps it’s just easy for the government to talk big when you have the world’s richest tax base backing you up. Either way, the S&P 500 fell just 0.84% in July. The Dow climbed 0.43%. The Nasdaq was actually up 1.42% on strength in smaller cap and biotech stocks. All investment-grade bonds were essentially flat for the month. Higher-risk bonds – notably mortgage-related debt – continued to drop, making their yield over safe bonds more attractive. International stocks were much weaker as the great foreign investing boom continues to unwind. The MSCI EAFE index was down 3.21%.
In such an environment, we’re quite happy with the performance of our Powerfund Portfolios with returns that ranged from -0.68% to positive 2.49%. Our moves last month into junk bonds hurt a little. Our funds that short, particularly the new riskier ones, helped a lot. One of these new short funds posted gains of over 20% in July, as did our biotech sector ETF - among our biggest one-month gains ever. It typifies how bizarre market behavior has been lately that a fund that shorts and one that is long can both be up over 20% in the same month.
Nakoma Absolute Return (NARFX) was back to delivering market beating returns with a 2.03% jump for the month of July. We noted we’d need to see commodity-related stocks tank for this fund to pick up. They did and it did.
Healthcare is finally in high gear. What started as just mild outperformance a few months ago is going like gangbusters now. Healthcare Select SPDR (XLV) was up a solid 5.01% in July.
Harbor Bond (HABDX) had another weak month relative to bond indexes with a 0.51% drop – proof that Bill Gross has moved into higher risk credits a little too early.
The boom in biotech stocks is almost moving into bubble territory. SPDR Biotech (XBI) jumped a whopping 20.14% in July. This puts the one-year return at 36.86%. Compare that to the S&P 500’s negative 11% one-year return.
Anything foreign or global had a pretty bad month in July, and Janus Global Research (JARFX) was no exception dropping 4.18%. Janus as a company may have gotten a little too attached to commodity related stocks in the boom, something to watch because they did the same thing with tech stocks in the late 1990s.
The 1.81% drop in the Vanguard Growth ETF (VUG) was surprising given the move up in the Nasdaq, but this fund is large-cap weighted so missed much of the bounce in smaller-cap stocks.
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The Conservative Portfolio dipped -0.68% in July.
You have to be impressed by the government’s recurring ability to stop the market from completely falling apart. In July, we most certainly would have seen the demise of Fannie and Freddie had it not been for the swift reassurance to the market that the “S” in GSE (Government Sponsored Entities) not only stands for “Sponsored” but in fact stands for Supported, maybe even Saved.
Perhaps it’s just easy for the government to talk big when you have the world’s richest tax base backing you up. Either way, the S&P 500 fell just 0.84% in July. The Dow climbed 0.43%. The Nasdaq was actually up 1.42% on strength in smaller cap and biotech stocks. All investment-grade bonds were essentially flat for the month. Higher-risk bonds – notably mortgage-related debt – continued to drop, making their yield over safe bonds more attractive. International stocks were much weaker as the great foreign investing boom continues to unwind. The MSCI EAFE index was down 3.21%.
In such an environment, we’re quite happy with the performance of our Powerfund Portfolios with returns that ranged from -0.68% to positive 2.49%. Our moves last month into junk bonds hurt a little. Our funds that short, particularly the new riskier ones, helped a lot. One of these new short funds posted gains of over 20% in July, as did our biotech sector ETF - among our biggest one-month gains ever. It typifies how bizarre market behavior has been lately that a fund that shorts and one that is long can both be up over 20% in the same month.
Harbor Bond (HABDX) had another weak month relative to bond indexes with a 0.51% drop – proof that Bill Gross has moved into higher risk credits a little too early.
Nakoma Absolute Return (NARFX) was back to delivering market beating returns with a 2.03% jump for the month of July. We noted we’d need to see commodity-related stocks tank for this fund to pick up. They did and it did.
Healthcare is finally in high gear. What started as just mild outperformance a few months ago is going like gangbusters now. Healthcare Select SPDR (XLV) was up a solid 5.01% in July.
The 1.81% drop in the Vanguard Growth ETF (VUG) was surprising given the move up in the Nasdaq, but this fund is large-cap weighted so missed much of the bounce in smaller-cap stocks.
Anything foreign or global had a pretty bad month in July, and Janus Global Research (JARFX) was no exception dropping 4.18%. Janus as a company may have gotten a little too attached to commodity related stocks in the boom, something to watch because they did the same thing with tech stocks in the late 1990s.
The Aggressive Portfolio jumped 2.06% in July.
You have to be impressed by the government’s recurring ability to stop the market from completely falling apart. In July, we most certainly would have seen the demise of Fannie and Freddie had it not been for the swift reassurance to the market that the “S” in GSE (Government Sponsored Entities) not only stands for “Sponsored” but in fact stands for Supported, maybe even Saved.
Perhaps it’s just easy for the government to talk big when you have the world’s richest tax base backing you up. Either way, the S&P 500 fell just 0.84% in July. The Dow climbed 0.43%. The Nasdaq was actually up 1.42% on strength in smaller cap and biotech stocks. All investment-grade bonds were essentially flat for the month. Higher-risk bonds – notably mortgage-related debt – continued to drop, making their yield over safe bonds more attractive. International stocks were much weaker as the great foreign investing boom continues to unwind. The MSCI EAFE index was down 3.21%.
In such an environment, we’re quite happy with the performance of our Powerfund Portfolios with returns that ranged from -0.68% to positive 2.49%. Our moves last month into junk bonds hurt a little. Our funds that short, particularly the new riskier ones, helped a lot. One of these new short funds posted gains of over 20% in July, as did our biotech sector ETF - among our biggest one-month gains ever. It typifies how bizarre market behavior has been lately that a fund that shorts and one that is long can both be up over 20% in the same month.
Nakoma Absolute Return (NARFX) was back to delivering market beating returns with a 2.03% jump for the month of July. We noted we’d need to see commodity-related stocks tank for this fund to pick up. They did and it did.
Healthcare is finally in high gear. What started as just mild outperformance a few months ago is going like gangbusters now. Healthcare Select SPDR (XLV) was up a solid 5.01% in July.
Harbor Bond (HABDX) had another weak month relative to bond indexes with a 0.51% drop – proof that Bill Gross has moved into higher risk credits a little too early.
The boom in biotech stocks is almost moving into bubble territory. SPDR Biotech (XBI) jumped a whopping 20.14% in July. This puts the one-year return at 36.86%. Compare that to the S&P 500’s negative 11% one-year return.
Anything foreign or global had a pretty bad month in July, and Janus Global Research (JARFX) was no exception dropping 4.18%. Janus as a company may have gotten a little too attached to commodity related stocks in the boom, something to watch because they did the same thing with tech stocks in the late 1990s.
The 1.81% drop in the Vanguard Growth ETF (VUG) was surprising given the move up in the Nasdaq, but this fund is large-cap weighted so missed much of the bounce in smaller-cap stocks.