Some Market Comments

Some market comments posted on Financialsense.com by market commentator, Frank Barbera: Rolling Defensive and What's NOT in Vogue

• .... A lot of these stocks are really poor quality, with no earnings, a dismal forward-looking sales outlook and yet, -- in a good market -- all was forgiven as prices were marked up dramatically from the lows. Our gut feel is that the days of ‘easy money’ are now well behind us, and that low priced stocks are going to start facing real head winds as a much harsher reality check is soon applied. Risk Appetite can be measured in other sectors as well. Going from the low end of the spectrum to the high end of the spectrum, we are always fascinated by the price action of high priced potential market leaders. These stocks can provide equally valuable insight as to the strength of an underlying trend. In the last few months, names like Google, Mastercard, Goldman Sachs, Baidu, CNOOC, Blackrock, Apple, Amazon.com, Priceline.com, Rio Tinto, Alcon, IBM have been important market leaders. Importantly, most of these high-flying, high priced leaders remain near their absolute highs and held up fairly well in the recent correction. Yet at the same time, most of these stocks seem to be losing upside momentum and struggling to perform well as the major averages recover.