06-14-2017, 10:18 PM
But what if one of the most valuable parts of the company was intangible, something that wouldn’t get a line on quarterly balance sheets? That is the investment premise behind a strategy that emphasizes the value of a company’s brand in calculating its future prospects. Brand, according to the research firm Brandometry, “is a collection of perceptions about a company, its assets, its people, and its conduct.”
Goldman Sachs believes the rare combination of conditions supporting this bull market, especially the run in technology stocks, is about to end. "The unexpected mix of healthy growth and declining rates represents a Goldilocks scenario for U.S. equities," wrote David Kostin, the firm's chief U.S. equity strategist, in a note to end last week. "However, just like in the fairy tale, this perfect scenario is unlikely to last."
Goldman: fairy tale behind the tech bull market unlikely to last
A resurgence in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency use has benefited one stock in particular: graphics chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which looks poised to stretch gains to its fifth day in a row on Friday. Shares fell 4.8% to $12.28 by Friday close. "AMD has a great business model, a fabulous CEO and the right chips at the right time," TheStreet's founder and Action Alerts PLUS Portfolio Manager Jim Cramer said in an interview. "AMD has gained a lot of market share in a lot of prosaic Apple (AAPL) products, and that's a very big deal."
AMD Has Become a Very Big Deal for Several Reasons, Reveals Jim Cramer - TheStreet
Morgan Stanley's auto team, led by analyst Adam Jonas, seems to be convinced that the auto trade is officially over prompting him to slash over 11 million units from his North American SAAR forecast over the next 4 years. Jonas attributes his controversial call to the fact that OEMs have been so aggressive in implementing policies designed to pull forward sales (e.g. longer loan terms, higher loan mix to subprime borrowers, etc.) that they've actually started to pressure used car prices to the point that they're cannibalizing new sales.
Buy low, sell high. It's a classic adage, and one that's helped stock investors reap consistent gains for the better part of seven decades. Until now. Having returned 5% on average each year from 1940 through 2007, the so-called value trade has lost 2% per year over the past decade, according to Goldman Sachs data. It's down 10% this year alone, badly lagging an S&P 500 that's climbed 8.7%. The decline of the value strategy has mirrored the rise of passive investing and quantitative trading. Total assets in performance factor-based exchange-traded funds have quadrupled in the past five years, approaching $600 billion earlier this year, while quants now manage more than $1 trillion, says Goldman.
One of history's most reliable stock-trading strategies is struggling - Business Insider