Market Monitor

In Monday’s Goldman Guide we reviewed the recent successes of some mega cap stocks. Bigger is better right now. Additionally, we mentioned the fact that year end seasonality usually favors small cap stocks. Finally, there is the holiday retail effect.

Today’s featured stock is just outside of the traditional small cap market cap size of $2 billion but ties in all our Guide themes nicely along with the holiday effect. Big Lots, Inc. (NYSE – BIG - $46.76) should be a household name to most.

Our tagline is appropriate when one considers the two major plays in football that happened last weekend and Monday night were from the usually boring punt formation.

Yesterday gave some hope that October will offer a rebound as we had an up day on what is historically one of the worst days in the market. Here is an interesting tidbit from MarketWatch.

In Monday’s Guide we illustrated the fact that mid caps can be the Jan Brady of the stock market.  “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!”  A lot of growth investors look to small caps for growth and large caps for value.  Today we look at a ‘fun’ mid cap that is by no means boring Meatloaf and potatoes.  Alright, this is a week tie in to our Rocky Horror Picture Show theme from Monday, enough of the 70’s.

Cedar Fair, L.P. (NYSE – FUN - $54.09)  has a 50-day EMA metric plotted indicating a positive short-term trend.  While summer is fading, this summer fun stock is not. 

The month has started off with a bang! Are we going to be singing the Green Day song in the tagline today all month long?

The sky is falling!  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Even with the blood bath that was Monday’s stock market, some of our previous Market Monitor, and 30-30 picks were big winners that day and bucked the trend.  These included Cypress Energy Partners, L.P. (NYSE- CELP), BioTelemetry, Inc. (NASDAQ – BEAT) and Hudson Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ – HDSN), all up over 3% for the day.

As we near the primary and election cycle, the leading Democratic candidate for President, Clinton the anointed one, is facing a scandal that could derail the campaign and candidacy.  Meanwhile, the nation is divided on an important issue regarding Mexico that could cause Americans to lose jobs, cost us money, etc.  No one is particularly enthralled with the traditional Republican challengers for President.  This has prompted a billionaire maverick that has a penchant and proclivity to speak to the “everyman” and is fueling the fire against Mexico, to throw his hat in the ring and is taking over the media and polls.  Meanwhile in Asia, a giant economy endured a self-imposed economic mess as asset prices plunged, affecting markets around the world.

Yesterday, we were all reminded that even with the great Chinese free-market growth story over the last 20 years, they are still a ‘Red’ China.

In Monday’s Guide we reviewed some data that showed August has not been the ‘bad’ month it is made out to be. Yesterday, MarketWatch expanded on this theme in this article.

Alright, today’s tagline was only to get your attention as possibly some rant against political media bias or some other hot topic from Washington.