Bit of a lacklustre day. Victorian lock downs upsetting the bank sector. It slows the economic recovery and the prospect of extended mortgage holidays is not what the banks want to hear. The lock downs also kill certain sectors of the economy, increases unemployment, and risks more permanent economic damage and unemployment. Iron ore a mild bright spot today. The APT price is back on after yesterday's trading halt and holding well above the placement price. Founder selling hasn't burst the bubble. Otherwise pretty quiet. We have a look at the US results season today - it start next week. Virus news doesn't improve in the US. The travel sector looks like its got further to fall with all related industries including tourism folding up with it. The new theme is the idea that the May and June economic recovery, while V-Shaped initially, is going to flatten out because of the second wave, not just in the US, but here. No rush to buy overbought stocks. We want oversold not overbought stocks to buy. Can't see many at the moment. 

The market has given away a 63 point gain this morning after a solid technology led rally on Wall St and a 5.7% jump in the Chinese market yesterday. We discuss today whether we should be buying the market and come to a few conclusions about which stocks and sectors are likely to perform if the market does continue to recover. It looks like a very different anatomy to the March rally this time, focused more on quality and safety than on the buying of oversold recovery stocks. It'll be interesting to see if this Chinese economic optimism develops. We have the results season around the corner in the US and Australia and whilst that offers all sorts of opportunity it also offers risk. We still haven't bought anything in our SMAs, but are being forced to think about it. 

Ben filling the shoes of Marcus who is away this morning. Not much for our market to go on with the US closed on Friday. 39 States saw rising case numbers over the weekend but does any of it matter while the but does is really matter while the new death rate keeps dropping? Plus a few buy signals are making us consider our cash position in the SMA’s. 

This week On the Couch Henry talks ETFs with the Head of Content at ETF Securities Sara Allen. Sara is responsible for content creation and curation for ETF Securities. She has more than 10 years of experience in content and marketing across investments, superannuation, insurance and financial advice. Prior to joining ETF Securities in December 2019, Sara held content and marketing roles at BT Financial Group, Macquarie Group and DDB Sydney. Sara has a Bachelor of Art – Psychology from Macquarie University. 

Wall St up but faded running into the long weekend - it hit a high of 469 last night and closed up 92 falling into the close. Its a holiday in the US tonight. Our market sliding quietly away after a good open as well. Today we talk about the launch of our new STOCK BOX, the launch of our WEEKLY SECTOR CHARTS section and in the Strategy discussion note a number of positives including a lot of short term buy signals generated over the last couple of days and the need for us to think about buying something. We haven't, but buy signals noted. Don't forget Henry on Ask an Analyst on our Facebook site live tonight and I'll see you tomorrow for our WEEKEND edition which includes Henry on the Couch talking to an ETF expert. Enjoy!

Similar sort of headlines today - We discussed what to do if the market goes nowhere - would we go "All in" again or stay out. the decision is that if we knew we would go nowhere for a year we would play selected sectors and stocks and remain with high cash levels. There is no point getting more fully invested until a convicted uptrend develops. We include today a list of positive and negatives, the market charts, an article about broker research (or is it marketing material), a comment on Central Bank policy and a look at ETFs and how they support the bigger stocks. Summary - still in cash in our funds. 

Welcome to all our new subscribers and welcome to the start of the new financial year. This morning in the Strategy section we explain what the Strategy section is all about. We look at the positive and negative headlines. Look at the main sectors. Do a bit of education including a three step strategy for picking stocks and a comment about big bank economists and strategists and we include as usual, our STRATEGY SUMMARY which remains unchanged. We are still waiting for the next trend to develop. We have a strategy in our funds of trying to "Step up, Step out, Step up, Step out". We call is "Step Performance". At the moment we have stepped out and are waiting for a new step up to start before we get involved again. 

Up down up down - the market is positively undecided. Volatility is still elevated, the headlines are mostly negative. Wall St's rally was based on hopes of further stimulus - Powell speaks tonight - and Trump tweeting that "Something big has happened" which the market anticipated as a vaccine breakthrough. We await Trumps" Major Statement". Meanwhile OK Chinese PMI numbers are helping today. We are still out of the market and happy to be whilst this indecision continues. We are in a sideways channel waiting for the break up or down with 'down' being the more likely at the moment. Last day of the Financial Year - our prices go up tomorrow. Existing Members are grandfathered at whatever price they pay so subscribe now before prices rise tomorrow and you end up paying more for years! 

The market down over 100 first thing this morning. Volatility is elevated. The headlines are deteriorating. No reasons to step off the shore and set sail yet. Today we highlight a defensive portfolio - a list of stocks that will outperform in a falling market, although we have no interest in losing money more slowly. We also look at the ASX 200 chart and note that we would need another 150 point fall to break resistance. The S&P 500 chart shows the start a new downtrend. All this could deteriorate or recover in a blink with a vaccine or with re-lockdowns - its a bipolar market. Not safe yet. Happy to be sitting it out. 

 This week we have another returnee to the couch, consummate professional and great friend of Henry - Julia Lee. Julia Lee is the Chief Investment Officer at Burman Invest. She has 20 years of experience in financial markets. Her passion in markets is in combining fundamental and technical analysis to analyse companies. Julia is one of Australia’s best-known financial experts and a frequent speaker at industry conferences. Julia is on the board of directors for the Australian Stockbrokers Foundation. She has her Master of Business in Finance (MBus), is an accredited Derivatives Adviser 2 (ADA2(ASX)) and is RG 146 compliant. Enjoy!