Today in the market, Thursday March 27, 2008: Weak GDP figures confirmed the market’s recession fears and the market slid down for the day. Recession worries seem to dominate the market direction over the past weeks and months. A sign of a bottoming process?
RSI’s Themes: It is tough to discern any themes with so few picks. I’ll let you decide on one if there is a theme out there. Any guesses?
ETF/CEF Low Volatility:
- SHV – iShares Lehman Short Treasury Bond Fund
This is a new pick for RSI and it is a conservative ETF that invests in the short duration treasury bonds. It currently yields 2.47%. Something for someone who may be interested in a super safe investment like this.
Stocks Medium Volatility:
- FRO – Frontline Ltd.
- FST – Forest Oil Corp.
- ROS – Rostelecom
- WFT – Weatherford Intl
No new names here, just some repeats of some prior candidates. All four have done very well this past year and RSI thinks that trend will continue. Even in a recession? Who knows.
Catch a Falling Knife:
- VPU – Vanguard Utilities VIPERs
- VVR – Van Kampen Senior Income
- XLU – Utilities Select Sector SPDR
The two utility funds haven’t fallen that much and it might be an overstatement that they are falling knives, but VVR certainly is one. VVR is not my cup of tea since its expense ratio exceeds 4%! But I feel compelled to report what RSI gins up.
