The markets were boring yesterday, but the good news is they held the move higher from Friday. The challenge for you and I as investors is being patient enough to let things develop. But, the reality is the uptrend is still in play and our play list has benefited from the move higher. This is why tracking and investing according to your discipline is key to success.
I would add to that statement, not being afraid to take a small loss if the plays doesn’t work out. I was told by a successful mutual fund portfolio manager, “the key to being good at investing is letting your profits run and keeping your losses small.” The reality of that statement comes in developing a strategy which accomplishes the goal.
What a week for the market. The Nasdaq led the way, with a weekly gain of 4%; the NYSE Composite rose 3.6%; the S&P 500 added 3.2% and the Dow picked up 2.3%. Technical breakouts among institutional-quality names is exactly what you want to see in the early stages of a market rally, and there have been plenty of them. Apple (AAPL) broke out in heavy volume on Friday, rising nearly 4% to $218.95.
This is a perfect environment to be adding growth names to my Market Movers model portfolio, and I will doing more of it in coming weeks. All 16 names in the portfolio traded higher Friday. Some top performers in the portfolio include Valeant Pharmaceuticals Int'l (VRX), Celgene (CELG), Panera Bread (PNRA) and Brookfield Properties (BPO) among others.
For more information on my Market Movers newsletter, you can e-mail me at ken.shreve@thestreet.com
