Market Update for 26 Feb

I follow stocks closely, but I rarely blog about the market, since whenever I do, people stay away in droves (or so it seems). This short update is for the few who care as much as I do about making money in the market. (I have to care. I'm nearing retirement age and the 401K is my lifeline.)

On Wednesday, 18 Feb 2015, the last time I blogged about stocks, I provided some stock picks. You may remember me saying: "So those are my picks, for now: NOC, IBB, MSFT, K, BP, and for the strong of stomach, HAL."

Here's what's happened since then.

Symbol	2/19 Open	2/25 Close	% gain
BP	40.93	41.91	2.4
HAL	43.16	43.68	1.2
IBB	328.50	339.45	3.3
K	63.66	64.78	1.8
MSFT	43.18	43.99	1.9
NOC	167.80	168.65	0.5
.IXIC	4901.50	14967.14	1.3
.DJI	18028.67	18224.57	1.1

I wrote about these stocks on Wednesday. If you had bought each one of these symbols Thursday morning (20 Feb), at market open, and held them until the close of trade yesterday, you would have made 1.8% on your money in one week, assuming you bought equal dollar amounts of each stock. (If you had bought 100 shares of each stock, a disproportionate amount of your money would have been in IBB and you would have made 2.2% overall.) By comparison, the Nasdaq (.IXIC) rose 1.3% in the same time period, while the Dow rose 1.1%.

The market is due for a pullback (of 2% to 4%), so don't rush to buy any of these stocks right now. For the next week or so, you should be mostly in cash. (Why do I say that? Because the Nasdaq finished yesterday with a Relative Strength Index of 99.5. That's incredibly high. We're due for a correction.) When the pullback is over, all of the above names still have my blessing, although HAL and BP should be treated with caution (you should probably buy them only on an oil dip).

For the longer term, I like SIX (Six Flags) a lot. If it goes below $46, buy some and hold it for a few months (or years). It pays a 4.5% yearly dividend, has a great track record of growth, and the company is superbly managed. What's not to like?

Have you added your name to the mailing list? Why not? You might make some money.

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I'll be blogging about this more soon, but I wanted to give you a heads-up on the fact that I have put a free book up on NoiseTrade.com called MENTAL HEALTH MYTHS DEBUNKED. Please go download a free copy of this 112-page book, available either as ePub or PDF. And did I mention it's 100% free? And also I don't mind at all if you give a copy to a friend? Please be sure to read the chapter on electroshock therapy. It's (dare I say) shocking, to put it mildly. There's plenty of great stuff in this book, with live links to the scientific literature, lots of illustrations, and sacred cows massacred by the hundreds! A treat for the whole family to enjoy.

Grab a freebie copy while you can. I'll be tweeting it regularly. Retweet me for a free mention in my timeline (and/or in this blog; see recent retweeters listed below). Thanks!

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I want to thank the following kind tweeps for retweeting me yesterday. Please click their pics and follow them on Twitter. These folks really do retweet!