The Sizemore Investment Letter

The first time I set foot on Spanish soil was the spring of 2000, and what a fantastic time it was to visit.  The dollar was near its all-time high versus the Euro, and an American could live like a king on a pauper’s budget. My, how times have changed.  I most recently visited Spain [...]

Utilities are the proverbial red-headed stepchild of stock market sectors.  During bull markets, so the thinking goes, utilities tend to underperform more aggressive sectors like technology  or industrials.  But during a good market rout, utilities take a beating along with the rest. How unloved are utilities? As I wrote in a recent article, they were [...]

Men are not always the best about remembering anniversaries, but there are a few that we would all like to forget.  This past Sunday marked the two-year anniversary of the infamous “Flash Crash” of May 6, 2010 that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average swing by 600 points in 20 minutes. What is perhaps most [...]

In looking at two companies in the same sector, would you prefer to have a stock that pays a 2.7% dividend or one that pays a 3.1% dividend? The answer might seem obvious at first; all else equal, who wouldn’t take the higher cash payout? But before you answer, take a look at Figure 1. [...]

What’s the easiest way to find a stock with a 10% dividend yield? Find a stock yielding 5% and watch its price get cut in half. I say this mostly in jest, but this is precisely what happened to investors in RadioShack (NYSE:$RSH), the iconic electronics and gadgets chain still found in most American shopping [...]

Credit card rivals MasterCard (NYSE:$MA) and Visa (NYSE:$V) released earnings on Wednesday, and both knocked the ball out of the park. We’ll start with MasterCard.  This smaller of the two rivals enjoyed earnings growth of 25% in the first quarter and a 17% increase in worldwide purchase volumes.  Not to be outdone, Visa announced a [...]

It’s that time of year again, dear reader.  Twice per year, Barron’s does a survey of large professional money managers to get their outlook for the market (see “Reason to Cheer”). I get a lot of value out of reading the survey results, but not necessarily for the reasons you might think.  This is a [...]

Sizemore Capital is making a strategic allocation shift for all ETF portfolios with U.S. large cap exposure.  This affects the Tactical ETF Portfolio and the Strategic Growth Allocation. To be consistent with Sizemore Capital’s focus on dividend growth, we are eliminating our long-term positions in the iShares S&P 500 Index (NYSE:$IVV) and replacing them with [...]

Investing is not all that different from choosing a spouse.  At some point in every man’s life, he has to make a choice.  Does he go for the alluring but volatile young vixen who will ultimately put him in an early grave, or does he take the more rational course of action and choose a [...]

Switzerland will always have a special place in the hearts of doom mongers.   For decades its franc has been the “go to” safe haven currency when the world got dicey.   The meticulous Swiss gnomes have always had a well-deserved reputation as prudent stewards of wealth—and a well-deserved reputation for discretion and privacy.  And importantly, their [...]