Americas

Investors are pushing sector rotation toward more cyclical sectors and the former defensive leaders are lagging. Industrials are underperforming, with the aerospace and defense industry outgunning both the sector average and also the S&P 500 in total return year to date. Thomson Reuters StarMine has identified four aerospace and defense firms with strong characteristics: higher [...]

More than 90% of S&P 500 companies have reported first-quarter earnings. The earnings growth rate has increased to 5.3%, a significant increase from the 1.5% growth that was expected at the beginning of earnings season. Toward the end of an earnings season where two-thirds of companies have beaten earnings estimates even though less than half [...]

Several economic factors lined up in the week ended May 8 — and mutual fund investors responded. Reinforced commitment from the Fed and better-than-expected nonfarm payroll numbers helped power U.S. equity markets as domestic stock indices hit new highs. Investors took notice — and considered riskier assets as yield from bonds fed continued to be [...]

Spring worked its magic in April as warmer weather brought shoppers back to the malls. An early Easter holiday in late March helped, too. Excluding drug stores, the Thomson Reuters Same Store Sales Index registered a 5.0% gain for April, compared to the same month a year ago, beating a 4.9% final estimate. That’s the [...]

This research note is provided by Fathom Consulting. All of the charts below and many many more, covering a range of topics and countries on both the macroeconomy and financial markets are available in the Chartbook to Datastream users at www.datastream.com. Alternatively you can access Fathom’s Chartbook at www.fathom-consulting.com/TR. Worries about a US economic slowdown [...]

Watch Warren Buffett’s Interview Following Berkshire Hathaway’s Shareholder Meeting On Reuters Insider. Watch Now > Other Insider videos from the conference include: – Berkshire Hathaway 2013: Berkshire’s annual meeting in 60 seconds – Top investors on what Buffett should buy next – Douglas Kass, Hedge Fund Manager on Berkshire Hathaway’s Quarterly earnings   Receive stories [...]

After a cold winter and chilly early spring, April’s soft breezes nudged retail customers back to the malls. The Thomson Reuters Same Store Sales Index is expected to post a 4.3% gain for April 2013, stronger than April 2012’s 0.8% result. Excluding the Drug Store sector, the SSS growth rate is projected to be 4.9%, [...]

Portfolio underperformance is often not a function of owning too few winners, but of owning too many losing stocks. In this demonstration, Tim Gaumer, Director of Fundamental Research at Thomson Reuters, shows how predictive analysis can be applied to your research process to reduce the number of potential problems on the long side and for [...]

Over the past two years, investors have been favoring stocks that make their money inside the USA. In fact, Thomson Reuters discovered that 150 of these S&P 500 index members produced a total return of 15% versus the S&P 500’s 12%. Companies on the ‘Sold in the USA’ list include CVS Caremark (CVS.N), in consumer [...]

April proved to be a somewhat volatile and uncertain month for investors in many asset classes, as traders proved ready to take profits on the first sign of trouble and as the economic overview remains murky at best. The second quarter of 2013 got off to a bumpy and uncertain start in April. On the [...]