Strong Week Pushes Market Into Positive Territory YTD

A strong week in the market as the S&P rose 3.1% pushing the broad market in positive territory YTD. The market gained momentum from positive developments on Greece and a better than expected employment report. Jobs overall are still being lost, but those losses declined at a slower rate than anticipated. We still expect the unemployment rate to rise over the coming months as job creation continues to fall short of job losses. However, the economy can still improve despite rising unemployment over the near term. In other economic news, the latest ISM services index topped expectations while the ISM manufacturing index fell slightly short, but still registered improvement. Market volatility also fell significantly no surprise given the market resurgence, and represents another sign that investor fear is starting to subside. Lower volatility will surely bring new money into stock market as investor appetites for risk grow and move money from lower yielding money market and bonds funds. We are encouraged with the market behavior this week and continue to have a positive outlook for the rest of this year. We mentioned last week that we had bought protection for our portfolios to better manage risk in case the market had a meltdown. We decided to close those positions on Friday given the strong week and favorable economic reports. We will occasionally buy protection when the market becomes overheated or during times of rising uncertainty around significant events. Buying protection is like paying insurance premiums, most of the time we expect to lose small amounts for that protection in order to offset losses on long positions during a time of crisis. We view the market as reasonably value, as stocks have become less cheap. There is no need to chase stocks, now is a good time to patient and buy on dips.

Momentum And Value Screen: Breakout Stocks To Buy!

What Stock Tips do we have? Delta Apparel (DLA, Apparel) and Universal American (UAL, Insurance) remain buys from our Breakout stocks watch list from last week. We also added one new stock, City Telecom Hong Kong (CTEL, Communication Services) to our buy list. China based stocks have taken some hits lately due to concerns that growth in China may slow. Slower growth might happen, but China will still grow faster than any of the larger countries including the U.S. Telecom services and infrastructure will continue to be in demand as China grows and CTEL is well positioned to capitalize on those prospects. Over the past year CTEL share price has moved up handsomely over the past year, but we think there is more room to run given the prospects for future earnings growth. As a percentage, Institutional ownership is also very low which could jumpstart the stock to even larger gains if institutions join the party. Breitburn Energy (BBEP, Oil & Gas), Universal Corp (UVV, Tobacco), and Joes Jeans (JOEZ, Apparel) were on our buy list last week, and these stocks all remain attractive buy opportunities. We purchased each of these stocks last week for our own portfolios, which is why we removed them from our current watch list. We also dropped American Italian Pasta from our buy list as momentum has slowed while the stock has been consolidating over the past few weeks. We still like this stock and if we already owned, would definitely continue holding. For new purchases, we just think there are better buying opportunities with other stocks that are showing stronger momentum and value. Overall, we remain optimistic that the market will trend upward through the remainder of the year. There will surely be some bumps along the way, but we plan to remain aggressive and fully invested in stocks.

Remember, you can access daily updates on Hot Stocks to Buy directly from our web site At: http://www.marketbeatingstocks.com