U.S. Dollar Index Topped Out

The U.S. Dollar appears overbought, will the stock market rally and the bond market sell off?

http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/US/M

http://www.fxstreet.com/rates-charts/usdollar-index/

* as of 7/5/10, the U.S. Dollar index is at 84.552; the index topped out at 88.834 on 6/4/10

May and June, not so good

Well, the months of May and June haven't been so good. I have neither bought nor sold any securities during that time frame. I made some disaster investments in a couple of companies that are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy at the height of the stock market pull-back. The rest of my investments have lost double digits, but I still like the prices of where they are at.

Maybe in hindsight the major stock indexes of the world have had such as huge run-up from March 2009 that a pull-back was inevitable. The stocks markets were on fire earlier this year and maybe I should have has a clue. Maybe I should have bought some portfolio insurance. The rest of this summer should be interesting.

Stock Market Summary Weekending 6/11/10

Overall good week for me. The markets rebounded after a month's long sell off. Just from the readings on the web, I think that the stock markets have bottomed and will give us a nice rally through the summer; Dow Jones will approach 12,000. Again this is a near-term prediction.

I pretty much sat tight this past month and did no buying nor selling of any stocks. Every stock in my portfolio was down. I am a long-term trader and try to buy stocks that are going to multiple several fold over the long-term. I did sell some natural gas and oil stocks earlier this year after a nice year-long run-up on some of them. With those sales, I bought some media stocks, REITs and a trucking company, all have done well with the exception of the trucking company which has gotten destroyed in the down-draft of the May sell off after I purchased some shares in April.

IMHO, 2010 and the coming years for the stock market will not be nearly as fruitful as the past year. I am finding less bargains as the markets rise and shorting the markets is not my specialty, but I may one day buy puts on the S&P to hedge my portfolio when the markets return to mania levels.

2009 was a slam dunk, more on that later.

Marc Faber Calls a Near-term Bottom on the S&P 500

Mr. Faber argues that sentiment on stocks is very negative and that the stock markets are oversold near-term. He indicates support on the S&P 500 of 1,045 based on the February 5, 2010 low. Also, June and July are historically better months for the stock markets, so there is a possibility of a summer trading rally before the stock markets cool again.

Long-term Mr. Faber is bearish on stocks.

Some High-Yielding Dividend Stocks

Company Symbol Yield % Price
Invesco Mortgage Capital Inc IVR 15.83% 20.29
Resource Capital Corp. RSO 15.9% 6.81
Prospect Capital Corporation PSEC 15.91% 10.87
Annaly Capital Management, Inc. NLY 16.75% 15.96
Anworth Mortgage Asset Corporation ANH 17.2% 6.61
Cornerstone Progressive Return Fund CFP 17.94% 7.22
Capstead Mortgage Corporation CMO 19.42% 10.81
Hatteras Financial Corp. HTS 19.84% 26.44
American Capital Agency Corp. AGNC 21.6% 27.54
K-Sea Transportation Partners LP KSP 24.32% 7.44

source: dividendstocksonline com (5/14/10)