Portfolio/Market Update - 1/15/10

Before reading, please see the disclaimer in the 'About Me' section.

Today the Wilshire 5000 closed at 11,715, down from 11,816.9 a week ago for a weekly loss of .86% on the week. The close today also put the Wilshire 5000 at 14.02% above it's 200 day moving average, down two percentage points from last week.

The Investor's Intelligence Survey was released on Thursday night (on the public website, Tuesday if you pay for it) of this week, as it is every week. This survey is a measurement of the sentiment in the market. This week's reading was 53.4% BULLS, and 15.9% BEARS, for a spread of 37.5%. This is in comparison to a reading of 48.3% BULLS, and 46.9% BEARS, for a spread of 31.4% last week.

The Volatility Index closed out the week at 17.91, down from 18.1 a week ago.

Now for the portfolio...
1) Verizon closed the week at $30.58, down 7.70% for the year (ouch...again).

2) AT&T closed the week at $26.70, up .04% for the year, and basically flat for the week.

3) GE closed the week at $16.44, up by 8.66% for the year.

4) Citigroup closed the week at $3.42, up by 3.32% for the year.

5) TBT, the doubleshort U.S. Treasury ETF closed at $48.59, down by 2.59% for the year. I have no doubts that this one is coming back. Anybody that reads and sees the nonsense going on around us knows that interest rates cannot stay low, and thus bond prices must decrease.

Right now I am going to go ahead and fill one more slot with FXP, the UltraShort China ETF. As stated in a previous post, I do not like the prospects for the Chinese economy over the long run, and that is what I am building this portfolio for, the long run. At the current price of $8.62 per share, I am going to go ahead and add 116 shares to the portfolio. We'll see how I do.

Overall, the portfolio is up by .36% (.35% for the DOW Dogs), versus 1.89% for the Wilshire 5000. I am formulating ideas for what I want to do with the remainder of the portfolio, however, I believe there is downside in the market (in my opinion: the VIX has been below 20 for quite some time now, the Wilshire 5000 is still double digits above it's 200 day, and the investors intelligence indicates a level of bullishness not matched in over a month), so I am going to wait a bit and see if we don't get a pullback/correction. As of now, a few of the names I am kicking around are DUG, the UltraShort Oil & Gas ETF, GLL, and UltraShort Gold ETF.