"Inflation protected bonds hold an interesting hybridized place among Fidelity's bond fund lineup," says Jim Lowell in his Fidelity Investor. Here's the fund advisor's look at Fidelity Inflation-Protected Bond Fund (FINPX).

"When fear of recession (and fear while in recession) hold the upper hand, they behave more like longer-term Treasuries.

"When fear of inflation rises, and long term Treasuries go into a tailspin, these bonds benefit from their inflation protected top spin. "Right now, after the strongest general market rally since the Great Depression, things feel less gloomy (even though they still look relatively dicey).

Continue reading Inflation protection from Fidelity

Inflation protection from Fidelity originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

"The new administration will likely soon launch a new spending program to put people back to work and boost the economy," says Jim Powell, adding, "That's even more likely now that the financial crisis is in full swing and growth is declining."

In his Global Changes & Opportunities Report he looks at General Cable (NYSE: BGC) as a play on the rebuilding of the nation's electric power grid.

"Politicians at all levels have also voiced strong support for rebuilding our woefully inadequate infrastructure. Because building roads, bridges, electrical grids, and so on, will employ many voters, I think allocations for such projects will go to the top of the government's spending list.

"That's especially true since infrastructure projects will also funnel billions of dollars to state and local governments that are facing hard times. All in all, modernizing the the electric power grid should be another very pro?table long-term investment.

"I believe the most promising beneficiary of the electric power project will be General Cable. The company produces products for a wide variety of applications including large cables for long distribution networks.

Continue reading General Cable (BCC): Power play on power grid

General Cable (BCC): Power play on power grid originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

What sectors are poised to outperform as a result of a Barack Obama presidency? To find out, we turn to fund expert Jim Lowell who recent prepared a report highlighting the top ETFs based on each candidate.

In The Forbes ETF Trader, he offers several top picks including ETFs that are focused on biotechnology and medical research, industrials, clean environment and clean energy technologies.

"SPDR Biotech (ASE: XBI) seeks investment results that correspond to the price and yield performance of the S&P Biotechnology Select Industry Index which is made up of the biotechnology sector of the S&P Total Markets Index.

"It began trading in January 2006. The top ten holdings are Genentech, Amgen, Gilead Sciences, Celgene, Genzyme, Biogen Idec, Imclone, Cephalon, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and Alexion Pharmaceuticals.

"Vanguard Industrials (NYSE: VIS) seeks investment results that correspond to the price and yield performance of the Morgan Stanley Capital International US Investable Market Industrials Index.

Continue reading Obama Picks: Fund expert's top ETFs

Obama Picks: Fund expert's top ETFs originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Jim Lowell is known for his expertise in assessing mutual funds; in particular, he is the newsletter advisory world's leading authority on Fidelity funds.

In his Fidelity Investor, he recently conducted his mid-year ranking of Fidelity managers, and based on these results, offers four favorite funds offering global diversifcation.

"Stephen DuFour, manager of Fidelity Focused Stock (FTQGX), is no stranger to our ranking top notches. He took over this fund in March last year, and turned its performance up a notch (finishing the year up 17% vs. .5.5% for his S&P 500 benchmark): Bam!

"With 52 holdings, this fund is focused. His top 10 basically says it all - a diversified play on global growth in a stock picker's portfolio: Southwestern Energy, Norfolk Southern, Range Resources, T. Rowe Price, NRG Energy, Unilever, Eaton, Cisco, Cabot Oil & Gas, and Apple.

"Tom Soviero, manager at Fidelity Leveraged Company Stock (FLVCX), has jumped from the third spot in the December rankings to the top spot this time around.

"His top-ranked status reflects his stock picking expertise. The portfolio continues to become even more concentrated in his top 10 picks (29.4% of the fund's assets now vs. 27% six months ago).

Continue reading Four favorite Fidelity funds

Four favorite Fidelity funds originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

"In the wake of the worst sell-off since 9/11 for most major European and Asian markets, our Fed finally stopped telling us that the building is on fire and entered the building to rescue what it can with an emergency 75 basis point rate cut," notes Jim Lowell.

The editor of Fidelity Investor explains, "The uppshot is that while the rate cut comes too late to cure what's ailing the markets, it does come as a welcome bowl of chicken soup which will help re-nourish the markets over time; look for more bowls of soup (in the form of more rate cuts) to come."

Lowell continues, "For long-term investors like us, time is on our side. After today's sell off, the standard value indicator for whether the markets are over- or under-valued continues to make the case for stocks being the best long-term buy.

"The P/E on the S&P 500 is hovering around 13 - it was north of 16 just a month back; but even a P/E of 16 is a value call. Bonds of every type and duration, on the other hand, are selling at historically high prices and yielding a
paltry sum. Meantime,

"the US dollar, dinged in knee-jerk reaction to today's Fed rate cut, is likely to gain strength as we wend our way through the next several months since the reality of recession is no longer a US but now a global phenomenon and that bell will toll for foreign currencies.

"Against this backdrop, the dollar will be a solid buy for near-term volatility, bonds will trade on the psychology of fear and uncertainty and US stocks will be the best value for long-term money."

Each day, Steven Halpern's TheStockAdvisors.com offers the latest market commentary and favorite investment ideas from the nation's leading financial newsletter advisors.

US stocks still remain 'best value' originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

For 25 years, Steven Halpern, editor of TheStockAdvisors.com, has surveyed the leading financial newsletter advisors asking for their favorite stocks for the coming year. This article is one of 100+ ideas in the Best Stocks for 2008 report.

In his Forbes ETF Trader, Jim Lowell says his top 2008 speculative bet is PowerShares DB G10 Currency Harvest Fund (ASE: DBV).

"This exchange-traded fund is a unique way to play the bank shot of the wildly volatile currency markets. It seeks investment results that correspond to the price and yield performance of the Deutsche Bank G10 Currency Future Harvest Index.

"This index is intended to take advantage of the fact that currencies associated with high-interest rates tend to rise in value relative with those associated with low-interest rates.

"The ten currencies that the index selects from are the US dollar, the euro, Japanese yen, Canadian dollar, Swiss franc, British pound, Australian dollar, New Zealand dollar, Norwegian krone, and Swedish krona.

"The upshot: interest rates are always rising in one of the above economies while falling in another -- 2008 will be no different."

Best Stocks for 2008: PowerShares DB G10 Currency Harvest (DBV) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

For the past two decades, Jim Lowell developed an industry-leading expertise in analyzing mutual funds, with a particular focus on Fidelity funds. During that time he developed an annual feature known as his "Hot Hands" pick.

He explains, "Those who have followed my Fidelity Investor newsletter know that one trick in our proprietary playbook has been buying the previous year's best performing Fidelity fund and sticking with it for the new year. More often than not it turns out to be a big winner."

Given the growing popularity of exchange-traded funds, Lowell recently launched a new service, The Forbes ETF Advisor. And for the first time, he is applying his Hot Hands approach to ETFs.

He cautions that this strategy has not beaten the market every year. However, he says, "It has provided very healthy long-term result and I believe that many growth-oriented investors could improve their performance by putting a reasonable (5% to 10%) portion of their money to work following my Hot Hands strategy."

He explains, "Here are the ground rules for the strategy. First I looked at all of the diversified ETFs for each year between 2000 and 2006. I excluded single-sector ETFs, and on the international side, I excluded the geographically nondiversified (single country) international ETFs.

Continue reading Lowell's hot hands strategy: The #1 ETF for 2007

Lowell's hot hands strategy: The #1 ETF for 2007 originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 14 Feb 2007 08:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.