It appears most Wall Street strategists like yesterday's
Election Day results, with "stalemate" appearing to be the central
theme as far as powers in the Congress and Senate go.
That said, the next big focus appears to be this afternoon's
Federal Reserve meeting where we expect to hear about another round
of quantitative easing (i.e. Federal Reserve printing many more
dollars in hopes of igniting the economy). In the past couple of
days and with a rising stock market, the accolades are numerous for
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. The idea that he has studied
what happened in Japan and will do everything in his power to
prevent deflation by continuing the printing press of U.S. dollars
could become quite dangerous in a "be careful what you wish for"
scenario. Any sudden spike in interest rates, which the bond market
can easily begin to place bets on, could be something that gets
away from the powers that be, and have the opposite effect of what
was intended. During an attempt to tackle spiraling hyperinflation
in 2007, the Central Bank of Zimbabwe increased interest rates for
borrowing to 800%. Of course the argument is that this can't happen
here. Either way, there will be a price to pay at some point, I'm
sure, but until we start to see evidence of such, we will remain
focused on outperforming the markets with our
Best Dividend Stocks
list.
Speaking of our recommendations, we added two new names to our
list this morning, with a continued focus on yield. Be sure to
check out the
post
if you did not read the e-mail alert we sent out earlier.
As for today's action, market participants are a bit cautious
early on. Hartford Financial (
HIG
) did its part to help the averages after reporting earnings
results Wall Street liked. On the flip side, EOG Resources (
EOG
), Agrium (
AGU
) and Garmin (
GRMN
) all saw selling on their earnings news. Blackrock (
BLK
) shares fell on news Bank of America (
BAC
) and PNC Financial (
PNC
) are looking to trim their holdings in the money management firm.
Mastercard (
MA
) continued to tack on gains following yesterday's
better-than-expected earnings results.
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Thanks for reading, and I'll see you tomorrow!
Be sure to visit our complete recommended list of the
Best Dividend Stocks
, as well as a detailed explanation of
our ratings system here
.