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noninstitutional

09 Mar: Bitcoin / Crypto

Bitcoin is a type of cryptocurrency. There are no physical bitcoins, only balances kept on a public ledger that everyone has transparent access to. All bitcoin transactions are verified by a massive amount of computing power. Bitcoins are not issued or backed by any banks or governments, nor are individual bitcoins valuable as a commodity. Despite it not being legal tender, Bitcoin is very popular and has triggered the launch of hundreds of other cryptocurrencies, collectively referred to as altcoins. Bitcoin is commonly abbreviated as “BTC.”

09 Mar: VIX Weekly

The CBOE Volatility Index, or “VIX”, is a real-time market index representing the market’s expectations for volatility over the coming 30 days. Investors use the VIX to measure the level of risk, fear, or stress in the market when making investment decisions. Traders can also trade the VIX using a variety of options and exchange-traded products, or use VIX values to price derivatives.

09 Mar: GS

Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. engages in global investment banking, securities, and investment management, which provides financial services. It operates through the following business segments: Investment Banking, Global Markets, Asset Management, and Consumer & Wealth Management. The Investment Banking segment serves public and private sector clients around the world and provides financial advisory services, help companies raise capital to strengthen and grow their businesses and provide financing to corporate clients. The Global Markets segment serves its clients who buy and sell financial products, funding and manage risk.

09 Mar: GOOG

Google Inc. (Google) and its Internet products, such as Access, Calico, CapitalG, GV, Nest, Verily, Waymo and X. The Company’s segments include Google and Other Bets. The Google segment includes its Internet products, such as Search, Ads, Commerce, Maps, YouTube, Google Cloud, Android, Chrome and Google Play, as well as its hardware initiatives. The Google segment is engaged in advertising, sales of digital content, applications and cloud offerings, and sales of hardware products.

09 Mar: GE

General Electric Co. is a technology and financial services company. It operates through the following segments: Power, Renewable Energy, Aviation, Healthcare, and Capital. The Power segment offers technologies, solutions, and services related to energy production, which includes gas and steam turbines, generators, and power generation services. The Renewable Energy segment provides wind turbine platforms, hardware & software, offshore wind turbines, solutions, products & services to hydropower industry, blades for onshore & offshore wind turbines, and high voltage equipment. The Aviation segment provides jet engines & turboprops for commercial airframes,

09 Mar: XLV

XLV ETF is one of the most popular options for gaining exposure to the U.S. health care sector, and as such might be an attractive option for investors looking to tilt exposure towards lower risk industries. XLV is among the cheapest ways to gain access to health care companies, and offers impressive depth of holdings as well. XLV can be a good option for a sector rotation strategy or as a means of establishing a long term tilt towards the health care sector.

09 Mar: XLI Weekly

XLI: U.S. industrials sector offers access to transportation firms, commercial and professional services, and manufacturers of capital goods. Given the sector-specific focus, XLI likely doesn’t deserve a core allocation, but may be useful as a means of implementing a tactical tilt towards the industrials sector for a sector rotation strategy. The primary appeal of XLI lies in the impressive liquidity; used widely as a trading vehicle by active investors, XLI will generally feature very narrow bid-ask spreads. The depth of the XLI portfolio, however, leaves something to be desired. This ETF has far fewer holdings than options such as VIS, FIL, and IYJ, and also maintains a big weighting in GE.

09 Mar: XLF Weekly

XLF contains diversified financial services; insurance; commercial banks; capital markets; real estate investment trusts; thrift & mortgage finance; consumer finance; and real estate management & development. XLF contains the who’s-who of the financial players in the domestic economy, including JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, and others. This makes it an ideal play on the U.S. financials world, which has not always been stable.