In an ongoing thread there was a question about covered call funds. I used to write about these more. I am a believer in the concept but many of the CEFs have done poorly through the market events of the last year. I have used one CEF (with foreign exposure) for many clients with a very small weight (this is the manner in which I wrote about how to use them; in moderation).Specifically the reader seems to be asking whether holding a call writing fund in lieu of a broad based fund while the S&P 500 is below its 200 DMA makes sense. I sort of touched on this recently talking about the PowerShares Buy Write ETF (PBP) which I own personally and for a couple of clients.The bigger macro IMO is that when demand for equities is poor what steps do you think you ...

Last weekend, we noted that the next phase of this bear market will likely be driven not by U.S. financial companies or by energy prices per se, but rather by the effects of the American slowdown being felt by the rest of the world.  A front page story in the WSJ on Friday noted the falling Eurozone GDP as additional evidence of a global slowdown.

Looking forward, we expect continued bullishness in equities next week as the lack of major news and the seasonal drop in volume draws in more hopeful investors.  But we won’t be surprised if those same buyers are punished for their optimism as the bearish tendencies of September and October kick in.  Members can check out our proprietary market sentiment indicator in our weekend portfolio update.

Performance Comparison

Here’s how the major market indexes, the S&P

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