As we are at new lifetime highs pre-market, poised to lurch higher on this quadruple-witching-day………
…….I thought it would be interesting to see how a few similarly-situated assets have done so far in 2019, which is days away from being over.
Before I begin, I wanted to mention something I just noticed – – which I’m amazed no one,including me, has mentioned before: the percentage charts in SlopeCharts have a starting point of 100, instead of 0. I’m going to have this fixed right away. But what is wrong with this is that if something goes from $100 to $115, the percentage change is 15%, not 115%. So rest assured, this will be remedied in a few hours.
For equities in general, comparing SPY, IWM, and QQQ, the monster has been NASDAQ (QQQ), powered by semiconductors and the almighty AAPL.
Cryptos have had a great year and a terrible year at the same time. Looking at Bitcoin, Ethereum, and LiteCoin, the champion was Litecoin (moving up over 300% before mid-year) before collapsing to a small gain. The overall laggard has been Ethereum, which has managed to lose money for the year.
Finally, precious metals (GLD, SLV, GDX) have enjoyed gains, albeit modest ones when compared to equities. The leader here is the miners (which I am hoping will have a dynamite 2020), whereas silver, at about a 10% gain, has been the laggard.
