How GWM Prospects for Investment Opportunities

Top Down Investing

Gerritz Wealth Management employs the Top-Down Investment Management Style. What does that mean?

Simply put, we begin our investment prospecting process by first looking at the market as whole. Are we in a bull or bear market? 

We look to our Market Direction Model to help make that determination.

Market Direction Model

The market has been bearish as of late, but may now be turning more bullish.

Next, we identify the strongest sectors in the market. We do this by ranking the nine S&P Sectors based on relative strength.

Sector Rotation Analysis

The Utilities Sector is demonstrating good relative strength
when compared to the other eight S&P sectors.

We now know that the market has been a bit uncertain. We also can see that the defensive sectors, utilities in particular, are outperforming most of the other sectors. We are now ready to drill down and locate the best companies within the Utilities Sector.

Utility Sector Scan



I am looking for the best performing stocks that are attracting institutional money.
Consolidated Edison looks good. So does Southern Company.



We now want to boil the list down further by running these stocks through a screen that verifies both their fundamental and technical strength.  We are interested in their earnings rate, their relative strength and their industry group rank. (ERG)

Fundamental & Technical Screen





Is it time to buy though? We need to look at where the stock has been price-wise to get a better handle on where it may be going next. We need to look to the charts.

Chart Analysis

Southern Company

The stock looks like it is ready to resume its trend higher.

After a nice rise, the stock consolidated for more than seven weeks. It began to rise again; then pulled back briefly before breaking out to the upside. This chart is a picture perfect illustration of a stock that has formed what market technicians at Investor's Business Daily refer to as a cup with handle basing pattern. This is a bullish chart indeed.

As a result of our research, we were very comfortable adding both Southern company and Consolidated Edison to our GWM Model Portfolios.

GWM Core Equities Folio Holdings

as of 06 07 2012

This blog post does not constitute an offer of investment advice. This blog is only provided for educational purposes. Please read the Important Blog Disclosure posted in the right channel bar.