Macro Outlook

At least that's what we think he said. He does tend to foam at the mouth a bit, making it hard to parse out the details.

Regardless, TOL is up today, putting the max gain for WOW readers' calls at 20% as of 10:30 a.m. EST this morning. 

Also pressing toward new gains: Your SPDR Energy Sector (XLE) calls may move past 106% at any minute as oil spikes toward the mid-sixties.

Market Trends

Over the past few weeks I've been watching the Swiss stock market… 

Today, Nestle (the world's largest food company) announced that it's buying Novartis' (NVS:NYSE) medical nutrition business for $2.5 billion. 

Novartis' medical nutrition business is a large acquisition for Nestle.

Novartis and Nestle are two of the top three holdings of the iShares Switzerland Index Fund (EWL), a fund that's been breaking into new 52-week highs this week.

I received a question concerning my breakdown of the strongest retail sectors. 

It read: “Bryan, why the auto sector? With the three cutting back on production in the next months ahead, I would think that auto parts sales would fall. Please explain your logic. The numbers you use are laggards. What about the future?”

If you recall, I wrote yesterday that auto stores posted a solid 0.9% percent increase on the heels of their 1% pop in October - making them the top performing niche in the retail sales sector. 

Although this number was indeed valid through November (which is where the “laggard” comment comes from), my point was to simply show you that the auto parts stores are posting the strongest month-over-month returns. 

Do I know why this is happening? No. In fact, I would have never guessed that auto part stores were so strong. Maybe it's the addition of winter services? But nevertheless, you can't argue with the impressive numbers they're posting - and that was the point of my column. 

Material Profits

The word on the street is that OPEC won't cut production in its meeting today... 

But it might cut in February. 

Its first round of cuts implemented in November should start to hit U.S. markets in January. Already, these cuts may have helped bump up the price of oil to its former support areas above $60 a barrel. Today crude is up above $62 per barrel.

This could be the beginning of a turnaround for crude oil, and oil companies should be very happy today. 

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