Forget China, Bonds Spook Stocks
"I'm not saying 'run to the hills,' but sell at the sound of trumpets -- I'm hearing a lot of trumpets," Cody Willard of CL Willard Capital tells Aaron Task on Tuesday's
"The Real Story" podcast. "Take something off the table. This may be as good as it gets."
Willard, a longtime contributor to
TheStreet.com
, says he recently sold shares of
Cisco
(CSCO) - Get Report
after its big run -- and
heavy insider selling, Task notes -- as well as buying puts on
Apple
(AAPL) - Get Report
to protect big gains in that stock.
Both Cisco and Apple were winners again Tuesday, as were
(GOOG) - Get Report
and
Amazon.com
(AMZN) - Get Report
amid a subtle shift back into big-cap tech names, Task says.
This rally is coming as evidence mounts the economy is recovering -- Tuesday's stronger-than-expected ISM Services report being the latest -- and the
Federal Reserve
is not going to cut rates anytime soon.
That combination has weighed on Treasury prices, sending yields to their highest levels since August 2006. Rising yields do present competition for stocks -- especially dividend payers like
Altria
(MO) - Get Report
,
Apartment Investment & Management
(AIV) - Get Report
and
Exelon
(EXC) - Get Report
-- but yields are not yet high enough to truly threaten the bull market, Task says.
In the remainder of the podcast, Task discusses the day's corporate news, including:
M&A activity involving Avaya and Amgen , and a "no deal" deal for Openwave Systems ( OPWN);
Warnings by retailers Bed Bath & Beyond and Cache , and kitchen cabinet maker American Woodmark , which all fell into "the Geoff Tate Zone";
Weakness in small-cap biotechs Telik and Inovio Biomedical after separate clinical setbacks, and big-caps DuPont and General Mills after separate sell-side downgrades.
Click
here to listen to the entire podcast.
