Hello Mooers,
For the week ended March 6, U.S. equities turned defensive. The Dow fell 3.0%, its worst weekly drop since early April, the S&P 500 lost 2.0%, its biggest weekly decline since mid-October, and the Nasdaq shed 1.2%. Friday’s selloff was driven by two forces: a sharp jump in oil prices as the Middle East conflict intensified, and a much weaker-than-expected February jobs report, with nonfar...

When markets enter war-mode — like they have during this week’s Iran escalation — guessing becomes expensive.
The edge doesn’t come from predicting headlines.
It comes from measuring volatility properly.
On the moomoo app, you can turn uncertainty into structured decision-making.
Here’s how I approach it in real time.
1️⃣ Track the Regime — Is Fear Expanding or Peaking?
Start with the benchmark: the CBOE ...

This article looks at the performance of 3 model portfolios created in September 2025.
Each of our three model portfolios is built around different investment principles. The US Super 10 (+4.85%) tracks the “hot” Magnificent 7 stocks, and is balanced with three broad, bricks-and-mortar American businesses. The core and satellite (+14.88%) illustrates an approach to investing employed by many investors – holding a stable core of broad exposures, wit...

(Kuala Lumpur, 4th report) Corporate earnings in February delivered solid results overall. However, amid downward revisions in profit growth and divergent outlooks for heavyweight stocks, analysts remind that 'defense' remains the central theme for investment strategies in 2026.
Kenanga Investment Bank noted in its report that the performance of the final quarter was similar to the third quarter, with 70% of the companies it tracks meeting or exceeding expectations, nearly unchanged from 72% in the previous quarter.
CIMB Securities also pointed out that the proportion of companies outperforming expectations this quarter exceeded those falling short, indicating an overall improvement compared to the previous quarter and showing no further deterioration in corporate profits.
Plantation, construction, property, and some real estate investment trusts (REITs) have been delivering pleasant surprises; construction and property stocks, in particular, have consistently exceeded expectations over several quarters, offering unexpected gains within traditional defensive assets.
In the oil and gas sector, manageable capital expenditures and high dividend policies maintained by some companies continue to make it attractive in the short term.
By sector, the technology field showed relatively weaker performance in the final quarter.
Kenanga Investment Bank highlighted that, apart from the suboptimal recovery in factory utilization rates within the sector, it also faces order shifts and production layout adjustments due to US tariffs, which will slow down the recovery of the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry.
Dividends bring pleasant surprises
Notably, dividend payouts emerged as a key highlight of the quarter, with approximately 14% of companies issuing dividends that exceeded analyst expectations, particularly in the banking and oil and gas sectors which performed exceptionally well.
Analysts pointed out that a total of 13 companies reported positive dividend surprises during the quarter, including...