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Jobs report
Stocks were mixed
yesterday as the Dow gave up 26-points and the S&P was down modestly, but
the Nasdaq managed to close higher on the day.
For the
TSP, the C-fund lost 0.17%, the S-fund
fell 0.23%, the I-fund dropped 0.47%, and the F-fund (bonds)
gained 0.24%.
Investors seemed to be tentative after a weaker than expected retail report,
and before today's important employment report. The consensus
estimates are looking for a gain of 150,000 jobs and an unemployment rate of
9.7%.
(Update: The actual numbers came in at +103,000 and 9.4%. A
mixed bag.)
How many ways can you say relentless? It is getting difficult to try
to say anything new about the action in the S&P 500 as this tight trading
channel keeps going, and going, and...
Chart provided courtesy of
www.decisionpoint.com, analysis by TSP
Talk
We have seen rallies like this in years past and it makes it very
difficult to try to trade. There are few, if any, good buying
opportunities as the pullback are few and far between. We are probably
better off riding it out but sometimes the tight ranges end in a thud, so we
don't want to stop watching. That said, we have shown some very good reasons why
there could be pressure on stocks in the short-term, but the
intermediate-term still looks good as the trend remains firmly higher.
Last week's big surprise was a buy signal from our TSP Talk Sentiment
Survey. So far that has worked out and this week the bulls (52%) to
bears (33%) ratio is 1.58 to 1, which is a neutral reading. When we
get a neutral reading the system remains in the fund it was in the prior
week, which is the S-fund. So next week the system will be in the
S-fund.
With the employment report likely to dictate the direction of the market,
there's little analysis to be done in the short-term. However, many
times the initial reaction off of the jobs report is reversed so don't be
overly influenced by the morning action.
Thanks for reading! Have a great weekend.
Tom Crowley
Click here to discuss today's Market Commentary
Administrative Note:
One of our long time forum members, Intrepid_Trader, will be starting a new
Premium Service here on TSP Talk. Intrepid developed his own trading
system and has had very good success over the years trading his TSP account,
and IRA accounts, and has been consistently near the top of our
AutoTracker.
We are offering a free trial to the service for the next several weeks.
You just need to create a login and password in the
premium services area (if you
don't already have one.) No payment information is needed. Just
create an account. Sign in, and you will have immediate access to
Interpid Trader's Investment Strategies Reports.
The reports will be available by 10:30 AM ET each morning, but his active
system signals are not always known until 11:00 AM to 11:30 AM ET, so could
see multiple updates on some mornings. Because of this, you may want
to either get into the habit of checking the reports each morning after
11:30 AM ET, and/or sign up for the Intrepid trader
email alerts.
We will send the emails, but unfortunately we can not guarantee that you
will receive them timely as not all mail servers are created equally -
especially your work servers, which are likely putting the emails through
several filters.
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