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| Today's Commentary (Short Term Outlook) |
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Holding Stocks bounced around quite a bit yesterday, but by the close most indices ended up flat or slightly positive. The Dow gained 11-points on the day. S&P 500 was flat, and small caps did well.  The TSP funds were pretty flat on the day. The C-fund gained 0.02%, while the S-fund and the I-fund were up 0.09% and 0.06% respectively. The F-fund slipped 0.05%. The S&P 500 continues to drift sideways, in what appears to either be a healthy consolidation, or perhaps something a little more ominous. I will be watching the trend lines carefully. If we see a bounce off of the trend lines, it may be the start of the next leg higher, and could be a good time to buy if you are not already in the stock funds.  Chart provided courtesy of www.decisionpoint.com, analysis by TSP Talk If, however, the trend lines are broken to the downside, we'll be looking to the moving averages (EMA's) for support. They are not shown above, but the 20-day EMA is currently 1154, and the 50-day EMA is near 1132. If we start seeing breaks in the EMA's then we have to consider that we at some sort of short-term to intermediate-term top. Until that happens though, I will be expecting a bullish outcome since I am not seeing any indicators flashing warning signs (except for the MACD which we mentioned yesterday.). But again, if the technical picture starts to breakdown, all bets are off and it will be time to put your defense back on the field. April trading begins on Thursday and taking a look at the April seasonality chart below shows us that the month is quite bullish. Even more so than March.  These charts are a bit dated, but it is 56 years worth of data so it is still useful. As you can see, April is one of the top months historically:   Chart provided courtesy of www.sentimentrader.com With everything looking so good, does that mean it is time for the market to fool us? It sure is tough to bet against this market but I have to admit that perhaps things are looking a little too good, if that is possible. Enjoy the ride, but don't take your guard down. Friday is Good Friday, and most markets are closed so the TSP will not be posting share prices for Friday's close of business, and they will not be processing interfund transfers (IFT) for that day. What is interesting about that is that we get the March jobs report on Friday morning. If you wish to make a move to be in or out of the market on Friday, you will want to do it on Thursday morning as usual, but however you are allocated on Friday is also where you will be on Monday. That means you will not be able to make an IFT on Friday morning if we get some kind of a surprise jobs report. You will be stuck in the allocation until Tuesday (via a Monday morning IFT.) I am seeing a large range of estimates for the nonfarm payrolls, which should make the actual number quite interesting. I'll confirm those numbers and post them tomorrow. Thanks for reading. We'll see you back here tomorrow! Tom Crowley |