It was an interesting day for the stock funds as the small caps actually ended the day in the red, the Dow and S&P 500 did modestly well, and the international stocks did very well. We can expect volume to be on the light side today and certainly on Friday. That could mean we will continue to see large swings in the indexes as they can be pushed around quite easily during the quiet trading.

The chart below is quite a mess but the market continues to be oversold so we could see a little more relief to the upside unless something spooks investors again. Both today and Friday have a very strong positive bias historically, although seasonality is not a good primary indicator - particularly in a volatile market. 


                                Chart provided courtesy of www.sentimentrader.com

The week following Thanksgiving has a particularly negative seasonal bias. But again, the market is very oversold and we don't want to take it too seriously.  I'll post this chart again.  Today is -1, and Friday +1.  Next week is not looking good but again, seasonality should not be a primary indicator in this market environment.

 
                            Chart provided courtesy of www.sentimentrader.com

With Thursday being a holiday, I will post the sentiment survey on the home page a day early this week. The results will be in Friday's commentary, which could be abbreviated. If you plan to be in a particular fund for Monday don't forget that you will have to make the transfer on Friday. I have not heard any word on whether or not it will be a full day of trading or if the TSP will experience any down time that may affect transactions.

Yesterday's commentary stimulated a lot of discussion and unfortunately I have not been able to respond to reply to all of my e-mail yet. I will get that done while I'm away.  I will be going out of town for the holiday but will have access to a PC so I will check in when I can. It has been an exhausting week and am looking forward to some much needed time off.  I can tell by the early-morning e-mail I did get to that the main concern is what is going to happen to us who are actively trading our accounts. 

I took a look at the past transaction records for the services we provide here and RevShark's TSP Timing Newsletter, the TSP Talk Sentiment Survey system, and Trader Fred's system were actually all within the two interfund transfers per month requirement for the entire year through October. Only Trader Fred's three transfers in November went over to three transfers and that transaction was a transfer from the G fund to the F fund. These are the types of transactions that can be eliminated.

The EbbChart system will be a different story. It does make several transfers that can also be eliminated because of the use of moving from one stock fund to another and back again. It will have to concentrate on being either in one stock fund, or a diversified combination of two or more when on a buy signal, and using either the G fund or the F fund without going back and forth between them. This would cut down on many of the transactions. I have not spoken to Ebbnflow yet, but I'm sure he is on it as we speak - as is Trader Fred. Please be patient while we explore our options.  Don't count these guys out yet.

Of course this is the worst-case scenario assuming the TSP will be unwavering in their recent abrupt decision. If we have any negotiating power we may be able to get another 1 or 2 transfers, or pay a small fee for extra transactions although they seem to be opposed to that now for some reason. We'll just have to wait and see what happens. Very disappointing. Did you write your congressman?

That's all for today.  Have a great Thanksgiving weekend.  Stay safe.

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