TSP Talk Blog

01/30/12

The Dow lost 74-points on Friday after a weaker than expected GDP report, but the broader indices saw just minor losses. We have a big week on tap for the market so we may need to fasten our seatbelts.



For the TSP, the C-fund fell 0.15% yesterday, the S-fund gained 0.68%, the I-fund was down 0.67%, and the F-fund (bonds) was up 0.11%.

For the weekly and monthly TSP returns, please see our recent TSP Weekly Wrap-Up.

This week starts with a European Union leaders summit today, and ends with the January jobs report on Friday. In between we have a slew of earnings reports, additional economic reports, and Facebook could possibly be filing for its IPO, one of the most highly anticipated IPOs in years.

I don't know how many ways there are to say that the S&P 500 is a short-term rising trading channel, while facing some longer-term overhead resistance, and overextended indicators, but there - I said it again.


Chart provided courtesy of www.decisionpoint.com, analysis by TSP Talk

Here are the projections for the January jobs report, and you can tell by the wide disparity between the consensus estimates and the forecasts from briefing.com, there is a lot of room for a surprise in either direction. This should keep investors nervous this week leading up to Friday's report.



Facebook's IPO may get started this week so let's take a look at how the market fared after some of the other biggest IPO's in U.S. history.


Chart provided courtesy of www.sentimentrader.com

Clearly the bias after the first day is quite negative compared to random market action. This could be because either the market ran up leading into the anticipated large IPO, or because IPO's are more likely to be offered during a strong market environment setting up a sell the news reaction afterward.

The TSP Talk Sentiment Survey came in at 47% bulls, 43% bears, for a bulls to bears ratio of 1.09 to 1. That is bearish enough to be another fresh buy signal in a bull market which means the system will remain 100% S Fund for this week.

I normally have a little more to say on a Monday morning, but the fact that the market has been in such a tight trading range for so long makes it tough to add anything of interest that is new. With the busy schedule on the economic and earnings reports calendar and the pending big IPO, perhaps we'll have something more exciting to talk about the rest of the week.

Thanks for reading! We'll see you back here tomorrow.

Tom Crowley


The legal stuff: This information is for educational purposes only! This is not advice or a recommendation. We do not give investment advice. Do not act on this data. Do not buy, sell or trade the funds mentioned herein based on this information. We may trade these funds differently than discussed above. We use additional methods and strategies to determine fund positions.