TSP Talk Blog

Stocks gapped lower on Monday morning and within minutes the Dow was down 184-points. Buyers quickly stepped up and we saw the indices come well off their lows with some closing in positive territory. The Dow ended the day down 46-points, the S&P slipped 0.10%, while the Nasdaq, small caps, Transportation Index, and the EAFE, all closed with minor gains.

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The Dow has now been down 8 days in a row, which is the longest losing streak in about six years. On the flip side, the Nasdaq has been up up 10 of last the last 13 days so there is big divergence between the indices. One of the reasons has to do with the weakness in the financial and oil sectors.

The reversal yesterday was impressive but certainly not unprecedented as Monday morning emotional gaps do tend to fill quickly, as we mentioned yesterday. The healthcare bill failure was an emotional event but the market now has to look forward. The debt ceiling deadline has come and gone and we're not really hearing much about it. Tax reform / relief, however you want to characterize it, will be on the table in the coming weeks, and earnings season is coming up. There's a lot to be concerned about and the healthcare bill is now in the rearview mirror. The effects of it now pertain to President's Trump ability, or lack there of, to get his policies passed.

The SPY (S&P 500 / C-fund) was down slightly yesterday, but the day ended a lot better than it opened. Yesterday we said the SPY, "is sitting on some very solid support here and that's why any gap down open on Monday would be troublesome. If that support is taken out then it better rebound quickly or the charts would have a very big strike against them." Well, we got the breakdown and we got the quick rebound back above support, so the SPY may have dodged a bullet. But the SPY isn't the only chart to look at and we're seeing cracks in the small caps and the Transports and that's not a great sign.




The DWCPF (S-fund) traded lower early like everything else, but closed with a small gain. That's all good, but it is still below some key resistance in the form of the 50-day EMA and the old support line.




The Dow Transportation Index also closed with a gain but as you can see, the steep downtrend is still intact and it is well below key support. On the flip side it has come down a long way in a short-term and may be due for a push back to test that old support it fell through.




The EFA (I-fund) actually closed yesterday at its highest level since mid-2015, once again in large part to another sell-off in the dollar. It's in an uptrend and while it has the best stock chart by far of the TSP funds, if stocks start to rebound the pullback may have set up the U.S. stocks as a better value, but it will depend on what the dollar does.




The UUP dollar chart gapped lower on Monday, and this time if fell below the 200-day EMA and stayed there. There are two open gaps overhead but it would have to get back above the 200-day EMA to fill them.




The AGG (Bonds / F-fund) was up on the sell-off in stocks and closed back above the 200-day EMA. That is a parallel channel drawn there so it could be hitting some slightly descending resistance near 108.75.




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

Tom Crowley


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