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8/19/11

Stocks dropped sharply on Thursday after a weak economic outlook, and some weak data. The Dow lost 420-points.

Morgan Stanley slashed its global growth forecast and the Philly Fed Index came in much lower than expected. The Philly Fed reading is the lowest since March of 2009, which happened to be when stocks bottomed in the 2007-2009 bear market, so if you are looking for a silver lining... We'll talk more about that ...

TSPTalk Sentiment Survey results for the week of 8/22/11- 08/26/11

Move to C-Fund: The TSP Talk Sentiment Survey came in at 27% bulls, 65% bears, for a bulls to bears ratio of 0.42 to 1. That is a buy signal but the system moved to bear market rules this week which means the system will move from the S-fund, to the less aggressive C-fund, for the week of 08/22/11 - 08/26/11.

Bear market rules are in affect 8/22/11:

See latest survey results

Todiscuss ...

Yesterday I was fairly non-committal on which way the market might go in the short term. Not so today. I had anticipated a choppy market, but also said that the right catalyst would either drive this market higher, or send it back down to test the previous low. But which way would that be? We got our answer today in spades as volume spiked overwhelmingly in favor of declining issues.

Weakness began in the Asian markets with many of those ...

08/18/11

Stocks were mixed yesterday as the Dow and S&P 500 managed small gains, while the leaders, the Nasdaq and Dow Transports, each lost about a half of a percent.

It was a little wild at times as we saw a 125 gain turn into an 84 point loss before the Dow closed at +4.


For the TSP, the C-fund gained 0.12% yesterday, the S-fund lost 0.36%, ...

The market started off with some healthy gains in early trading, but traders seem to be uncertain that this market can significantly add to gains in such an uncertain economic climate. And share volume on the NYSE seems to suggest just that with less than 1 billion shares traded on the day.

Market data was limited, but the July Producer Price Index did see a 0.2% increase, while core prices jumped 0.4%. Both exceeded economist's forecast.

Here's today's charts:
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