Good Evening,
Stocks were mixed, bonds were off, precious metals were off, and the dollar was up. When taken as a whole, there was no really good place to be unless you owned a few select socks such as Twitter. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t really bad either. Mostly, it was just a continuation of the same old choppy mess we have had. I had hoped for a little more of a shakeup on FED day. We did manage to make a small gain in TSP today but were off in AMP as bond yields rose with market players believing the economy to be improving at a more rapid rate than they’d anticipated earlier. More than likely they will maintain that enthusiasm……until the next dip. As choppy as it has been, that shouldn’t be long.
Despite strong economic growth and no major surprises from the Federal Reserve, the bulls couldn’t quite get it together Wednesday.
The day’s trading left us with the following signals: C-Neutral, S-Neutral, I-Neutral, F-Neutral. That pretty well sums this market up…..Neutral. Just as soon as a trend is established, going either up or down, it is broken. As I said in an earlier newsletter, this is the most difficult environment that I have ever traded in, in my 20+ years of trading. I, along with most traders, want the market to take a direction. We don’t really care if it’s up or down, we can deal with it better than this! We remain invested at 50/C, 50/S. Our allocation is now -4.22% on the year not including today’s gains. Here are the latest posted results:
| 07/29/14 | |||||
| Fund | G Fund | F Fund | C Fund | S Fund | I Fund |
| Price | 14.4799 | 16.4588 | 25.7453 | 34.822 | 26.7189 |
| $ Change | 0.0009 | 0.0237 | -0.1157 | -0.0479 | 0.0172 |
| % Change day | +0.01% | +0.14% | -0.45% | -0.14% | +0.06% |
| % Change week | +0.02% | +0.07% | -0.42% | -0.43% | +0.06% |
| % Change month | +0.18% | +0.18% | +0.61% | -2.63% | -0.52% |
| % Change year | +1.35% | +4.56% | +7.83% | +3.42% | +4.52% |
| L INC | L 2020 | L 2030 | L 2040 | L 2050 | |
| Price | 17.25 | 22.688 | 24.5731 | 26.1162 | 14.8431 |
| $ Change | -0.0072 | -0.0263 | -0.0367 | -0.0450 | -0.0287 |
| % Change day | -0.04% | -0.12% | -0.15% | -0.17% | -0.19% |
| % Change week | -0.04% | -0.13% | -0.18% | -0.21% | -0.24% |
| % Change month | +0.11% | -0.04% | -0.15% | -0.26% | -0.32% |
| % Change year | +2.58% | +4.09% | +4.75% | +5.16% | +5.54% |
All that smoke and no fire. If you look at the chart above, it tells the whole story. The F Fund is +0.18% and the C Fund is +0.61% for the month and they are the best of it. One stock fund with a positive gain with bonds are running a close second. That’s messed up. Like I said, I am ready for it to go up or down!
Here’s what the C Fund looked like today…….yes it’s Neutral!!!!! (Chart Courtesy of stockcharts.com)
The C Fund broke even today. It did close below its 20 EMA, but not enough to do much damage to the chart. The PMO remains in a negative crossover and has a long way to go before it will reach oversold territory. Volume was average so there’s nothing to really write about there. The chart remains in its established trading channel for now. However, it is an extremely low level of ascent, so you could pretty well say that it’s trading sideways for the moment which gives a pretty good picture of its Neutral signal. As far as the other equity based charts go….seen one, seen them all! And yes, they’re Neutral! Market purgatory!!!!!!!
That’s it! I’ve had enough of this day. I’m really starting to dread the FOMC announcement day. I’m just going to thank the Lord and move on to tomorrow. He is good every day. Even on FOMC announcement day…. May He continue to bless your trades! Have a great evening.
God bless,
Scott
