Good Evening, Just little update as I know folks get nervous every time the market sells off for a day or two. Should you be concerned when this happens? Well if you do you’ll worry yourself to death. No, it’s more like you should raise your level of awareness to what’s going on. That is where we’re at right now. I’m not willing to pronounce an end to the uptrend just yet. As I mentioned in my last blog, that has been a sure path to underperformance. So how would I describe the current market? My best description is that the uptrend is under pressure and based on what has happened repeatedly during the past few years you can’t count it out until the fat lady sings so to speak or to coin another sports phrase “It ain’t over till it’s over”. Yes it’s uncomfortable anytime the market goes down. My advice is to watch the chart of whatever you are invested in on a daily basis but don’t worry about your accounts balance. If you watch it’s daily fluctuation you will make decisions based on your emotions and that’s an absolute path to losses. Keep your eyes on the charts. Have a system or plan as to when you are going to get in or out of the market. When that signal arrives get in or out of the market as you planned. Don’t listen to somebody on the news that says we’ve reached a top or a bottom. They do that everyday and in reality they don’t know. Granted, someone will eventually get lucky. Nonetheless, if you follow that particular analyst further you’ll see that they almost always miss it the next time. So can the charts be wrong? Well no….Can we read them wrong?? Absolutely. Technical Analysis is not an exact science. Think of it more as a wind sock. It’s like watching the weather. Sometimes when you watch it enough you’ll start to have an idea when it’s going to rain. Think of the charts as your weather radar. Enough said. I used to write every night and explain the charts in some detail. However, that’s time consuming and my time is better spent studying the charts myself. That said, there is an excellent website that I use and highly recommend. It is a paid site but it also has numerous free charts and blogs. More than enough to learn technical analysis. Then, if you want to do more you can do so for an extremely reasonable fee per month. I used it while I worked for the government and invested in thrift and consider it an investment that paid off well! The site for any of you that are so inclined is stockcharts.com.
In case you were wondering what actually happened today here are the results: Our TSP allotment gave up -0.65%. For comparison, the Dow dropped -0.14%, the Nasdaq -0.26% and the S&P 500 -0.29%.
Here’s todays chart of the S Fund: As you can see price is still in an ascending channel. Solid support is just below at 98.25. I would raise my alert level if priced dropped below that….
Stay vigilant and patient! Continue to pray and keep a close eye on the charts. That’s all for tonight. Have a great evening.
