03/31/17

Good Evening, The market opened in the red and worked all day to come off those lows only to sell back into the red during the last hour. Although, they didn’t do as well in March as they did during the first two months of the year, the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P all posted great gains for the first quarter. Although, the market has been slightly on the negative side for the past several weeks, many internal indicators that I watch are surprisingly bullish. For example, one of my favorite bullish indicators is the ratio of the consumer discretionary sector verses the consumer staples sector. If it rises the market is bullish, if it falls the market is bearish. There are several such technical indicators that I watch but this one is my favorite because it is one of  the most accurate predictors of the direction that the market will move. I chart this ratio using the Spider sector funds XLY (Consumer Discretionary) and XLP (Consumer Staples). For those who may not know, Discretionary items are items such as cars and television sets and Staple items are items such as food and toothpaste. The XLY and XLP are composed of companies that manufacture and distribute these items. You can check those out for yourselves. What is relevant here is the chart and what it tells us. Here it is:

XLY:XLP : As you can see the ratio has become very bullish in the past two weeks. What does this tell me? We could be in for a good April!

 

The days trading left us with the following results: Our TSP allotment slipped -0.14%. For comparison, the Dow lost -0.31%, the Nasdaq -0.04%, and the S&P 500 -0.23%.

 

Stocks Post Strong First-Quarter Gains as Nasdaq Rockets 10%; Dow Jumps Nearly 5%

 

The months action left us with the following signals: C-Neutral, S-Buy, I-Buy, F-Neutral. We are currently invested at 100/I. Our allocation is now +3.10% on the year not including the days results. Here are the latest posted results:

03/30/17 Prior Prices
Fund G Fund F Fund C Fund S Fund I Fund
Price 15.2752 17.5887 32.8212 42.7997 26.5367
$ Change 0.0010 -0.0319 0.0972 0.2258 0.0149
% Change day +0.01% -0.18% +0.30% +0.53% +0.06%
% Change week +0.04% -0.05% +1.05% +1.79% +0.52%
% Change month +0.20% -0.14% +0.34% -0.25% +3.34%
% Change year +0.58% +0.80% +6.31% +4.40% +7.86%
  L INC L 2020 L 2030 L 2040 L 2050
Price 18.7351 25.2128 27.9833 30.0769 17.2203
$ Change 0.0086 0.0249 0.0434 0.0553 0.0368
% Change day +0.05% +0.10% +0.16% +0.18% +0.21%
% Change week +0.23% +0.43% +0.64% +0.75% +0.85%
% Change month +0.37% +0.57% +0.78% +0.87% +0.97%
% Change year +1.76% +3.00% +4.28% +4.90% +5.48%

 

Now lets take a look at the charts. All signals are annotated with green circles. If you click on the charts they will become larger.
C Fund:
S Fund: The S  Fund moved to an overall buy signal as the MACD (Moving Average Convergence Divergence) indicator moved into a positive configuration with only the PMO in a negative configuration. Also of note, the SCTR has improved to 71.6 to reclaim the number one spot among our TSP Funds.
I Fund: Resistance held at 62.25. A rising dollar hurt the I Fund this week.
F Fund: This one is looking a little better, but I still wouldn’t consider it until the SCTR has a pulse…..
The I Fund is testing resistance. It’s chart is weakening somewhat. However, we remain in good shape as long as resistance holds. No doubt this weeks run in the dollar has weakened this fund, but don’t expect the dollar to keep moving up as interest rates rise. That’s not going to happen. Our strategy for this market remains solid for the time being. Keep praying that God will continue to  guide our hand. Have a nice weekend and I’ll see you on Monday!
God bless, Scott 8-)
 
 ***Just a reminder that you can review the performance of our allocation at the Web Site TSPTALK.com in the autotracker section under the screen name KyFan1.
 
 
I produce and publish this blog as both a ministry and for the benefit of any Federal Government Employee. This is done to offer you some guidance as to how to approach your retirement more financially successful. When it is time for you to retire, I recommend you utilize the services of a Professional Money Manager, who works with a reputable investment firm. He understands the guidance you have already received and he can manage your savings assets utilizing a more advanced investment program into the future. 
 
If you would like to receive more information about this introduction, please feel free to contact me at  [email protected]. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Written By

Scott Grimes

  • 05/19/25

    Good Morning, Another day another challenge. This market is anything other than boring and I say that not necessarily in a good way! When it comes to the market I think boring is good. That means less volatility and that means less stress. Nonetheless, we have what we have and we must deal with it.…

  • 05/12/25

    Good Morning, Our charts told us we were at the bottom and the fundamentals agreed. The opportunity was so compelling that we probably jumped back in a few weeks to early, but we wanted to make darn sure we were positioned for the run that would surely come. The market dipped and many chicken little…

  • 05/05/25

    Good Morning, Inevitably, we will have a down day and today is it. Believe it or not the S&P 500 has gone up the past nine sessions and it’s been a long time since it’s done that. So a down day today is not so bad. The recent run has pretty much put things back…