Good Evening, Where I live in Kentucky they say if you don’t like the weather just wait a day and it will change. Lately, that applies to the market as well. One day the sky is falling and the next day all the worries are gone. Just like that, it never happened! It’s crazy. The bears have the situations in Korea, Syria, and Washington to bolster their case while the bulls have things like improved earnings earnings in theirs. I realize that this train could go off the rails very easily if something like a conflict with Korea landed on the tracks. But what if those type of catastrophes are averted? What if lightning doesn’t strike? Can the market actually go higher??? Yes it can and here are two encouraging reasons why it might. First of all, of the 82 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings through Thursday afternoon, about 75 percent have topped expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data, above the 71 percent average for the past four quarters. The bears will tell you that stock valuations are high, but can an increase in earnings make them go higher? Yes they can! Second, transportation has always been a good indicator of how the economy is doing. Today CSX reported earnings. CSX Corp (CSX.O), up 5.6 percent, was one of the best performers on the S&P 500 after the railroad reported a better-than-expected quarterly net profit driven by rising freight volumes and said it plans to cut costs and boost profitability moving forward. Driven by what??? Rising Freight Volumes! Yes Sir, when transportation stocks do well the markets rise. So the question is, can we still make a little money before the sky falls? The answer is yes! One more thing on an encouraging note, if today is a good example, there is still a lot of idle cash on the sidelines looking for a place to go. As long as the market has fuel it can move up. Will it? We pray that it will…..
Today’s trading left us with the following results: Our TSP allotment gained +0.80%. For comparison, the Dow was up +0.85%, the Nasdaq +0.92%, and the S&P 500 +0.76%. Thank God for some badly needed gains today!
Wall St rallies on earnings; Nasdaq hits record
The days action left us with the following signals: C-Neutral, S-Buy, I-Neutral, F-Neutral. We are currently invested with 100% in the I Fund. Our allocation is now +1.74% on the year not including the days results. Here are the latest posted results:
| 04/19/17 | Prior Prices | ||||
| Fund | G Fund | F Fund | C Fund | S Fund | I Fund |
| Price | 15.2951 | 17.8096 | 32.4394 | 42.5173 | 26.1882 |
| $ Change | 0.0010 | -0.0192 | -0.0513 | 0.1153 | 0.0078 |
| % Change day | +0.01% | -0.11% | -0.16% | +0.27% | +0.03% |
| % Change week | +0.04% | +0.18% | +0.41% | +1.35% | -0.25% |
| % Change month | +0.12% | +1.13% | -0.94% | -0.82% | -0.84% |
| % Change year | +0.71% | +2.07% | +5.07% | +3.71% | +6.45% |
| L INC | L 2020 | L 2030 | L 2040 | L 2050 | |
| Price | 18.7245 | 25.1347 | 27.8184 | 29.8599 | 17.0728 |
| $ Change | -0.0018 | -0.0046 | -0.0073 | -0.0083 | -0.0045 |
| % Change day | -0.01% | -0.02% | -0.03% | -0.03% | -0.03% |
| % Change week | +0.11% | +0.17% | +0.25% | +0.29% | +0.33% |
| % Change month | -0.02% | -0.22% | -0.45% | -0.56% | -0.67% |
| % Change year | +1.71% | +2.68% | +3.66% | +4.15% | +4.58% |
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: Price broke through it’s upper trend line today. This is encouraging.
I Fund: Price managed to close back inside the rising trend line. Other indicators seem to be turning up!
F Fund:
We’ll see if the bulls can keep it going this time. Have a great evening and may God continue to bless your trades!
