Shock & Awe for Bears
The unemployment report Friday both shocked and awed Wall Street Bears and almost all economists . Even more than the startled jumping Panda. (Thanks David Fry for photo)
The dramatic drop in job losses coupled with a positive +2.8% GDP growth for the last quarter is certainly good news for every bull on Wall Street and Main St. Economic momentum is flowing in a positive direction both in the USA & especially emerging markets.
Why?
There’s good, bad, and ugly behind the positive economic news . Since, Obama’s Afghanistan policy is such a disaster (at least to those of you who have commented and Investors411 – See additional Clinton, Gates LINK [we're nation building & there for as long as it takes] and Friedman [against surge LINK ] on Talk shows over weekend) lets start out today with the good and give Obama some credit.
There are 4 major reasons why we have seemingly turned a corner. - TARP, emerging markets, printing money, and stimulus.
TARP – Bailing out Shadow Banks was started by Paulson/ Bush and continued under Geithner /Obama. TARP is working better than almost everyone expected. Last week Bank of America announce plans to pay back $45 billion (plus interest)and losses far less than expected. See NYT. See LINK
Emerging Markets – They kept emerging, especially China. (see past Investors411) They’re the locomotive and we are the caboose.
Printing Money – The Fed just kept printing trillions of dollars faster than a super market buys toilet paper. The unusual part is investors from around the world bought truck loads of that toilet paper in the form of US treasury bonds with insignificant interest rates. If/when rates go up, boy will those investors have a huge supply of TP to whip their ____.
Stimulus - Around the world governments stimulated their economies with programs. You can make a case for Germany & China’s program being better than ours, but Obama’s stimulus (he was limited by Republican opposition) was relatively good.
Remember the old story of you can give a poor man a fish or you can teach him to fish. Well, economists have ways of measuring just how stimulative throwing money at a problem is. Does your dollar buy even one fish or lots of fishes?
- The Republican mantra is always cut taxes – Mark Zandi , economist from Moody’s and a McCain’s economic adviser “making all the Bush tax cuts permanent and cutting the corporate tax rate–would raise GDP by at most 37 cents for each $1 of revenue loss. ”
- Obama’s stimulus – “By contrast, increased outlays for infrastructure, aid to state and local governments and extended unemployment benefits increase GDP by between $1.41 and $1.57 for every $1 spent.”
The bipartisan Congressional Budget Office measured the whole thing and you can find more on why/what stimulus worked at LINK
Common Sense – Yes there are time tax cuts work especially targeted and in a recession.
But, when you cut taxes to a company you never know where that money is going to go – Fat bonuses for executives, a new home in Dubai (the global sex slave capital of the world), buying financials WMD’s (Warren Buffett’s term for Credit Default Swaps) or sometimes even good stuff like into research & development.
What you want to have happen is DEMAND increase for your product. The more money flows, the more demand. The reason you see sources like CNBC, right wing polls and think tanks always call for tax cuts is they control the companies or the companies are their big advertisers/sponsors. Greed is good for me is their mantra.
KISS & STOCKS
Keep It Simple Stupid
AS ALWAYS, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH BEFORE INVESTING!
| Index |
Percentage percentage |
Volume |
| Dow |
+0.22% |
up |
| NASDQ |
+0.98% |
up |
| S&P500 |
+0.55% |
up |
| Russell2000-+2.38% |
|
- |
Investors411 record – 5 years of beating benchmark S&P 500
- Brown = repeat statements
- Green = usually bullish statements
- Red = Usually bearish statements
Technicals, Fundamentals & Analysis
Economic Bears were shocked and awed at the fall in unemployment. Great news for Main Street USA, but we have a deep deep hole to climb out of. This is mixed news for US Stocks.
The news is mixed for Wall Street, because good economic news in employment means the government/Fed will probably stimulate less. Therefore, financial companies will no longer be able to borrow for nothing, and their interest rates will rise sooner rather than later. The dollar also gets stronger and those companies making more because the cheaper goods sold faster overseas will cost more – looss demand & profits.
Technically we had HUGE volume accompany a price rise. Unfortunately, for most major indexes the rally was less than a significant 1%. Stocks first went way up, then down and settled for moderate gains.
Small cap stocks, are more dependent on a recovery on Main Street did gain a significant +2.38% Bigger companies have more contracts abroad.
Fearless Forecast – Last weeks unexpected positive jobs number helped create a positive week. Investors predicted a flat to down week. Oops. This week we should be all over the place, but some solid economic fundamentals are coming into the light. This should help stocks in the long run. Once the dollar calms down (expect it to rise and gold to fall) we should improve. Flat to up week .
Now going to get a bit more technical
If you don’t understand a term look in up at Investopedia.com dictionary LINK
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Significant forecasting tools/Indexes for stock markets
(Besides #1 Volume & #2 Reaction to News)
BDI - The Baltic Dry Index measures the flow of goods by price (world trade) .
The BDI a small rose +45 points yesterday and closed at 4107. Technically the BDI broke out through its major resistance level 4291 (this year’s high) over a week ago. The BDI has rallied about 1800 points since late September. After 16 up days in a row, 9 down days in a row & now up 3 days in a row. Multi day moves in one direction are common and the decline in rate of change usually signals a reversal.
What it means – Long term we created a higher high on the chart = Bullish. The BDI is far more useful as a long term indicator of not only world trade, but specifically China and growing emerging markets. After, what looks like a technical correction we are agin moving higher.
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The Dollar is currently the #1 forecasting tool .
$USD - Check out the 6 month chart (to the left) or a multi year chart of the US dollar of the US dollar. Mantra – Dollar up = US stocks down & Dollar down = US stocks up US dollar rose an ENORMOUS +1.44% Friday . Anything close to or over +/- 0.50 is significant The dollar closed at $75.59 .
The dollar’s rise did temper the rally, but the whole dynamic or fundamentals have changed. See Positions below.
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$NYMO The NY Stock Exchange McClellan (EOD) Index measures how much the NYSE is oversold or overbought .
The index closed at +23,51 This is a Slightly Overbought Position . This chart is showing we seemed to have reached a plateau. It’s spilled over a little bit, but the McClellan index has moved between +25 & -25 . There has been no clear buy or sell signal for over a month. Oversold conditions (@ -60) = buy, Overbought positions (@+60) = sell
The closer we get to +/- 60 the better our chances of making money with a shorter term buy/sell signal
Positions
The Positions Section (top of blog) to see all the latest buys and sells
(again a little behind on latest moves)
We’ve had, and volume has confirmed, a quantum shift in markets. This may be temporary and it may be long term, but it necessitates major changes in positions.
Today is a confirmation day for Friday’s move. More than anything else – looking for dollar to hold or add to gains. Will buy some ETF’s and stocks until McClellan says we are overbought (@+60)
Recommended ETF’s and Trades
SELLING
GLD – Investors411 sold all of DGP several trading days ago and 1/2 of GLD on Friday. Last entry into this position was at $92.7 . Traders should sell the rest and longer term investors could hold onto last 1/2 position (5% of portfolio).
Gold will rise again, but for now there is just too much downside momentum. Will be back into GLD & GDP late.
NVS -The flu scare is over. Thenumber of states that have serious flu has dropped from 43 to 25. Time to take profits on last 1/2 this position. Let’s take our profits 21+%
AMZN – Taking profits. Markets rallied yesterday and AMZN dropped 2.54%. Never a good sign to see NASQ rally 1% and your tech stock drop. Again, this in part, was a flu play. Why be greedy we have about a 16+% profit.
BUYING
FXI – Adding more to this positions. If Main Street is recovering faster than expected, so will China. Their currency & exports is tied to the dollar. So in one major sense, their recovery is tied, in part, to the USA. They have under performed major USA indexes recently.
IWM or UWM (an ultra fund that does basically 2x IWM) These ETF’s both track small cap stocks (Russell 2000) IF, Main Street is recovering faster than expected they should outperform the other indexes. They have under performed so far and should,like China, make up soe lost ground relative to other major US indexes.
BAC – Bank of America. They’re paying back TARP shows solid fundamental strength. (I know they are a shadow bank bad guys) Bought BAC Friday.
Start small & Build your position – Buy the dip.
Again any stock investment or ETF that doubles or triples what a normal ETF does is a short term play for traders and short term investors – NOT long term Investors .
Long Term Outlook = CAUTIOUSLY BULLISH
See Changes in STRATEGY, POSITIONS, & OVERVIEW sections of blog
AS ALWAYS DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH BEFORE INVESTING!
