Monday Morning Chartology

The Morning Call

3/9/15

It is Spring Break and grandchildren are arriving.  I am taking Thursday, Friday and Saturday off.

The Market

           

    Technical

       Monday Morning Chartology      

            The S&P took it in the snoot on Friday.  But looking at even a short term chart, hardly any damage was done.  It closed below the mid December high but remained above its 50 day moving average and uptrends across all timeframes.  That said the upper boundary of its long term uptrend has clearly rejected the second assault.

            The long Treasury got crushed on Friday.  It closed below the lower boundary of its short term trading range.  If it remains below this boundary through the close tomorrow, it will re-set to down (which I have marked).  TLT finished below its 50 day moving average, near the lower boundary of its intermediate term uptrend and within a long term uptrend.  Our ETF Portfolio will Sell its BWX holding at the Market open.  However, the muni ETF holdings performed much better on Friday than other sectors of the bond market; so the remainder of those positions are being Held.

            GLD got hurt the worst.  It ended below the lower boundary of its short term uptrend for the second day, but it was down so much that it satisfied the distance element in our time and distance discipline.  Hence, the short term trend is being re-set to a trading range.  The lower boundary is the same as the lower boundary of its intermediate term trading range.  It closed within that intermediate term trading range, below its 50 day moving average and within a very short term downtrend.  Our Portfolios will Sell their remaining shares of GLD at the Market open.

            As you might expect, the VIX was up 8% on Friday.  It remained within its short term trading and intermediate term downtrend.  It did end above its 50 day moving average.

    Fundamental

           

            Overnight:

(1)   the ECB started its QE (medium):

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-09/ecb-said-to-begin-buying-german-government-bonds-under-qe-plan-i71mqdno

                       

(2)   the EU/ECB/IMF rejected Greece’s latest reform proposals in order to receive bail out funds (medium):

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-08/greek-tensions-revived-as-creditors-reject-reform-list

(3)   Austrian bank discovers $8.5 billion in missing capital; creditors forced into involuntary ‘bail in’ (medium):

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-08/black-swan-lands-southern-austria-ripple-effects-mini-greece-going-heartland-europe

     Investing for Survival

            Don’t churn (medium):

            http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20150210/FREE/150219999/daniel-kahnemans-top-advice-dont-churn-accounts

      News on Stocks in Our Portfolios

 

Economics

   This Week’s Data

   Other

            The latest from Alan Greenspan (11 minute video):

            http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-06/alan-greenspan-warns-stocks-are-without-doubt-extremely-overvalued

                Quote of the day (short):

            http://cafehayek.com/2015/03/quotation-of-the-day-1283.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CafeHayek+%28Cafe+Hayek%29

Politics

  Domestic

  International War Against Radical Islam