BEN BERNANKE – GROWTH
SLOWING
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) --
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gave senators a rather gloomy outlook for
the economy Tuesday…Europe's debt crisis and fiscal cliff
in the United States are threatening the recovery, he told the Senate Banking
Committee in his semi-annual report to Congress. Meanwhile, economic growth has
probably already slowed, and the unemployment rate is unlikely to fall below 7%
for at least another year...Bernanke also noted concerns about economic growth,
saying that after a 2.5% gain in gross domestic product for the second half of
2011, growth slowed to
less than 2% in the first quarter of 2012, and he pointed to a
"still smaller gain in the second quarter." Full story at…http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/17/news/economy/bernanke-senate/index.htm?iid=GM
So the Fed admits that the
economy is definitely slowing. It is
unlikely that Bernanke would use the recession word even if that was his
prediction. Many private economists have
been predicting recession. Of course we
remember they were saying the same thing a year ago; “We’re in recession!” But we weren’t. I don’t know if we’ll see a recession this
time either. I’m not going to
guess. The NTSM analysis just looks at
the stock market with indicators in Price, Volume, Sentiment and VIX. Currently, the indicators look good.
MARKET
Tuesday
the S&P 500 finished up 3/4% to 1364.
The VIX fell 4% to 16.48.
NTSM
The NTSM analysis is BUY Tuesday
at the close.
The S&P 500 did drop
down to 1345 Tuesday morning, but I was busy all day and didn’t get a chance to
buy a 2x fund or ETF for a trade. Perhaps
I’ll look at that possibility again tomorrow.
MY INVESTED POSITION
Based on the BUY signal
6 July, I moved back into the market on 9 July at S&P 500 1352. I now have a 50% stock allocation. I am underweight my usual aggressive allocation
for stock because there’s a lot of risk now.
