BOSTON (MarketWatch) -- "General Motors said that it plans to temporarily suspend production of the battery-powered Chevrolet Volt due to high inventory levels, according to The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday...The shutdown will be the second this year for the Volt due to weaker-than-expected demand."
Full story at...
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gm-temporarily-suspends-volt-production-2012-08-28
MARKET
MUSING
Some
friends were incredulous when I suggested that the stock market would visit 850
again. If we just draw a trend line
going back to the last bull market start (1982) 850 is entirely possible as a
reasonable target at some point in the future.
There
is a flaw in the chart since it is not plotted on log scale. The same analysis on log scale produces a
smaller drop (back to around 1,000), but that’s not really more valid. Bear markets tend to trend between the highs
and lows. On this chart, that’s 1550 and
800, although the absolute daily low was in the high 600’s. (The chart is not daily data.)
If
we follow the timing that we’ve seen so far, the next bear market would begin 7-years
after the prior peak so maybe the next bear market will begin in 2013 or 2014.
This
is all conjecture of course and the timing is a wild guess, but based on the
history of past bear markets, the drop is highly likely.
MARKET
RECAP
Thursday the S&P 500
finished DOWN 3/4% to 1399 (rounded). VIX
rose 4.5% to 17.83.
NTSM
The
NTSM analysis remained HOLD Thursday.
Only
the Price indicator is positive. The
others are all neutral.
The NTSM system is beating
the S&P 500 by ½% for 2012. Not
much, but 89% of all hedge funds are underperforming the S&P 500 this year
(per CNBC) so it could be worse. (NTSM was up 78% from 2006-2011 while the
S&P 500 was essentially flat.)
MY INVESTED POSITION
Based on the BUY signal, 6
July, I moved back into the market on 9 July (after the weekend) at S&P 500
1352.
I now have a 50% stock
allocation overall. For my age, that is
what most advisors recommend as a fully invested position, however, I am
normally much more aggressive. I have
less invested in stocks now because there’s a lot of risk.
