(Reuters) – “New U.S. single-family home sales fell slightly in October and sales for the prior month were revised sharply lower, casting a faint shadow over one of the brighter spots in the U.S. economy.” Full story at…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/28/us-usa-homesales-idUSBRE8AR0RP20121128
WHAT, ME WORRY? (Consumers
Are Happy)
- US Consumer Confidence at Highest in 4½ Years (ABC
News) -“The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index rose to 73.7 in November from 73.1 in October. Both are the best readings since February 2008.” Full story at...
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/us-consumer-confidence-highest-years-17818463
ANOTHER TAKE ON DURABLE
GOODS ORDERS (from ZeroHedge)
“…focusing only on real, non-noisy economic strength
metrics such as New Capital Goods Orders (technically defined as the year over
year change in Non-Defense Capital Goods Excluding Aircraft), a very different
and far uglier picture emerges. In fact, the October Y/Y Plunge of -8.1% in
this major indicator was the biggest drop since 2009.” Tyler Durden, ZeroHedge at…http://www.zerohedge.com/My cmt: Maybe that’s an indicator, but durable goods ex aircraft and non-defense goods are actually a very small percentage of GDP – less than 2%.
MARKET
RECAP
Wednesday the S&P 500
was up 0.8 % to 1410 (rounded). VIX was
down 2.6% to 15.51.
TODAY’S MARKET REVERSAL
(from down 0.8% to up 0.8%)
The market reversed about
the time Obama and Boehner made positive remarks. Regarding the politicians: “You've got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel
lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?” I guess we
need Dirty Harry in Washington.
NTSM
The
NTSM analysis remained HOLD Wednesday.
The
NTSM system is pretty much in the middle of neutral territory and I guess that describes
this market. The market seems to be in a
holding pattern while investors sort thru the news waiting for direction. I expect the market will trend down from
here, but who knows? The internals
suggest up, but as Hussman noted in his commentary this week,
“…even impressive surges in advances versus declines (as we saw last week) have
not mitigated those outcomes.” The “outcomes”
are precipitous declines.
MY INVESTED POSITION
Based on the SELL signal, 7 November 2012, I
moved out of the stock market at 1377 on the S&P 500. Because of the extreme negativity I have
noted from Hussman and others, I am currently invested in a range of near 15%
invested in stocks and I am still holding short positions. I’ll cover if the market moves up – we are
again at the upper trend line or perhaps slightly above it, so I am about at
the end of my rope for the trade.
