I am amazed at the lack of knowledge regarding the roles of the Local, State, and Federal Governments in disaster response and recovery. While the press harps on political comments that were made during the debates that the States should take on a bigger role in disasters, I am reminded, that is the current system. The States are responsible for response and recovery and the Federal Government is only supposed to be involved in declared disasters – declared by the President under the Stafford Act - and only in situations where a disaster is so big that a state does not have resources to handle disaster response.
The bar is now quite low for a declaration and many events are declared
Federal Disasters that wouldn’t have been declared in the past. For
example, 25-years ago you would never see a Federal Disaster declaration for
snow removal or tornados. (Tornados are usually a localized event.)
Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy recovery is clearly an appropriate use of
Federal support and most of the impacted States seem to have their acts
together. On the other hand, with
Federal deficits where they are, one must wonder why West Virginia needs
federal assistance to remove snow. You’d
think they would be prepared for that contingency.
MARKET RECAP
Friday the S&P 500 fell around 1% to 1414 (rounded) and VIX rose more than 5% to 17.59.
NTSM
The
NTSM analysis remained HOLD Friday.
The
Volume indicator is the 2nd best indicator in the NTSM system. The Volume indicator went negative today. If that is confirmed by another indicator
(VIX, Sentiment or Price) I will have a sell signal. Sentiment is not overly bullish now, so that
leaves VIX and Price. Price would be
triggered by a major 1-day down move or some sustained down days. VIX would switch to sell if the VIX goes up
significantly from here. I’ll be
watching.
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 currently have a 50%
stock allocation overall. For my age,
that is what many 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.
