“The U.S. trade deficit narrowed sharply in December because exports rose while oil imports plummeted. The smaller trade gap means the economy almost surely grew in the October-December quarter -- an improvement from the government's estimate last week that it shrank in the final months of 2012.” Full story at Newsday at…
http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/us-growth-in-q4-likely-stronger-on-export-gains-1.4588302
Both the US
and China reported trade data that improved their respective GDP’s causing
investors to cheer, but according to ZeroHedge, the numbers don’t add up.
BOGUS EXPORT
DATA – Who’s Lying More? - (ZeroHedge)
…we compiled
the net trade data between the US and China, which was trumpeted earlier to
have surpassed a $300 billion ($315 billion to be exact) deficit. At least as
reported by the US side. The same "data", when reported from the
perspective of China amounts to a surplus of some $219 billion, a difference of
$96-billion!.
… either China is
massively underreporting its net exports to the US or the US is boosting its
net imports figure.
Or, just as
plausibly, both nations are simply pulling numbers out of thin air - numbers
which have a massive impact on both nations' respective GDP prints, which is
data that, at least in the Old Normal, used to matter.” Full story at…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-08/so-who-lying-more
MARKET RECAP
Friday, the
S&P 500 was up 0.57% to 1,518 (rounded).
VIX fell about 3.6%, to 13.02.
CNBC folks seemed
amazed at the new highs Friday since yesterday they were reporting the
correction....but, oops; it hasn’t started yet. Market
internals refuse to indicate a correction, in spite of CNBC. My guess is that we go at least a of couple of percent higher before we may have a minor pullback.
NTSM
Friday, the NTSM analysis remained HOLD.
MY INVESTED POSITION
Based on a BUY
signal 7 of 9-days, and more importantly, consecutive closes above the prior
high of 1466, I moved into the stock market at 1471 on the S&P 500 on 14
January. I am currently invested in a
range of near 50% invested in stocks. 
