“This Could Be Threshold of a Bull Market: Lloyd Blankfein (CNBC)
The Goldman executive listed extremely low interest rates, a "terrific" energy situation which can drive manufacturing and create jobs, and an ongoing turnaround in housing as reasons to be bullish. But he cautioned that the U.S. needs good policies to make sure it can benefit from those advantages.
"A million things can go wrong but what people
under-assess is things could go right," Blankfein said. With the U.S.
stock market flirting with all-time highs, he added, "The equity market
could very well have it right."
…The U.S. has also made significant progress on dealing
with its debt and deficits, Blankfein said, but there is more work to be done.
He noted that with sequestration, tax increases and other measures, politicians
have cut nearly $2.6 trillion — still far below the roughly $4 trillion some say
is needed.”
Full story at ...http://www.cnbc.com/id/100453712
That forecast
goes against history that suggests the US markets are due for a major downturn.
I don’t agree with Mr. Blankfein. I
suspect we are in for a rough time ahead; but since I can’t predict exactly
when that may occur, I follow the NTSM analysis for my long-term investment
decisions.
UNEMPLOYMENT
CLAIMS
“Today, we just got an initial claims print of 341K, far
below expectations of a 360K number, and even more below last week's upward (of
course) revised number of 368K. On the surface- great. Until one reads the
actual release: "Jobless
claims for Connecticut and Illinois were estimated by the Labor Department, a
spokesman said as the figures were being released."
Because apparently, the "blizzard upset the application process."…Since
the number is now nothing but noise, there is no point to even comment on it.” –
ZeroHedge…Full story at…http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-14/initial-unemployment-claims-plunge department-labor-estimates-claims-illinois-connec
EUROPE RECESSION
“As expected in this quarter (but not by economists) Eurozone economies
contracted at the sharpest rates in four years with Germany, France,
and Italy falling short of consensus estimates.” Full story at… http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/02/eurozone-economy-contracts-6-in-4th.html
This continues to be a major threat to US earnings and,
therefore, continued stock market advances.
MARKET RECAP
Thursday, the
S&P 500 was up 1pt to 1,521 (rounded).
VIX was down about 2.5%, to 12.66.
The falling VIX
remains good news, but the rate of decline slowed a little today so the VIX
indicator switched to hold.
The markets
continue a slow melt-up. This must be
painful to those holding short positions (betting that stocks will go down). When they throw in the towel and cover their
shorts, we may see the 1% up-move that signals the end of this rally.
NTSM
Thursday, the NTSM analysis switched to HOLD at the close.
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.
