“In the week ending April 6, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 346,000, a decrease of 42,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 388,000. The 4-week moving average was 358,000, an increase of 3,000 from the previous week's revised average of 355,000.” – Department of Labor
This was slightly below expectations for today’s number.
For analysis see dShort.com at
http://advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Weekly-Unemployment-Claims.php
JAPANESE MONEY FLOODING EUROPEAN BOND MARKETS
“The mystery, at least in my mind, of the rising Euro is now
clear. Outflows of Japanese institutional money is pouring into the European
bond markets in search of higher yield…- the Bank of Japan's own data shows
that Japanese institutions hold a gargantuan $6.34 TRILLION of domestic
government bonds! This is not a tide of money, it is a tsunami looking for
yield!...Bubble in the US stock market? Yes, in my opinion but the bubble is
going to get even bigger. Heaven help everyone of us on the planet when this
man-made disaster finally reaches its crescendo!” – Dan Norcini,
Pro-Commodities Trader at Trader Dan’s Market Views. Full blog at…http://traderdannorcini.blogspot.com/2013/04/japanese-money-flooding-european-bond.html?showComment=1365534980524
RECESSION MUSINGS
“In 2007,
economists for the Wall Street Journal forecasting panel predicted only a 38
percent likelihood of recession over the next year. This was remarkable because
the data would later reveal, the economy was already in recession at the time.”
– Nate Silver, “The Signal and the Noise”
As of today, the
S&P 500 is outperforming the Morgan Stanley Cyclical Index and the spread (on
a percentage basis) between the two indexes has peaked. I have plotted the inverse of the spread in
Red on the 2-year chart below so that when the red curve is going down it
signals the spread is rising – in other words, the Cyclical index is
underperforming the S&P 500. Bottom
line: The chart indicates that investors are becoming concerned about recession, even
if economists aren’t.
MARKET RECAP
Thursday, the S&P 500 finished up 0.4% to 1593 (rounded).
Thursday, the S&P 500 finished up 0.4% to 1593 (rounded).
VIX fell about 1% to 12.24.
NTSM
Thursday, the NTSM analysis remained HOLD at the close.
MY INVESTED POSITION
I remain about 20% invested in stocks as of 5 March (S&P 500 -1540),
due to my risk tolerance rather than the numerical NTSM analysis. To put it bluntly, I currently have no
tolerance for risk. (If I were strictly
following the NTSM numbers, I'd still be heavily invested in stocks.) My
reasoning may be found at…http://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/2013/03/why-i-got-mostly-out-of-stock-market.html
