Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Small Business Sentiment – on Hold...Taper to be Small

SMALL BUSINESS SENTIMENT (Advisor Perspectives)
“The latest issue of the NFIB Small Business Economic Trends is out today. The September update for August came in at 94.0, down 0.1 points from the previous month. Today’s overall number is at the 20.4 percentile in this series -- fractionally above the top of the lowest quintile in the history of this series.” – Story and analysis at Advisor Perspectives at…
http://advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/NFIB-Small-Business-Optimism-Index.php

TAPER ESTIMATED TO BE SMALL (Bloomberg)
As part of a story on today’s market, we found the following:
“…Economists estimate the Fed this month will taper its monthly bond buying by $10 billion, to $75 billion, according to the median of 34 responses in a Bloomberg News survey.”  Story at…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-10/u-s-stock-futures-gain-on-chinese-industrial-output-data.html

MARKET REPORT
Tuesday, the S&P finished up 0.7% to 1684 (rounded) at the close.
VIX was down 0.7% to 14.53.

At today’s close the S&P 500 is nearly 1% above the simple 50-dMA.  If the market continues up another day or two, it will be very bullish for the end of this mini-correction

MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)
The 10-day moving average of stocks advancing on the NYSE was up slightly to 54% at the close Tuesday.  (A number above 50% for the 10-day average is generally good news for the market.) 

New-highs outpaced new-lows today, Tuesday, leaving the spread at +168 (it was +123 Monday), with the 10-day moving average of change in spread positive. 

The Internals are positive on the market, but it looks like New-high/new-low data is slowing and may reverse soon – we’ll see.

NTSM
Tuesday, the overall long-term NTSM analysis remains HOLD at the close.

MY INVESTED POSITION
I remain about 20% invested in stocks as of 5 March (S&P 500 -1540).  The NTSM system sold at 1575 on 16 April.  (This is just another reminder that I should follow the NTSM analysis and not act emotionally – I am under-performing my own system by about 2%!)  I have no problems leaving 20% or 30% invested.  If the market is cut in half (worst case) I’d only lose 10%-15% of my investments.  It also hedges the bet if I am wrong since I will have some invested if the market goes up.  No system is perfect.