CNN Money reported that private employer payrolls rose by 187,000 in January, according to payroll processor ADP.
That’s good news, but the ADP predictions have not been born out by the Government stats so it is not clear that this will result in a boost for the market when Gov data is released Friday. Still, it is good news and fundamentals continue to look good. Earnings for the quarter so far have been good. Retail was excellent, as we noted previously. The Fed is trying to support the market. I thought we’d see more profit taking today after the big up-day yesterday, but we held on well. So that’s good too.
There is so much bullishness out there that I’d guess any correction (if we do have one soon) will be in the 10% range.
As far as our analysis, I’d rather see the Navigate the Stock Market (NTSM) computer analysis issue a BUY signal, but we’ll take the HOLD and keep watching the market go up...forever?
SUMMARY OF INDICATORS:
As of today’s close, our 4-areas of market analysis present the following picture:
SENTIMENT: Neutral. %-bulls indicator has pulled back and is now 49%. This is an elevated number, but not enough to issue a sell signal. (Sentiment is a reverse indicator; a high %-bulls indicator is bearish for the market and vice versa.)
PRICE: Buy. Price action has turned positive again.
VOLUME: Neutral. The volume indicator improved today. More volume has been going to the upside…even with today’s down day in price. That’s good, but the numbers aren’t strong enough to be a Buy yet.
VIX: Neutral. Vix pulled back to neutral with the big spike up on Friday. It has improved since then, but it has a way to go before it will call Buy.
The overall status for the Navigate the Stock Market system is HOLD. (Our indicators are based on closing data so we generally wait until after the market close to update the system.)
MY INVESTED POSITION: I remain 100% invested in retirement funds and all cash in the trading account. (This is an absurdly aggressive position (for an old guy) and I don’t recommend it unless you have an extremely high tolerance for risk.
