In a press conference Thursday
European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet announced that the European
Central Bank cut its economic growth forecast for Europe and said there is a risk
that growth will slow next year. When
questioned, he declined to predict whether there would be a recession. The central bank's forecast is now for growth
between 0.4% and 2.2% in 2012 with the risk weighted to the downside.
As we heard from PIMCO executives
last week, when the economy drops to very slow growth, it may stall.
The AP reported that First-time
applications for unemployment benefits here in the US rose last week to
414,000. Economists had expected it to fall to 405,000.
I
couldn’t find any good economic news. I
didn’t watch Obama’s job speech but here’ a link to the text from the New York
Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/us/politics/09text-obama-jobs-speech.html
Interesting
excerpt: “Right
now, Warren Buffet pays a lower tax rate than his secretary – an outrage he has
asked us to fix. We need a tax code where everyone gets a fair shake, and
everybody pays their fair share.”
The
S&P 500 was down about 1% Thursday.
The
Navigate the Stock Market analysis is still HOLD.
I sold on the 27 July sell signal at S&P 500 1301 and I am
defensively positioned with only a small amount of my portfolio invested in
stocks. (Zero stocks in the 401k.) I am
near 100% short in the trading portfolio.
(See
the page “How to Use the NTSM System” – the link is on the right side of this
page).
