“Stocks were relatively stable as Yellen started her press conference wrapping up the Fed's Open Market Committee two-day policy meeting, but fell sharply after she said the Fed's stimulus program would most likely be finished by the fall and that a rate hike could come as soon as early 2015. …the Fed said it will continue trimming, or tapering, its monthly bond buying program by another $10 billion, to $55 billion a month…The Fed also said in its statement that was dropping its 6.5% unemployment threshold for hiking interest rates, instead saying that it will strive for maximum employment and 2% inflation before any rate change.” Story at…
http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/19/investing/stocks-markets/
AMERICAN TRUCKING ASSOCIATIONS (ATA) TRUCK TONNAGE JUMPED
IN FEBRUARY (ATA)
The American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally
adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 2.8% in February, after
plunging 4.5% the previous month…Compared with February 2013, the SA index
increased 3.6%. Year-to-date, compared with the same period last year, tonnage
is up 2.3%...“It is pretty clear that winter weather had a negative impact on truck
tonnage during February,” said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello. “However, the
impact wasn’t as bad as in January because of the backlog in freight due to the
number of storms that hit over the January and February period.” Full press
release at…http://www.truckline.com/article.aspx?uid=de14939b-6bcc-4755-bb57-e3593522e8c7
Trucking says the economy is OK.
PORSCHE TO SWAP ENGINES (Bloomberg)
“Porsche AG will swap out the engine on the racing
version of the 911 sports car after the German automaker took the rare step of
telling customers to stop driving the model because the vehicle could catch
fire.” Story at…http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-18/porsche-to-replace-911-gt3-engines-following-motor-fires.html
Chevy couldn’t replace a 15-cent starter spring for 10-years, but Porsche is swapping entire engines after 2-failures. I guess that‘s what you get when you pay 200-grand for a car. Unfortunately, this story doesn’t apply to me.
MARKET REPORT
Wednesday, the S&P 500 was flat until the end of the
Fed meeting when it fell sharply and finished down 0.6% to 1861 (rounded).
VIX rose about 4% to 15.12.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury Note jumped to 2.77%
over concern that interest rates might rise sooner than expected.
With Market Internals down today (and over the 10-day moving averages that I track) and the recent NTSM sell signal, it looks like the correction may be back on the table.
MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)
The 10-day moving average of stocks advancing dropped to 49.6%
at the close. (A number below 50% for
the 10-day average is generally bad news for the market.) New-highs outpaced new-lows Wednesday. The spread (new-highs minus new-lows was +83.
(It was +126 Tuesday). The 10-day moving
average of change in the spread was minus-9. In other words, over the last
10-days, on average, the spread has decreased by 9 each day. The smoothed 10-dMA
of up-volume has not had an up-day in the last 7-trading seasons; it was down
again today. The internals are negative
on the market. 
NTSM
The NTSM analytical model remained HOLD today. The Price indicator is positive because up
moves have been bigger than down moves recently. Sentiment is negative. Volume
and VIX indicators are neutral.
MY INVESTED POSITION
I reduced to 30% invested in stocks because of the NTSM
sell signal on 13 March. This is a conservative
stock allocation commensurate with the NTSM Sell signal. Leaving 30% invested hedges the bet in case
NTSM is wrong – no system is perfect. I
will return to 50%-stock allocation if the Market Internals of the NTSM
indicators turn positive. Internals
could turn positive soon, but it all depends on the market.
