ANN COULTER ON DONALD TRUMP
“I was well familiar with what a narcissistic,
ridiculous, tacky, vulgar, arriviste this guy was. That I knew about. The one
thing I underestimated, in fact, did not see at all is, I had no idea how
abjectly stupid the man is.” - Ann
Coulter, bestselling conservative author.
CRIPPLING BLOW FOR THE STEELE DOSSIER (msn.com)
“Christopher Steele, the former MI6 spy who compiled the notorious dossier during
the 2016 campaign alleging ties between Donald Trump and Russia, made a splash
a few weeks back when he gave his first interview about it. Steele described
his professionalism as an intelligence-gatherer to George Stephanopoulos of ABC
News and then doubled-down on some of the dossier’s most salacious allegations,
asserting, among other things, that the infamous “pee tape” involving Trump may be still out there, just waiting
to be found.
Since BuzzFeed published Steele’s reports in 2017, many of the
dossier’s key claims have failed to materialize or have been shown to be false.
But this week, it may have been dealt a death blow when the operative used by
Steele to gather material for the dossier was indicted.”
The
Crippling Blow for the Steele Dossier (msn.com)
“If the indictment’s charges prove true, it means the
primary source for the dossier used to secure authorization from the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court to spy on one-time Trump campaign aide Carter
Page — the same dossier that served as the foundation for the years long Russian
collusion news cycle — is a complete fraud....it appears increasingly likely it is the product of a Kremlin counterintelligence operation,
one in which Democrats may have played a key role. The Washington Post...stated
the obvious this week, reporting, “The [federal] allegations cast new
uncertainty on some past reporting on the dossier by news organizations, including
the Washington Post.” – Washington Examiner
WHARTON SAYS BUILD BACK BETTER COSTS TWICE AS MUCH
(MishTalk)
“The White House cost estimate for Build Back Better is
$1.870 trillion. Wharton's estimate is $4.262 trillion. The Wharton BBB Budget Model shows the true cost of Biden's
Build Back Better plan which Biden actually said costs nothing.” Story at...
When I commented last week that the infrastructure bill
would hurt the Democrats rather than help, I was referring to the social
program bill that has been called an infrastructure bill. The Democrats are still squabbling over that one. The most recent Bill passed
Friday had bi-partisan support in the Senate and House and is not likely to
hurt the Democrats, except to the extent that it increases inflation. (Today, I
bought a 1lb. package of chicken breasts for $6. A year ago, I could’ve bought
an entire chicken for $6.)
CORONAVIRUS (NTSM)
Here’s the latest from the COVID19 Johns Hopkins website as
of 5:30 PM Monday. U.S. total case numbers are on the left axis; daily numbers
are on the right side of the graph in Red with the 10-dMA of daily numbers in
Green. I added the smoothed 10-dMA of new cases (in purple) to the chart.
Trend numbers are essentially flat. At this point, we
worry that the new cases may start rising, but it is too soon to make a call either
way.
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Monday the S&P 500 rose about 0.1% to 4702.
-VIX rose about 4% to 17.22. Options players suspect the
markets are headed for a down-day. It won’t go up forever.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.492%. (Bond rates
falling suggests inflation fears are falling too.)
I noted Friday that important indicators remain on the bull
side (3-bear and 17-bull). Not much has changed.
29 December 2010...that was the last time there were 17
up-days in 20 sessions. 17 in 20 -
that’s what happened today. Extreme bullishness continues! This is bearish, but
unless we see other indicators signaling a top, it may not mean much. We still
expect a day or two or retreat, unless we see more bear signs.
One of the few bearish signs now in effect is the
Relative Strength Index, RSI. I use a 14-day simple moving average to calculate
it. Relative Strength measures the size
of up-moves vs. all-moves on a 14-day moving average basis and presents the
result as a percentile. For example; if the RSI is 85, it means that the size
of up-moves are in the 85th percentile when compared to all moves over the
14-day period. If ALL moves had been up, RSI would be 100 – a definite short term
sell indicator. For my purposes, 30 is oversold (suggesting a turn-around to
the upside) and 80 is overbought. If the up-moves and down-moves are equal in
size over the 14-day period, RSI would be 50.
RSI is currently 92. It has been overbought for 11 out of
the last 12 days.
If Bollinger Bands
join RSI it might signal a top, but I would still need a few more bearish signs
for me to be convinced.
The daily sum of 20 Indicators declined from +7 to +2 (a
positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the 10-day smoothed sum
that smooths the daily fluctuations improved from +5 to +7 (These numbers
sometimes change after I post the blog based on data that comes in late.) Most
of these indicators are short-term so they tend to bounce around a lot.
The Long Term NTSM indicator
ensemble slipped to HOLD based on the bearish number of up-days over a 10 and
20-day time frame. Price and Volume are bullish; Sentiment and VIX indicators
are neutral.
I remain bullish, but the markets may be getting too
bullish. Bollinger Bands and other topping indicators are close to issuing a
top warning.
I will be cutting back to my normal fully invested
position (50% in stocks) from my current position of 65% in stocks if topping
indicators or other important indicators warn.
MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs
(Ranked Daily)
The top ranked ETF receives
100%. The rest are then ranked based on their momentum relative to the leading
ETF.
*For additional background on
the ETF ranking system see NTSM Page at…
http://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/exchange-traded-funds-etf-ranking.html
** XLE has outgained XLY over
the last 2 months so I will continue to hold XLE rather than switching to XLY.
TODAY’S RANKING OF THE DOW 30
STOCKS (Ranked Daily)
Here’s the revised DOW 30 and
its momentum analysis. The top ranked stock receives 100%. The rest are then
ranked based on their momentum relative to the leading stock.
For more details, see NTSM
Page at…
https://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/a-system-for-trading-dow-30-stocks-my_8.html
MONDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE
DATA)
Market Internals remained BUY.
Market Internals are a decent
trend-following analysis of current market action, but should not be used alone
for short term trading. They are usually right, but they are often late. They are most useful when they diverge from
the Index.
My stock-allocation in the
portfolio is now about 65% invested in stocks; this is above my “normal” fully
invested stock-allocation of 50% stocks. Indicators are very bullish, so I am
holding a short-term position in additional Index Funds to boost returns.
You may wish to have a higher
or lower % invested in stocks depending on your risk tolerance. 50% is a conservative
position that I consider fully invested for most retirees.
As a general rule, some
suggest that the % of portfolio invested in the stock market should be one’s
age subtracted from 100. So, a
30-year-old person would have 70% of the portfolio in stocks, stock mutual
funds and/or stock ETFs. That’s ok, but
for older investors, I usually don’t recommend keeping less than 50% invested
in stocks (as a fully invested position) since most people need some growth in
the portfolio to keep up with inflation.
