The U.S. Economy Current Expansion – 104 Months Long The current economic expansion started in June 2009, according to NBER, which makes January 2018 the 104th month of expansion from the last trough. This is the third longest streak after the 120 months long expansion from March 1991 to March 2001 and 106 months long expansion from February 1961 to…
The last U.S. government shutdown happened in October 2013. Then the federal government shutdown lasted for sixteen days from October 1st to October 17th. Here is the time line for it. The U.S. House of Representative was controlled by Republicans, the Senate by Democrats and Obama was president. The point of contention was Affordable Care Act (ACA) or the…
The U.S. market is continuing with the bull rally that started in March 2009. During this time, significant market declines occurred only three time. In 2010, the S&P 500 declined by 17.13%, mostly due to concerns arising from the European Sovereign debt crisis. In 2011, the S&P 500 declined in the wake of U.S. debt ceiling…
The 65 Thousand Feet View Last Update on Tuesday January 2, 2018 The S&P 500 is marching, with nary a worry, to the beats of technical patterns. It is approaching the upper limit of a regression channel (78 months and 0.5 standard deviation) on monthly chart (see Fig. C). From February to September 2017, the index moved up along the linear…
U.E. Equity Markets The week of September 18, 2017 was mostly a positive week for the U.S. equity markets. NASDAQ Composite declined but other major indices advanced. Four S&P 500 sectors – Energy, Materials, Industrials and Finance – also advanced. S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average have been up for six months and had…
An analysis of daily price change since 1973 tells us that there are some certain seasonal biases in the market. Major U.S. indices show a greater probability of advancing in some months as compared to others. There are many reasons for seasonal or monthly bias in equity market. We will review some of them in future posts. The…
The equity indices of most major nations in the world are trending up. Emerging Markets are doing better than developed market. Emerging Market Are Doing Better The Select Sector SPDR ETF, SPY, bottomed in February 2016 (Third Panel Chart 1). EFA, iShares MSCI EAFE ETF, bottomed few days later (First Panel Chart 1) and EEM,…
One Day Reversal Candlestick With Bearish Divergence Major U.S. indices closed down on Tuesday August 8 2017 after S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, NYSE Composite and Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index made all time intra-day highs. They also closed in the lower half of the day’s range. This does constitute as one-day reversal candlestick…
The intermarket analysis says that it is still better to be invested in equities and bonds than in commodities and U.S. dollar. Equites and Bonds are Rising The 30-year U.S. Treasury Bonds, $USB, declined from July 2016 to March 2017 (First Panel Chart 1). It made double bottom near 147.00-146.00 level in December 2016 and…
S&P 500 Sectors Relative Strengths Two Sectors Outperforming Broader Index Two of the S&P 500 sectors, $XLK (Second Panel Chart 1) and $XLF (Fifth Panel Chart 2), are out-performing the index. $XLK is doing better than the index since April 2016 and $XLF is doing better since June 2017. $XLF outperformed S&P 500 from July 2016…
Major U.S. indices are trending higher. Dow Jones Industrial Average and NASDAQ Composite are leading the overall market. Small caps mostly lagging. Relative Strength From the beginning of 2017, Dow Jones Industrial Average was performing similar to S&P 500. Since the middle of July 2017, DJIA is out-performing S&P 500 (Top Panel Chart 1). Since November 2016,…
Monthly Chart Analysis Current Status: Last Update on Tuesday August 01, 2017 Current Trend: Confirmed Uptrend Last Pattern: Double Bottom (or horizontal Channel) (broken out in July 2016) Previous Pattern: Rectangle (broken in Apr-13) Current Streak: 4 Up months Last Six Months 5 Up months Last High 2484.04 (Jul-17) High Month Low Month Last Swing 2193.81 Aug-16 2083.79…
Economy The Real GDP continues its uptrend since bottoming in Feb-2009 (Chart 1). The Total Employment and Real Retail and Food Services Sales have also maintained their uptrend during this period. The Unemployment Rate has maintained down trend. Industrial production rose from Jun-2009 to Dec-2014. It then declined till Mar-2016. Since then it has resumed…
Dollar Index The U.S. Dollar Index, DX #F, has been declining since January 2017 when it reached the highest level since 2003 (Chart 1). During 1990s, the index has risen from a low of 78.43, in 1992, to a high of121.90 in 2001. The up trend reversal occurred after a near triple bottom pattern – two other…
A research paper by Ben Jacobsen and Cherry Y. Zhang of Massey University of New Zealand demonstrates that monthly seasonality effect is sample specific. They found that the strategy of ‘Sell in May and Go Away‘ beats the market more that 80% of times over -year horizons. Another aspect of this strategy is that during this time, bonds usually outperform…
