Expectations have changed, but expectations are not always met. Even if expectations are met, some have rapid feedback loops and some have slow feedback loops. The economic sphere is mostly slow, but sentiment does impact near term business decisions. The… Read More ›
GOV TSP
The Smart Bird: The Seasonality of Surprises
The question of the week is whether the SP500’s spike to a new all-time high is a true breakout or a false breakout. It may not be long before we find out, but as someone whose core investment strategy is… Read More ›
TSP Charts: The Long View
The long view is simply about gaining some perspective as the market whip back and forth in a very extended market topping process. It is about understanding that the markets for all their ups and down have really gone… Read More ›
Doug Noland: Inflection Point for Emerging Markets
Don’t let a relatively tame week in the S&P 500 engender complacency. Perhaps it was not obvious, yet the trading week provided important confirmation for the incipient “Risk Off” dynamic thesis. Indeed, the global bear seemed to roar back to… Read More ›
TSP Charts: Two Years in Review
Full access members, our December 2015 Current Situation Report has been posted. The two year perspective paints a pretty good picture of the TSP equity funds. The chart below shows only the price action of the TSP equity funds without dividends. … Read More ›
Are You Following the Herd?
In her September 2015 FOMC announcement, Janet Yellen spooked the herd with talk of economic concerns. Past messages about delaying raising interest rates were typically met with market rallies, so she and analyst, including myself, were a bit surprised when… Read More ›
The Smart Bird: Forecasting Optimism
Let’s talk forecast. I forecast over optimism in forecast. Over optimism is persistent in forecasts about the economy, earnings, manufacturing and the stock market. But you don’t have to trust me, the Fed’s own research shows they have Persistent Overoptimism… Read More ›
Another Market Top
The markets are extremely overbought, volume has lagged significantly on both the NYSE and NASDAQ exchanges during this rally, and all the major indexes are sitting at the level of previous peaks. Bearish sentiment has returned to a low level… Read More ›
TSP Charts: A Look Inside
Market internals can tell us a lot about the overall health of our equity funds. Healthy rallies are ones where most of the stocks are participating. We also like to see strong volume during the rallies. Volume is the amount… Read More ›
TSP Charts: Balancing Act
Since the market peaked four months ago on June 23rd, the large cap stocks have outperformed significantly. We see it in the difference between the SP500 index (TSP C fund) and the non-SP500 index (TSP S fund). We even see… Read More ›