Monthly Archives: January 2013

Hello Everyone

As we enter mid-month, I wanted to update everyone as to the market’s performance.   The SP 500 Index, which I use to measure the health of the market, is at new highs, never before seen since 2008.  On Friday Jan 18, it had reached a high of 1485.98.   Call it “1486” and basically anything above that is untouched territory.   That is a good thing, as it indicates that money is coming back into equities (stocks) and propelling the market higher.

I should also mention a concept known as “The January Barometer”, developed by Yale Hirsch in 1972.  Hirsch later developed the Stock Traders Almanac.  In summary, if January performs well, then the rest of the year will perform well.   This indicator has a reliability of 90% since 1950.   Recent terrorism, global financial problems, and other things associated to the 2000’s have impacted this indicator, however it is still an indicator one should be aware of.

Lets take a look at the last few days of the SP 500 Index, see image below.   You will see on Jan-2, huge above average volume, with the index closing up, occurred.  It should be noted that this was the first trading day of the year, and instead of people entering with caution, worried about the future, people jumped head first into the market waters.   This is known as “accumulation” and is indicative of large amounts of money entering the market.   Then the index became quiet until Jan 15, then resumed the uptrend, with additional above average volume.

An analysis using my proprietary system indicates that the S-Fund should outperform all other funds this month.  The month is not over yet, and things may change, but my opinion is that the S-Fund should lead the funds in performance.   There has been occasional strength flashed by the I-Fund but this has not lasted more than one to three days.  At the end of the month, you may indeed see I-Fund closely perform as well as S-Fund, depending on how things play out.

At the present time, I am 100% S-Fund.    If you find this site useful or informative, please pass the word and tell your friends and coworkers about it.   Also, thank you for the numerous emails and compliments which have been sent.  Thank You.

– Bill Pritchard

Happy New Year (again) –

As the first week of the New Year comes to a close, it appears we are definitely on the “right foot” as far as the markets go.  Once the Fiscal Cliff situation got (apparently) resolved, the markets responded strongly with a strong vote of confidence, closing up on huge volume.  The exchange traded fund, SPY, which is a proxy for the SP 500, gapped up, which is a very good sign of strength going forward.

A look-back on the week’s fund performance, shows that small cap stocks are performing best so far, which would correspond to the S-Fund.  Next in line were large cap stocks, which would correspond to the C-Fund.  I-Fund is last in line.  Again, this is looking back the past trading week.

For now, I am 100% S-Fund.  As long as things are going smoothly, I will slow the updates down and not clog everyone’s inbox up.  Expect another update in two weeks or so.  See you then.

Bill P

Happy New Year and Hello from annual leave status

I am off, on leave status “New Years week” and what a better way to start the New Year then with a market rally.  The markets welcomed the Fiscal Cliff deal passage, and rallied strongly this morning.  Current time is 10:10 AM Central Time, with the SP 500 up 1.77 %, Nasdaq up 2.3%, and Dow up 1.7%.

This rally is accompanied by high volume (even at this time of the day, I can determine that the volume is above average), giving a lot more credibility to the fact that it is “for real” and with institutional money behind it.

With the Fiscal Cliff issue resolved, I see no major speed bumps ahead.  I think everyone is sick of Greece’s economic issues (yes remember Greece, I almost forgot about them…) and is simply just moving forward at this point.   We have some other issues ahead, such as the fact that on Dec-31, US hit the debt ceiling, and if it is not raised, our credit rating as a nation may be downgraded.  The date to raise this is approximately Mid-March 2013.

However, I am not worried too much about that right now, as all indications are that the markets are resuming an uptrend.  Also, historical studies have shown that the performance of the markets during the first few trading days of each new calendar year “set the tone” for how the rest of the year will be, performance-wise, so it looks like we got started in a positive manner.

In summary, I am returning my TSP to the stock funds and will be 100% S-Fund starting today Jan 2 2013.   Thank You

Bill