JTH's Account Talk

[felixthecat]

Re: Sunday: Bears take the lead

Smart move in my humble opinion. S&P was just shy of 4000 which was the selloff point before we begin the next leg down to the bottom. Also…on the inflation front they did not ask me what I thought…well take it from an old timer…inflation is kicking our butts. Eggs are now out of my price I’m willing to pay. Same for real butter. I cut back on meats and chicken. Honestly, I do better using coupons matching to make dollars go further. Wendy is a viable opportunity to spend $4 or $5 dollars to eat a meal with a drink. Yes, saving on gas but everything has gone up. It is all smoke and mirrors…inflation is still way to high and retail prices will stay high for the rest of 2023. Layoffs will be increasing and tougher times ahead. I swear…we are losing middle class folks by the day as consumers are stretched beyond their means. Sad situation unfolding.

Good morning

Fortunate to have exited above the 2 previous C-fund buys, as of today, I'm sitting 100G.

We do look to be getting ready for a 4th test of the 200 SMA (previous 3 failed), so perhaps the 4th time can carry us back to the NOV/DEC 4100 double top. As for myself, I'll wait for a lower entry, I certainly do not want to chase the rally I just exited, so I'll be cheering from the sidelines.


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[JTH]

Re: Sunday: Bears take the lead

Smart move in my humble opinion. S&P was just shy of 4000 which was the selloff point before we begin the next leg down to the bottom. Also…on the inflation front they did not ask me what I thought…well take it from an old timer…inflation is kicking our butts. Eggs are now out of my price I’m willing to pay. Same for real butter. I cut back on meats and chicken. Honestly, I do better using coupons matching to make dollars go further. Wendy is a viable opportunity to spend $4 or $5 dollars to eat a meal with a drink. Yes, saving on gas but everything has gone up. It is all smoke and mirrors…inflation is still way to high and retail prices will stay high for the rest of 2023. Layoffs will be increasing and tougher times ahead. I swear…we are losing middle class folks by the day as consumers are stretched beyond their means. Sad situation unfolding.

Yea, I swear that 18 year old me would be homeless, living in a car, and showering at planet fitness. I don't know how anyone can survive a low wage job today, especially if you want to live alone, or have a car. This year my rent went up 20% partially because homeowners in Poland are mostly on Adjustable-rate mortgages, when the Fed funds rate went up, it trickled across Europe. Right now inflation here is 16.6% but I'm lucky to keep my bills low and get a decent exchange rate.

I've spent some time reading through the Antiwork subreddit, at first they just come off as whiny socialists complainers, but if you dig deeper, you can see there are some serious problems with corporation's treatment and pay, and it certainly hasn't gotten better since I was a civilian back in 97.

 

[felixthecat]

Re: Sunday: Bears take the lead

Here in the states, young and older folks alike are living out of vans, cars, and tents. Motorhomes are also in heavy use. Every major and minor city have homeless folks under bridges, overpasses, and deep in the woods. I do well enough by managing costs over the years. In retirement, it is just the same. Feels good to be free of debt. Especially bad debt like credit cards which greedy corporations are making a killing. Restaurants and chains are suffering with lack of workers and the reduction in food quality. Prices have soared just compounding the problem. We eat in a lot because we just get more value. Having a job is great but taxes eat up potential savings. In the end, just felt like we were not getting ahead. I retired and save more money now than before. What a revelation. So far, I have done what I can to enjoy the time remaining. No regrets!

Yea, I swear that 18 year old me would be homeless, living in a car, and showering at planet fitness. I don't know how anyone can survive a low wage job today, especially if you want to live alone, or have a car. This year my rent went up 20% partially because homeowners in Poland are mostly on Adjustable-rate mortgages, when the Fed funds rate went up, it trickled across Europe. Right now inflation here is 16.6% but I'm lucky to keep my bills low and get a decent exchange rate.

I've spent some time reading through the Antiwork subreddit, at first they just come off as whiny socialists complainers, but if you dig deeper, you can see there are some serious problems with corporation's treatment and pay, and it certainly hasn't gotten better since I was a civilian back in 97.

 

[JTH]

Good morning

Today I'll make the argument that the S&P 500 is fairly valued, neither overbought nor oversold. Dividing the 41-bar AUG to OCT decline in half, I've drawn an 84-day Linear regression line which shows fair value is about 3958. Something to consider, we are more than 75% into this Symmetrical Triangle, so we should be getting a breakout soon.

60% BULLISH: If we pierce the the 3 previous 4100 highs (3% above us), then I think we should test the Aug high at 4325 (8.5% above us).

40% BEARISH: If we break back down to the 3800 level (-4.57% below us), then I think we should re-test the 3500 October lows (-12.3% below us), but I don't think we will go any lower.



For myself, with the G-Fund popping out pennies, I'm satisfied enough to sit this out while looking to re-enter the C-Fund 3-6% below my previous exit. Good luck!

 

[JTH]

Discussion begins at 10:40, with the Editor of the Stock Trader's Almanac regarding the January "Trifecta" and the Presidential cycle.

 

[Whipsaw]

Interesting, so many articles have been saying the second half would be strong. :-/

 

[JTH]

Interesting, so many articles have been saying the second half would be strong. :-/

I should have timed this better last year, I saw all the signs early on, but I was the frog in the pot of slowly boiling water. Outside TSP I'm 30% cash, but I should have raised that cash much earlier. The good news is we do have a lot of strong historical statistics in our favor this year, and most of the damage appears to have already happened. If we can get one more deep pullback, then I think it will quickly become a "risk on" scenario and I'll be happy to put that cash to work

 

[JTH]

Good morning

On a side note, I neglected to post the holiday stats prior to last week, so there isn't much of an opportunity to capitalize on it. Regardless, here are the 4 days post the MLK holiday, which shows weakness when compared to the 21-year daily average. I suppose when we consider that Friday closed up 6.23% off the Dec 22 low, then some weakness this week might be expected.

 

[JTH]

For the DoW chart, the last 55 days have a very low 42% winning ratio. For win ratios, TUE/FRI are average, while MON/WED/THUR are significantly below average.

Good morning

The DoW stats are largely unchanged from last week. It's important to consider that we've had 3 Monday holidays, so those stats go back further in time to get the 11 count.

 

[JTH]

Re: Sunday: Bears take the lead

Post 2 of 4

If we averaged all the Januaries from 1960-2022 which closed positive, the average positive gain is 4.50%

MTD we are currently 4.16%

 

[JTH]

Re: Sunday: Bears take the lead

Post 3 of 4

A few years back, I used the the AutoTracker to follow the consistent multi-year over achievers, it was a good way to measure my performance to those peers. Going into this week, we can see that (for all members) about 43% are in G/F funds while 51% are in the C/S/I funds. In contrast, the Top 50 are heavy in the S-Fund at 85%, with only 3 members having an I-Fund allocation and they happen to hold the Top 3 positions.

 

[JTH]

Re: Sunday: Bears take the lead

Post 4 of 4

Most of the stats I've posted are meant to be looked at from the long-term perspective and are difficult to capitalize on within the confines of the TSP's restrictions. If I had to pick one chart to use in the short-term, it would be the opening GAP chart, it has the strongest historical edge.

Remembering that 54% is the 21-year average win ratio, (for this short/medium term gap chart going back to July), we can see a positive gap at the open has closed positive 65% of the time. Perhaps more significant, a negative gap at the open has closed positive 22% of the time. Further long-term gap analysis, can be found in the 21 Years of investing thread, which shows the size of the gap correlates to the win/lose ratio's strength.

 

[retread]

Re: Sunday: Bears take the lead

Would it be possible to shrink your graphs a bit? I cannot see the right side of the images. And the horizontal scroll bar is not available to scroll over to see it. Thanks.

 

[JTH]

Re: Sunday: Bears take the lead

Would it be possible to shrink your graphs a bit? I cannot see the right side of the images. And the horizontal scroll bar is not available to scroll over to see it. Thanks.

Sure, can you tell me where it cuts off on the last chart, so I can keep the charts as large as possible, but still viewable.

 

[Epic]

Re: Sunday: Bears take the lead

Right click his image and then select "open image in new Tab". The image will then display by itself in a different tab. Hope that helps. :smile:

 

[retread]

Re: Sunday: Bears take the lead

Right click his image and then select "open image in new Tab". The image will then display by itself in a different tab. Hope that helps. :smile:

Thanks Epic, that works fine.

 

[JTH]

Well, someone in bonds is making money today, there's a nice gap up above the 200 SMA on BND.

 

[JTH]

Re: Sunday: Bears take the lead

Remembering that 54% is the 21-year average win ratio, (for this short/medium term gap chart going back to July), we can see a positive gap at the open has closed positive 65% of the time. Perhaps more significant, a negative gap at the open has closed positive 22% of the time. Further long-term gap analysis, can be found in the 21 Years of investing thread, which shows the size of the gap correlates to the win/lose ratio's strength.

Good morning

Wednesday's .28% opening gap up at the open both failed to close positive and looks to have been a reversal day. For today, I'm going to "Cherry Pick" a timeframe as a reference for the markets current conditions. 2022 had a 43% win ratio (below the 21 year 54% daily average). But regardless of 2022's crappy performance, the size of the gap still correlated to the win/lose ratio's strength for the close.



___
For myself, I'm watching the most recent levels, looking at 3890 which would be a 50% retracement of the most recent 17-day wave of prices. At a minimum, I want to get back in below 3860, but with no idea how low we'll go I'll wait for signs of another bottom.

 

[WorkFE]

Re: Sunday: Bears take the lead

3860-3890

I've been looking at that same range and most likely won't take us long to get there.

 

[LTJPFED]

A few of us must be following the same potential set up. I am in the same camp at this time. Of course if we have a big directional swing I might pull that thought off the table. We'll see how things play out this morning. Too bad we cannot buy at specific spots in our funds lol. Oh the chaos that would bring rofl.