Market Talk / Aug. 17 - 23

[Spaf]

Market Talk
Sunday Edition
August 17, 2008​

General Commentary:

What an uncertain week of declines and advances. Weekly the S&P wound up gaining 1.88 points, and oil lost $1.41. The S&P did develope a bottom channel (support) trend line from the higher lows and a top channel (resistance) line from the higher highs. This is some what of a choppy bullish trend, that we will have to see what happens.

With the 2+G transfer restriction, the channel would be near impossible to play. Yet it could offer some fair-good entry points. Maybe it's better to creep up the channel than to vault in a few rallies.

A look at the chart(s)
The S&P500 [$SPX] Daily
Large Caps

Charts courtesy of www.StockCharts.com​

The E-moving average is now below pricing, a good note.

The P-SAR is bullish and has been since the mid July low.

The S-STO seems to want to stay just on the low side of overbought conditions.

The MACD has a good upward bias with a recent history of positive tracking.

Well, that's it for the weekend!​

Be careful out there!​

 

[Show-me]

Time to watch CNBC Rick Santelli is in the studio with Lesman. Should be a good show.

 

[Guest2]

Time to watch CNBC Rick Santelli is in the studio with Lesman. Should be a good show.

Awwwe, Com'on STEVE !

Thanks Show !

 

[Spaf]

Some folks really like pain!......:cheesy:

 

[Spaf]

Is it a wedge or a channel?

Do you draw from the left or the right? It makes a difference!

Then, do you discount a higher-high? If so which one?

 

[Show-me]

Currency traders on CNBC both see the dollar rising because the Fed will raise rates in December and the ECB will be lowering rates due to slow growth. Ewwww.

 

[Spaf]

Monday, Aug. 18

Financials drop stocks to their knees!

S&P looses -19.60 points. This technically drops through support and changes the P-SAR to bearish......:worried:

 

[XL-entLady]

S&P looses -19.60 points. This technically drops through support and changes the P-SAR to bearish......:worried:

So today I learned about P-SARs. (Thank you, Alevin and Spaf!) And I can see the change on $SPX for the C Fund. But I can't see it yet on $RUT (Russell 2000) or $WLSH (Wilshire 5000). Is that correct?

And which of the last two indices do people prefer to follow for the S Fund and why, please? Or can someone tell me the proper symbol for the Wilshire 4500?

And TIA for the information and the learning experience!

 

[alevin]

XL-Lady, when I use Sharpcharts, $EMW is the symbol for Wilshire 4500. Thats what I mostly use, based on a comment from a forum member earlier this year that they think it matches S more closely than VXF on BigCharts, which is what I used before.

One advantage of BigCharts is you can go back farther in years to look at index behavior during previous major up/down patterns, and can compare against other indices on the same chart. Can't do that w/Sharpcharts (free version anyway). So advantages to both depending on the question and timeframe.

Be careful w/P-SAR, it can bite you when you aren't looking, study it hard if you want to try to use it. I always try to use more than 1 indicator at a time for confirmation. Since I'm still mid-tracker, obviously I have a ways to go on learning when and how to use indicators that interest me.

Today we also dropped > halfway below the 5MA, which is another getout signal for me as a trendy (follower) kinda gal. If I hadn't been interested in seeing what PSAR would do, I'd have bailed today based on the spinning top/long-legged doji signals last Friday (Friday daily/last week's candlestick).

 

[Birchtree]

"The NYSE Composite Index is not a widely followed market barometer, but in the current instance, its 'coiling' pattern of inside ranges is perhaps the most important pattern in the market to watch. How this pattern resolves itself - with either a breakout above 85.30 or a breafdown below 83.00 - should determine the next major move in the market."

http://www.sandspring.com/charts2008/cdj081408.html

 

[XL-entLady]

Be careful w/P-SAR, it can bite you when you aren't looking, study it hard if you want to try to use it. I always try to use more than 1 indicator at a time for confirmation.

Huge thanks, Alevin, for your quick and informative answer about $EMW.

I love this MB! When I joined 4 months ago, I barely knew what a P&F Chart was and SMAs were just about my only tool. Since then, I've learned about Bollinger Bands, MACDs and now P-SARs.

What a great forum, Tom!

Lady

 

[DoughBoy]

 	BREAKING
NEWS 	Housing starts down 11% in July, reversing prior month's surge; Wholesale prices climb more than expected. More soon.

just saw this on cnnmoney. Anyone else got the full scope?

 

[James48843]

I have a sickening feeling that today is going to be UGLY.

Housing starts way below expectations- and lots of news coverage of the NON hurricane in Folorida will depress a lot of people.

By the way- just for a tidbit to throw out there for discussion:

I have been closely watching , on "Realtytrac.com", the number of home foreclosures in my zip code for the past year or so. They update the data once per month, and give a total number of 'bank owned" foreclosed homes.

In my zipcode, for the first time in over a year, the number of bank-owned foreclosed homes DECLINED this month. It went from 426 to 409.

Now, a year ago it was at 25, and it then ballooned larger and larger each month- until this month.

I don't know if that means we've seen a bottom, or if it means that banks dumped them at huge losses and wrote it off trying to stem the blood. Overall, locally, home values are down 25% over the last year....

But any decrease, rather than increase-month over month- is a sign that something is happening.

Just food for thought.


Anyway- today looks UGLY to me. we'll see.

 

[luv2read]

     BREAKING
NEWS     Housing starts down 11% in July, reversing prior month's surge; Wholesale prices climb more than expected. More soon.

just saw this on cnnmoney. Anyone else got the full scope?

UPDATE 1-US housing starts and permits tumble in July
Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:07am EDT
(Adds details on data, quotes, market reaction)
WASHINGTON, Aug 19 (Reuters) - U.S. home building projects started in July fell 11 percent to the lowest annual rate in more than 17 years, while building permits tumbled 17.7 percent, the Commerce Department reported on Tuesday.
The annual pace of housing starts at 965,000 slimly beat Wall Street's expectations of 960,000, but it was the lowest since a 921,000 unit rate in March 1991. In June, housing starts rose 10.4 percent, revised up from the previously reported 9.1 percent.
Building permits, an indicator of future construction, dropped to an annual rate of 937,000, well below the 970,000 analysts polled by Reuters had forecast.
The magnitude of the drop in permits was the biggest since a plunge of almost 24 percent in February 1990, while the number was the lowest since March this year, when they were 932,000.
Single family homes, which constitute the bulk of new housing, were especially weak. The annual unit rate of 641,000 single family homes started in July was the lowest since January 1991, when they were 604,000. Building permits were 584,000, the lowest since 523,000 in August 1982.
U.S. stocks extended their losses and U.S. Treasury bond prices pared their gains after the data were released.
In June, new home construction was boosted by a change in New York City building codes. But July's national numbers hinted that the United States may still be mired in a housing downturn.
"It can be seen as a payback in June from the building code change in New York City. We may see another decline in August," said Dana Saporta, economist at New York's Dresdner Kleinwort Securities LLC.
"The fundamentals in housing are still poor," Saporta added.
(Reporting by Lisa Lambert, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN1914328620080819?sp=true

 

[Spaf]

Symbols.txt


..........................................................IShare

DOW................ INDU, $INDU, DJI

NASD............... COMPX, $COMPX, IXIC

S&P................. INX, $INX, $SPX,............ IVV

US Dollar.......... $USD

Oil - Lt. Crude ...$WTIC...http://www.tradesignals.com Get Quote = CLV8

Gold................ $GOLD...........................IAU

C-Fund............ See S&P above

Mid Caps.............................................. IJH

F-Fund............................................... AGG

S-Fund............ ^dwcpf, $EMW,.............. IJR

I-Fund................................................ EFA

 

[XL-entLady]

Thanks, Spaf! You're a scholar and a gentleman!

Lady

 

[Show-me]

Regulators close Kansas bank
By MarketWatch
Last update: 11:29 a.m. EDT Aug. 23, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- State and Federal regulators shut down Columbian Bank and Trust of Topeka, Kan. -- the ninth bank to fail so far this year and the fifth since mid-July.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. estimates the failure will cost its deposit insurance fund $60 million. Columbian Bank and Trust had $752 million of assets and $622 million of deposits as of June 30, the FDIC said.

The insured deposits of the failed bank, which had nine branches, were sold to Citizens Bank and Trust of Chillicothe, Mo. Also, Citizens Bank and Trust agreed to buy $85.5 million of Columbian Bank and Trust's assets.

The FDIC said Citizens Bank and Trust did not purchase about $268 million of brokered deposits at the failed bank. The failed bank had approximately $46 million in uninsured deposits held in approximately 610 accounts that potentially exceed the insurance limits. This amount is an estimate that is likely to change once the FDIC obtains additional information from these customers, regulators said.

The nine branches of The Columbian Bank and Trust Company will reopen on Monday as branches of Citizens Bank and Trust, the FDIC said. Depositors of the failed bank will automatically become depositors of Citizens Bank and Trust. Deposits will continue to be insured by the FDIC

.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/stor...47AC56F62CE%7D

 

[Spaf]

A week of no-where-fast....

Yet we did loose any indication of a technical bullish trend in the making. Afeter Monday and Tuesday damages, pricing of the S&P later reclaimed it's 50 day moving average. Weekly the S&P lost a total of 6 points.

See ya next week!​

Spaf​