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About Me

Retired chief investment officer and former NYSE firm partner with 50 plus years experience in field as analyst / economist, portfolio manager / trader, and CIO who has superb track record with multi $billion equities and fixed income portfolios. Advanced degrees, CFA. Having done much professional writing as a young guy, I now have a cryptic style. 40 years down on and around The Street confirms: CAVEAT EMPTOR IN SPADES !!!

Friday, June 17, 2011

Stock Market

Technical
Well, as expected, the SPX did find support down in the 1260 - 1270 range. That's the good news.
The bad news is that I was anticipating the start of a nice, tradeable rally once it found support.
That did not occur this week. Blame it on Greece, blame it on quadruple witch...whatever. The fact is that when the market does not do what you think it should do, you are wisest to return to the drawing
board for further cogitation. I would not put it past the market to rally next week, but the bulls did not
show up quite when they should have. I am remain long side opportunistic, but the powder is dry.
I have attached two weekly market charts. The $SPX and the cumulative NYSE a/d line. Both suggest
the bears could squeeze out another week or two. So, I'll take it day by day.

Fundamental
My weekly fundamental coincident indicator has stabilized here in June after declining in May. The
indicator was very strong from late August, 2010 through early April, but it is now no higher than
it was in early January, much the same as the market. At present, the indicator suggests further
stability. This indicator can be broken down into a couple of cyclical pressure gauges, and I have
to say that when these gauges are not moving up with some consistency, stocks tend to languish.
Two important components of the indicator you can follow if you wish are industrial commodities
prices and initial unemployment insurance claims, both of which are now running flat.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that the stock market has tracked Federal Reserve intent
toward quantitative easing very closely. This may continue until we see an acceleration of
private sector credit growth. Whence that occurs, investors tend to lower quantitative moves
by the Fed as a priority.

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