This past week was a downer, it just seemed the bad news wouldn't stop. Delta variants, Afghanistan pull out blunder, and tropical storm Henri! Maybe it's just me, but I am getting tired.
From a stage analysis point of view, things appear
to be okay. Some of the indexes are flirting with their 30 week moving
average lines, but are still above the line.
Interesting bitcoin news:
https://news.bitcoin.com/jpmorgan-wells-fargo-launching-bitcoin-funds-sec-filings/
From a stage analysis viewpoint, we are in Stage 2 Accumulation (see stage analysis overview here) with the market continuing to go up.
One of the gauges I like to look at is the Dow vs NYSE Advance-Decline. (Barron's used to produce it but stopped so I make my own chart.) It's a bad sign for the market when the Dow is advancing more than the NYSE, which we see in March of 2020 when COVID hit. Likewise, it's a positive sign when the NYSE is above the Dow. That's where we are now. It's one of the biggest divergences I've seen in a while.
Stories of interest:
Let's look at how the market is performing so far this year. It's been a good year so far.
If we look at the charts going back to September 2020, we can see visually how things are progressing.
For the first time in a while, markets were down at the end of the week. The worst since February.
Contributing factors include expected rate hikes by the Fed.
From a stage analysis view, we are still flying high, but and this is a big but, the 3 major indexes look poised to go below their 30 week moving averages. If this happens we may be entering stage 4.
CNN's Fear and Greed indicator is the lowest it has been in quite some time.
Market continue to be in an uptrend. All indicators remain up. Jobless claims are going down and with the COVID vaccine being distributed the economy looks to be poised for a recovery. I am interested in energy and travel stocks.
XLE Spider is showing signs of recovery and has a ways to go to get to the last high. Even with the move to electronic vehicles we will still need energy for years to come.
An interesting set of news articles surfaced this week related to the COVID outbreak's potential source being the Wuhon Lab. Vanity Fair has a nice article here.
Bitcoin has been a bit of a ride these last couple of weeks as Elon Musk is in then out.
Markets are mixed. The NASDAQ touched it's 30 week moving average line but finished just a hair above it. Gold is starting to move up a bit and the other averages are still above their 30 week moving average line.
CNN's Fear and Greed indicator is in Fear for the first time in quite awhile.
Crypto currencies continue to be in the news with lots and lots of speculation. We also saw a major hack into a US pipeline with a payment of $5M coinage to the bad guys.
COVID news is also mixed. Countries with the vaccine are doing okay while others are struggling.
The market continues to be in an uptrend. All indicators are green at this point.
CNN's Fear and Greed indicator is in the green.
COVID continues with the JNJ vaccine getting sidelined for a bit while a rare blood clot problem is looked into further. JNJ reports earnings soon.
By the way, have I mentioned how much I have come to hate the phrase "out of an abundance of caution"? It is seriously overused at this point.
As states open up restrictions, I expect a recovery to continue.
