Charts and Concerns for the TSP indexes, 3/14/15

Disclaimer: Keep in mind I will not make any moves based on the information and charts below. This is just an update to let you know where we currently sit. I make monthly moves in my TSP based on monthly charts. The below are all daily charts. Second, I have no idea what is driving prices down at the moment because I do not listen to news. So if you need to know from that perspective, you need another source.

In last weeks post, we saw the S&P 500 fire warning 1. I mentioned that the 50 day moving average, which would be warning 2, was close to falling. This week, warning fired and held since Tuesday. So we look to the S&P 500 and have to be a little concerned because the current pull back in prices have been steady with no reprieve since March 2nd. See the horizontal blue line on the chart above? That is equal to the last pivot low and we really need to see that hold. If it doesn’t, we are heading to the next pivot low which is $1980. That’s another 3% lower and still not a sell signal.

The Small Cap Index has no warnings and is the best looking index we have in the TSP. No warnings or issues on the daily, weekly, or monthly chart. We got a new pivot low formed Friday, so let’s hope prices continue higher next week.

The International Index daily had a devastating week. That green line on the chart is the short term uptrend and it’s steep. Never expected it to hold. But when price falls below that level, it fires a warning. Then Tuesday price fell and closed below the CBL and 50 day moving average. That fired warning 2 and a sell on this chart. Wednesday it confirmed the sell signal and we are still a sell on this chart as of the close Friday. Thursday it looked like we had a new pivot low in the works and that would have given us a new short term trend, but that also failed Friday. What makes things even worse in my mind here is that price is now below the monthly sell level. We still have 12 more trading days in March, so there is plenty of time to reverse this. Weekly this index is still a sell. Technically monthly it is a buy until decision time 3.31.15, but since the other index look sick at the moment, I put the monthly as a hold.

 

Monday Bonds fired a sell and Tuesday it confirmed. Even though price climbed higher all week long, it was not enough to put it back into the buy territory. We did create a new pivot low which is good, but it is lower than the last. Is this a sign of a new downtrend or just a blip? Time will tell. Weekly and monthly, we are still ok but bonds just look week.

This is the second week in a row where most of our indexes were down. The Small Cap did pull out a gain for the week, but monthly it is still down like the rest. I wasn’t looking for much to happen in March as far as gains or losses, but we do need the next two weeks to be positive in order to pull out a gain for the month. For now we mostly just sit back and watch knowing that the markets are under stress.

Below is a look at Oil.

Prices at the pump should have been going down all week. I don’t know about your area, but around where I live they have actually been going up a little. Prices on the Stock market are back at all time lows again. Rumors are flying that we are going down even lower because the markets are flooded with crude oil. Rumor! The last 3 years, prices started rising between May and June and ran higher through September. I still plan on buying a little each month banking on the Saudi’s eventually cutting production and or a hurricane will hit in September in the USA and prices will sore. Seen this game many times since 1974 and this time I would like to make a little coin on it.