TSP Daily charts as of Friday September 4th

To say August 2015 was a back breaker is putting it lightly. How quickly we forget the last 6 1/2 year run where we basically only had 2 major pull backs if you call them that. One was 9% in 2010 and the other was 20% in 2011. Since that time, the market has risen without hardly a bump up 98%. So this little burp that we had in August and looking at the big picture, was just a little give back. You have to learn to take the good with the bad and roll with it. So let’s look where the daily charts are now and see where we are.

  The S&P 500 is still in the unknown mode except for the fact that it is a sell, daily, weekly, and monthly. How do you invest here knowing that unless you’re bottom fishing. Your retirement account is not a gambling account, so be wise. We need long term trends to be confirmed to be invested.

You can click and open the S&P weekly chart above and see that we are just 3 weeks into the last sell signal. Look for the red down arrow. This is the first sell signal fired since August 2011. That to me is another signal that bottom fishing here is risky. Is this down trend that we just entered done? According to this chart it is early and maybe too early for chances.

Above is the long range monthly chart for the S&P and you can also see the last sell was in 2011. We broke down through the intermediate uptrend line last month and we could fall as low as the primary uptrend line. This is the bigger picture of where we are and what we could expect. Support for September according to the monthly chart is 1699. That’s 11% below current price level as of Friday. Just be aware of this information.

So the knowing all of these facts, it’s hard for me to bottom fish and even agree that it might be time for the early move if you dare.

    The Small Cap daily is almost an exact replica of the S&P 500. We the exception that we have a short term downtrend line that is drawn on the lower pivot highs. So we have more confirmed structure here to the downside. Both the Small Cap and S&P, the 50 day moving average is falling and price is below the ma. We do have a new buy line on the daily and S&P, but by itself it means almost nothing. WE need price to be above that level and above the 50 day ma. So lot’s of work to be done. Lastly, price will have to close above that downtrend line.

Below you will see the weekly and monthly charts for the Small Cap and you can see we are in the same condition there as we are on the S&P 500. Small Cap support for September is 13% below current price levels today.

Once again, be careful bottom fishing here.

The International index is also in trouble and shows no signs of life. What is worse that looking at the weekly and monthly charts a new primary downtrend line has been formed. So we have a short term down trend on the daily and a primary.

Opening the International weekly chart above it is easy to see the lower pivot high and the new trend line drawn from it. This is not a very good sign for the I-fund and will take awhile to reverse into an uptrend.

Above is the monthly chart for the International just so you can see the long range trends.

Bonds. If you are going to bottom fish, this is the place. Bonds fired a daily buy signal a few weeks back and is grinding but holding steady. Friday, warning 2 was dropped when price closed back above the 50 day ma. We still need work here because we have a very shaky short term uptrend somewhat working and a short term downtrend still working. You could argue that we have a wedge forming and we will break out soon. I still think it is to early to jump in, but at least I can argue for the bottom fishing.

Weekly and monthly you can see that we are still in the sell mode so be careful. I think support is there at the current levels, so a further drop in prices is very unlikely.

Conclusion: Bonds is the only index we have that doesn’t look like it could collapse even further. I think September is going to be a good month to sit on the sidelines and just watch to see what happens. I’m sure there will be a few that want to go fishing here and hope that there guess is right, but I’m not playing. Hope you all are safe and waiting for safer waters to invest in.