The ongoing conflict in Ukraine again led to a volatile market, but at Fridays bell the S&P 500 closed down at 4328. Tuesday and Wednesday saw S&P 500 moves of over 1% down and up, and geopolitical events overshadowed economic data. Inflation continues upward with West Texas Intermediate crude settling at $115.68/barrel on Friday, the highest since September 2008. As a result, the national average for regular gas stood at $3.83/gallon, the highest since 21 September 2012. Friday also brought the February jobs report, which was strong with 678,000 jobs added and the unemployment rate ticking down to 3.8%. Next week we have inflation and consumer sentiment numbers coming in, followed by the Fed meeting and possible rate hike decision on 16 March. For TSP TIPS, the Performance Ranking (PR) of all four individual funds (C/S/I/F) is negative. The I fund stood out in that it was down 7.39% for the week, and also made a new 52 week low. We also had a subscriber ask, When will we get back in the market? Since some of you might have a similar thought, a fund 1) must have a positive PR and 2) using a set of two short-term Moving Averages (MA), 2a) the fund price must be above both those MA's and 2b) those two MA's are sloping upward. That said, we are making no changes to our current allocation.
The ongoing conflict in Ukraine again led to a volatile market, but at Fridays bell the S&P 500 closed down at 4328. Tuesday and Wednesday saw S&P 500 moves of over 1% down and up, and geopolitical events overshadowed economic data. Inflation continues upward with West Texas Intermediate crude settling at $115.68/barrel on Friday, the highest since September 2008. As a result, the national average for regular gas stood at $3.83/gallon, the highest since 21 September 2012. Friday also brought the February jobs report, which was strong with 678,000 jobs added and the unemployment rate ticking down to 3.8%. Next week we have inflation and consumer sentiment numbers coming in, followed by the Fed meeting and possible rate hike decision on 16 March. For TSP TIPS, the Performance Ranking (PR) of all four individual funds (C/S/I/F) is negative. The I fund stood out in that it was down 7.39% for the week, and also made a new 52 week low. We also had a subscriber ask, When will we get back in the market? Since some of you might have a similar thought, a fund 1) must have a positive PR and 2) using a set of two short-term Moving Averages (MA), 2a) the fund price must be above both those MA's and 2b) those two MA's are sloping upward. That said, we are making no changes to our current allocation.