The S&P 500 made it two consecutive weeks of gains, building on Novembers Thanksgiving weeks bullish momentum, as it closed Friday at 6,870. Monday was the first trading day of December, and the markets opened on a down note with the S&P 500 giving back all of Fridays gains. However, at Tuesdays open the S&P 500 started another leg up buoyed by a rise in tech stocks throughout the session. On Wednesday we started a run of both public and private economic information as the latest ADP jobs figures reflected a surprising decline in November private payrolls. As such, the markets reacted positively with hopes of a Fed rate cut next week, and a second day of gains for the S&P 500. This Fed cut hope continued into Thursday as the latest weekly jobless claims numbers showed new applications for unemployment insurance at their lowest level since September 2022, and a third day of gains for the S&P 500. And that same Fed hope continued into Friday as Septembers core personal consumption expenditures (CPE) price index showed an annual rate of 2.8%, lower than the 2.9% estimate. Meanwhile, monthly core PCE rose 0.2%, in line with expectations and the S&P 500 edged higher, securing its fourth straight winning day. From a technical perspective the S&P 500 is now up in nine of the last ten trading days, and this weeks highs and lows were higher than the previous weeks. Last week we also mentioned that the S&P 500 10 day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) should cross above its 20 Day Simple Moving Average (SMA) and there was a strong possibility we would also see a bullish weekly Heikin Ashi candle reversal, and both of those events occurred. And take into the fact that the S&P 500 is only 20 points shy of its 28 October record close, and fueled by a possible Fed rate cut on Wednesday, this could transition to another bullish breakout into year end. For TSP TIPS we went 100% in equities in all three models on Monday and feel we are well positioned for that possible bull breakout. As such we recommend no changes in our current investment mixes. Finally, last week we mentioned that, it looks like Mutual Fund Window (MFW) TIPS might be giving us a buy signal this week so stand by for an alert. Well that buy signal happened on Friday 5 December, and we sent out that alert this morning for fund purchase on Monday morning, 8 December. Please check out the MFW TIPS app for more specifics.
The S&P 500 made it two consecutive weeks of gains, building on Novembers Thanksgiving weeks bullish momentum, as it closed Friday at 6,870. Monday was the first trading day of December, and the markets opened on a down note with the S&P 500 giving back all of Fridays gains. However, at Tuesdays open the S&P 500 started another leg up buoyed by a rise in tech stocks throughout the session. On Wednesday we started a run of both public and private economic information as the latest ADP jobs figures reflected a surprising decline in November private payrolls. As such, the markets reacted positively with hopes of a Fed rate cut next week, and a second day of gains for the S&P 500. This Fed cut hope continued into Thursday as the latest weekly jobless claims numbers showed new applications for unemployment insurance at their lowest level since September 2022, and a third day of gains for the S&P 500. And that same Fed hope continued into Friday as Septembers core personal consumption expenditures (CPE) price index showed an annual rate of 2.8%, lower than the 2.9% estimate. Meanwhile, monthly core PCE rose 0.2%, in line with expectations and the S&P 500 edged higher, securing its fourth straight winning day. From a technical perspective the S&P 500 is now up in nine of the last ten trading days, and this weeks highs and lows were higher than the previous weeks. Last week we also mentioned that the S&P 500 10 day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) should cross above its 20 Day Simple Moving Average (SMA) and there was a strong possibility we would also see a bullish weekly Heikin Ashi candle reversal, and both of those events occurred. And take into the fact that the S&P 500 is only 20 points shy of its 28 October record close, and fueled by a possible Fed rate cut on Wednesday, this could transition to another bullish breakout into year end. For TSP TIPS we went 100% in equities in all three models on Monday and feel we are well positioned for that possible bull breakout. As such we recommend no changes in our current investment mixes. Finally, last week we mentioned that, it looks like Mutual Fund Window (MFW) TIPS might be giving us a buy signal this week so stand by for an alert. Well that buy signal happened on Friday 5 December, and we sent out that alert this morning for fund purchase on Monday morning, 8 December. Please check out the MFW TIPS app for more specifics.