Monday, April 23, 2012

Why I'm Not in Panic

Do not listen to the pundits on TV today.  They all seem to be in panic.  I find the best benchmark for the market is the Value Line Index.  The Index is an arithmetic index of the 1700 largest stocks and covers over 95% of the entire US stock market capitalization.  The best long term indicator in my opinion is the 50 - 100 Day Moving Average Convergence-Divergence (MACD) Oscillator.  Back Testing has shown this to be the most reliable technical indicator as the table prepared by Barchart shows:


Value Line Index ($VLA)

2,933.58 -46.38 (-1.56%) Monday, Apr 23rd, 2012 12:44P EST

Trading Strategies / Performance View Help

Indicator Total Number
of Trades
Average Days
Per Trade
Total Profit
from Trades
TrendSpotter 39 Trades 43 Days/Trade 70,701.00
7 Day Average Directional Indicator 205 Trades 10 Days/Trade -87,140.00
10-8 Day Moving Average Hilo Channel 236 Trades 6 Days/Trade -170,309.00
20 Day Moving Average vs Price 176 Trades 11 Days/Trade -337,399.00
20 - 50 Day MACD Oscillator 34 Trades 57 Days/Trade -5,942.00
20 Day Bollinger Bands 100 Trades 3 Days/Trade -168,568.00
40 Day Commodity Channel Index 91 Trades 9 Days/Trade -131,467.00
50 Day Moving Average vs Price 104 Trades 19 Days/Trade 15,600.00
20 - 100 Day MACD Oscillator 13 Trades 144 Days/Trade 167,723.00
50 Day Parabolic Time/Price 133 Trades 15 Days/Trade -256,765.00
60 Day Commodity Channel Index 79 Trades 11 Days/Trade -138,055.00
100 Day Moving Average vs Price 63 Trades 30 Days/Trade 17,759.00
50 - 100 Day MACD Oscillator 13 Trades 144 Days/Trade 179,679.00


Please look at this chart of the Value Line Index vs it's 20, 50 and 100 day moving averages plus the Barchart Trend Spotter and the 14 day high/low turtle channel:


Notice that the 100 day moving average still has steady upward momentum and the lower 14 day turtle channel hasn't really shown a break through the 2900 level.

Although short term indicators show sell signals the long term indicators are still positive.  The market is only 6.91% from its 1 year high.

Summary:  If you have stocks that have fallen 10% and you feel that the fundamentals on the stock are shaky them sell them and sit it out for awhile.  I wouldn't reinvest the cash at this time.  Now is a good time to trim deadwood and WAIT - Don't Panic!

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