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Market Direction Is Important –
Updated Chart of the S&P 500 and Secondary Signals
Of our Four secondary indicators under our MTI:
Relative Strength Index (RSI)-Positive
Chaikin Money Flow (CMF)-Negative
MACD- Positive
Money Flow Index-MFI-Positive
More on the Market and the Economy:
Stocks ended higher on Friday, with the S&P 500 finishing the week up .6%, marking its second straight weekly advance.
Source: dshort.com
This week data will be released on new home sales, pending home sales, construction spending, manufacturing, consumer spending and GDP.
The Fed’s latest FOMC meeting minutes showed that officials were more positive about the economic outlook as they see “substantial underlying economic momentum”. Officials also “anticipated that the rate of economic growth in 2018 would exceed their estimates of its sustainable longer-run pace and that labor market conditions would strengthen further”.
The Conference Board’s leading economic index rose 1% in January, and “continues to point to robust economic growth in the first half of 2018. While the recent stock market volatility will not be reflected in the U.S. LEI until next month, consumers’ and business’ outlook on the economy had been improving for several months and should not be greatly impacted. The leading indicators reflect an economy with widespread strengths coming from financial conditions, manufacturing, residential construction, and labor markets”, according to the Conference Board.
Existing home sales dropped 3.2% in January to an annual rate of 5.38 million, the second straight monthly decline and the biggest drop in 3 years. According to the National Association of Realtors, “the utter lack of sufficient housing supply and its influence on higher home prices muted overall sales activity in much of the U.S. last month. While the good news is that realtors in most areas are saying buyer traffic is even stronger than the beginning of last year, sales failed to follow course and far lagged last January’s pace. It’s very clear that too many markets right now are becoming less affordable and desperately need more new listings to calm the speedy price growth”.