The Morning Call + Friday's NFP number + the student loan bubble

The Market

Technical

Monday Morning Chartology

The S&P closed slightly below the lower boundary of its short term up trend, though not by much. That said, the DJIA is well below its comparable lower boundary. Barring improvement today (which early futures trading suggest won’t happen) in the S&P, VIG is gone.





GLD recovered Thursday, though it remains close to the lower boundary of its short term trading range. At the moment, our Portfolios have made no transactions in GLD.




The VIX remains below the upper boundary of its short term down trend and above the lower boundary of its intermediate term trading range. I have also marked a very short term up trend. All in all, I judge this chart as pretty inconclusive.




Stock Trader’s Almanac issues a Sell signal (short):
http://blog.stocktradersalmanac.com/post/Official-Seasonal-MACD-Sell-Signal-Triggers-for-DJIA-DIA-SPX-SPY


Economics

This Week’s Data

Other

Chart of the day (short):
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/dont-show-chart-president

Goldman on Friday’s nonfarm payroll number and what it could mean (long but today’ must read):
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/its-latest-nonfarm-payroll-mea-culpa-goldman-stumbles-answer-and-changes-rules-game

The latest from Mohamed El Erian (medium):
http://advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/pimco_40412.php

Martin Feldstein on the Fed’s policy dilemma (medium):
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/fed-policy-and-inflation-risk

A positive read on manufacturing jobs (short):
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2012/04/strong-gains-in-manufacturing.html

Is the end near for the student loan bubble (medium):
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/did-jpmorgan-pop-student-loan-bubble

Politics

Domestic

Why nobody believes that there is no room for budget cuts (short):
http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/03/obama-shocked-shocked-by-spending-spree/

More government lard (short):
http://michellemalkin.com/2012/04/06/energy-green-loan/

Political word games (medium):
http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2012/04/04/political_word_games

And speaking of double standards (short):
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/author/byron-york

Steve Cook received his education in investments from Harvard, where he earned an MBA, New York University, where he did post graduate work in economics and financial analysis and the CFA Institute, where he earned the Chartered Financial Analysts designation in 1973. His 40 years of investment experience includes institutional portfolio management at Scudder, Stevens and Clark and Bear Stearns. Steve's goal at Strategic Stock Investments is to help other investors build wealth and benefit from the investing lessons he learned the hard way.