What You Might Have Missed Last Week and Over the Weekend
Well, the first full week of August flew by and we'll be "crossing over" to the second half of this final full month of summer on Wednesday. Last week was typical for August, which manages to mask anything going on with that summer "feel" that causes many of us to want to ease up on our daily toil. So what was "masked" this past week?
Well, for sure it wasn't anything related to markets. You might be tempted to say that Thursdays 200+ point tumble in the Dow, supposedly in response to a looming military conflict involving North Korea and the U.S. represented something of significance. That's understandable, especially in light of the hum-drum action in stocks for weeks and the lack of any correction worth its salt, despite constant anticipation of same by many reputable sources. But the next day, the market rallied for a modest (albeit de minimis) gain. And if you look at a simple chart, you'll likely see nothing more than a minor correction to an overbought condition.
That little green schmutz in the "RSI" section at the top of the chart shows the overbought condition. You see the line drop down to the dotted line, which is kind of a neutral condition. In addition, the price remains firmly above the 50-day MA, which remains substantially above the 200-day MA: hardly the stuff of crisis or even temporary trouble. Okay, so MACD looks like it's turning negative (bottom section, black line crossing below red line). But everytime that's happened recently, all we've gotten is mild reversal.<10 a="" an="" and="" back="" br="" ho-hum.="" snap="" to="" trend.="" upward="">
Ditto for all other markets we monitor. Even gold, which seemed to react to the Korean situation, hasn't done much more than drift higher in its recent tight price range. Zzzzz...
On the other hand, the track and field world championships continued all week and that brought us some exciting events, including the women's 100, 110 hurdles, 4x4 for the men and women, Decathlon, etc. The world champs occur only every two years, and what sparkled this time around was the U.S.A team. It dominated, unlike that last world champs. Being a faithful son of America the Beautiful, most news was good news all week, and I enjoyed hearing, reading, and occasionally watching it all unfold. U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A...
As for the potential conflict between the U.S. and the North Korean governments, that continues to brew. In one concrete development, authorities on the island of Guam distributed a 2-page pamphlet of instructions issued by the Office of Civil Defense. It details what to do if North Korea perpetrates a nuclear attack on the island. Scary stuff. Imagine living on Guam and receiving that!
On the extreme other end of the spectrum of events that could impact your life, the weekend brought news that the former great New York Yankee captain Derrick Jeter will be part of a group that purchases the Miami Marlin major league baseball franchise for a cool $1.2 billion. More to the point, apparently Jeter, a limited partner in the investment group, will be in charge of baseball and business operations. For Yankee fans, it's interesting to see this former great player dip more than his big toe back into baseball. Watching him play for all those years, you knew he was more than just a great athlete. Now he'll have the chance to pursue a new chapter in what, at least to this outside observer, a rather interesting life.
So that's it for last week and the weekend: the Good (championships), the Bad (the Korean conflict), the Boring (the markets) and the Somewhat Interesting (Jeter). As for the Ugly, if there was anything of note, we'd rather skip it. The Beautiful just seems so much more appealing, especially during these waning days of summer.
Well, for sure it wasn't anything related to markets. You might be tempted to say that Thursdays 200+ point tumble in the Dow, supposedly in response to a looming military conflict involving North Korea and the U.S. represented something of significance. That's understandable, especially in light of the hum-drum action in stocks for weeks and the lack of any correction worth its salt, despite constant anticipation of same by many reputable sources. But the next day, the market rallied for a modest (albeit de minimis) gain. And if you look at a simple chart, you'll likely see nothing more than a minor correction to an overbought condition.
That little green schmutz in the "RSI" section at the top of the chart shows the overbought condition. You see the line drop down to the dotted line, which is kind of a neutral condition. In addition, the price remains firmly above the 50-day MA, which remains substantially above the 200-day MA: hardly the stuff of crisis or even temporary trouble. Okay, so MACD looks like it's turning negative (bottom section, black line crossing below red line). But everytime that's happened recently, all we've gotten is mild reversal.<10 a="" an="" and="" back="" br="" ho-hum.="" snap="" to="" trend.="" upward="">
Ditto for all other markets we monitor. Even gold, which seemed to react to the Korean situation, hasn't done much more than drift higher in its recent tight price range. Zzzzz...
On the other hand, the track and field world championships continued all week and that brought us some exciting events, including the women's 100, 110 hurdles, 4x4 for the men and women, Decathlon, etc. The world champs occur only every two years, and what sparkled this time around was the U.S.A team. It dominated, unlike that last world champs. Being a faithful son of America the Beautiful, most news was good news all week, and I enjoyed hearing, reading, and occasionally watching it all unfold. U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A...
As for the potential conflict between the U.S. and the North Korean governments, that continues to brew. In one concrete development, authorities on the island of Guam distributed a 2-page pamphlet of instructions issued by the Office of Civil Defense. It details what to do if North Korea perpetrates a nuclear attack on the island. Scary stuff. Imagine living on Guam and receiving that!
On the extreme other end of the spectrum of events that could impact your life, the weekend brought news that the former great New York Yankee captain Derrick Jeter will be part of a group that purchases the Miami Marlin major league baseball franchise for a cool $1.2 billion. More to the point, apparently Jeter, a limited partner in the investment group, will be in charge of baseball and business operations. For Yankee fans, it's interesting to see this former great player dip more than his big toe back into baseball. Watching him play for all those years, you knew he was more than just a great athlete. Now he'll have the chance to pursue a new chapter in what, at least to this outside observer, a rather interesting life.
So that's it for last week and the weekend: the Good (championships), the Bad (the Korean conflict), the Boring (the markets) and the Somewhat Interesting (Jeter). As for the Ugly, if there was anything of note, we'd rather skip it. The Beautiful just seems so much more appealing, especially during these waning days of summer.
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