Issue link: http://www.insightdigital.biz/i/180153
in foc us trending Tapering away … Is the recovery sustainable? Direction of recent data telling O ver the past month, the markets have been busy digesting the Fed's intention to begin tapering away some of the $3 trillion of economic stimulus enacted since late 2008. While the initial impact to the markets began very broadly, the eventual damage has been limited mainly to the real estate market, the mortgage lending sector and to the bond market. That's not to say that we're done talking about the taper. In fact, further deterioration in this month's clearTREND U.S. Economic Health IndexTM is clear: only 63 percent of U.S. economic sectors are currently expanding, 30 percent are neutral and 6 percent are contracting. Since the beginning of September, this index has weakened considerably and may be a preview of further deterioration down the road. "The data is pretty clear: much of the economic recovery of the past five years has been engineered by stimulus," says Mark Scheffler of The Appleton Group. "And the results have been pretty spotty: Unemployment is coming down, but the quality of new jobs is quite poor; incomes are up as a whole, but not for the low and middle class. And overall economic growth is quite small compared to the debt we've created along the way. Is this recovery sustainable? We'll soon find out." Sector Focus Health Insurance: Industry Leaders (Publicly Traded) Description Ticker Trend Began Confidence Aetna Inc AET 9/17/12 80.20% Centene Corp CNC 2/27/13 79.04% Cigna Corp Coventry Health Care Inc CI 8/23/12 82.65% CVH 7/26/12 80.00% Express Scripts Holding Co ESRX 12/17/12 81.63% Humana Inc HUM 4/22/13 82.01% UnitedHealth Group Inc UNH 1/16/13 84.21% Wellpoint Inc WLP 1/24/13 87.64% Workforce Training: Industry Leaders (Publicly Traded) Ticker Trend Began Confidence GPX 6/21/12 78.79% KELYA 6/26/13 78.48% KFY 5/7/13 74.19% Learning Tree International LTRE 8/21/13 71.71% Manpower Inc MAN 5/17/13 74.23% Robert Half International Inc RHI 8/2/13 80.58% SkillSoft PLC SKIL 2/19/10 77.91% clearTREND U.S. Economic Health Index: Description TrueBlue Inc TBI 9/13/13 75.55% Stable: 30% 63% Expanding: 63% Kelly Services Korn/Ferry International Contracting: 6% GP Strategies Corp This index measures more than 130 unique U.S. market sectors to determine how many are expanding, stable, or contracting. More than 50% of expanding sectors are healthy, while less than 50% are not. Shawano/Waupaca Top Employment Sectors Description Poor Fair Good Excellent Data as of 9/16/2013 Key: = uptrend = downtrend Ticker = trading symbol (individual securities only) Trend Began = date on which current trend was identified Confidence = clearTREND's historic success rate in generating capital gains based on accurate trend identification 50 | Insight • O c t o b e r 2 013 Trend Began Confidence Index Agribusiness Sector 8/29/13 85.71% Food Producers Sector 8/17/12 94.34% Gambling Sector 8/15/13 89.09% General Retailers Sector 1/18/13 99.00% Health Care Providers Sector 1/11/13 90.91% Iron & Steel Sector 7/31/13 86.79% Publishing Sector 5/28/13 92.16% Recreational Services Sector 5/16/13 96.55% Restaurants & Bars Sector 12/28/12 88.00% w w w. i n s i g h t o n b u s i n e s s . c o m