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Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey and Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott are finalists for NFL Most Valuable Player and Offensive Player of the Year, awarded by the Associated Press.

A panel of 50 media members who cover the league voted before the postseason began. The winners will be announced on Feb. 8 during the NFL Honors, which are held at the Resorts World Theatre in Las Vegas and will be broadcast starting at 9 p.m. ET on CBS and NFL Network.

Jackson, who won the MVP award in 2019, threw for 3,678 yards and 24 touchdowns and added 821 yards and five touchdowns on the ground, leading the Ravens to the league’s best record.

Here are the finalists for the awards:

Most Valuable Player

Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens

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Christian McCaffrey, San Francisco 49ers

Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys

Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills

Brock Purdy, San Francisco 49ers

Offensive Player of the Year

Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens

Christian McCaffrey, San Francisco 49ers

Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys

Tyreek Hill, Miami Dolphins

CeeDee Lamb, Dallas Cowboys

Defensive Player of the Year

Myles Garrett, Cleveland Browns

Micah Parsons, Dallas Cowboys

DaRon Bland, Dallas Cowboys

Maxx Crosby, Las Vegas Raiders

T.J. Watt, Pittsburgh Steelers

Offensive Rookie of the Year

C.J. Stroud, Houston Texans

Sam LaPorta, Detroit Lions

Jahmyr Gibbs, Detroit Lions

Puka Nacua, Los Angeles Rams

Bijan Robinson, Atlanta Falcons

Defensive Rookie of the Year

Will Anderson Jr., Houston Texans

Jalen Carter, Philadelphia Eagles

Kobie Turner, Los Angeles Rams

Joey Porter Jr., Pittsburgh Steelers

Devon Witherspoon, Seattle Seahawks

Coach of the Year

Kevin Stefanski, Cleveland Browns

DeMeco Ryans, Houston Texans

Dan Campbell, Detroit Lions

Kyle Shanahan, San Francisco 49ers

John Harbaugh, Baltimore Ravens

Comeback Player of the Year

Joe Flacco, Cleveland Browns

Baker Mayfield, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Matthew Stafford, Los Angeles Rams

Tua Tagovailoa, Miami Dolphins

Damar Hamlin, Buffalo Bills

Assistant Coach of the Year

Jim Schwartz, Cleveland Browns

Ben Johnson, Detroit Lions

Mike Macdonald, Baltimore Ravens

Todd Monken, Baltimore Ravens

Bobby Slowik, Houston Texans

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What a reward. After putting the clamps on one of the NFL’s most dangerous quarterbacks in surviving the AFC divisional playoffs, the Kansas City Chiefs’ defense has earned quite the encore act: Try to stop Lamar Jackson.

Sure, Josh Allen was quite the load. Again. But that was so last week.

Now comes the dynamic Baltimore Ravens quarterback, the presumptive NFL MVP, with a whole different set of issues to deal with in the AFC championship game. If the 6-foot, 5-inch, 237-pound Allen was like facing a freight train, the sleek and slippery Jackson looms like a high-speed bullet train.

‘Lamar is special,’ Chiefs coach Andy Reid confirmed. ‘He’s fast, one of the fastest guys on the field, when it’s all said and done. And he’s shifty, whereas Josh, he’ll go right through you. He doesn’t care. He’s a big man. And probably equally as fast. He’s run away from secondary players. We’ve seen that on tape.

‘But this kid,’ Reid added, getting back to Jackson, ‘he throws it well, he throws it on the move well. We’ve just got to stay on top of that part of it.’

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Hey, this is the time of year when the challenges get more difficult by the week. Jackson, a premier multi-dimensional threat since he stepped into the NFL, is arguably better now than he was as a unanimous MVP in 2019. He’s mastered the offense installed by first-year coordinator Todd Monken. Inside or outside the pocket, he has become a more-efficient passer, evidenced by career highs this season with 3,678 passing yards and a 67.2% completion rate.

During Baltimore’s playoff-opening win, Jackson repeatedly made the Houston Texans pay for their heavy dose of blitzes while throwing for a modest 152 yards. And oh, as proven repeatedly, he burned them with his legs, too. In rushing for a game-high 100 yards, Jackson dazzled by bolting up the middle on explosive runs.

The Chiefs are naturally wary. Bracing for such a threat, safety Justin Reid said the mission will be to ‘try to contain him in the pocket as much as we can, make sure that we get him on the ground those times that he does run.’

That is certainly easier said than done, yet the Chiefs have to feel that their chances of slowing Jackson — and his array of weapons — are better than ever. Kansas City’s trek to a sixth consecutive AFC title game has come with quite the twist, as the improved defense often took up the slack as the typically prolific Chiefs offense sputtered.

During the Patrick Mahomes Era, the Chiefs have never had such an imposing defense. Kansas City ranked second in the NFL for fewest yards allowed and second (to Baltimore) for scoring defense in allowing 17.3 points per game.

That marks quite an ascent under D-coordinator Steve Spagnuolo. In Mahomes’ first year as a starter in 2018, the Chiefs ranked 31st for total defense. In reaching the Super Bowl in three of the past four seasons (winning twice), Kansas City’s defense never ranked better than 11th. 

Conversely, the Mahomes-led offense ranked ninth for yards and 15th in scoring (21.8 points per game) during the regular season. During the previous five years, the Chiefs fielded the NFL’s No. 1 offense three times and twice led the league in scoring, including the 29.2 points-per-game clip in 2022. Until this season, Kansas City’s offense hasn’t ranked worse than sixth in either yards or scoring.

So yes, led by the defense, the Chiefs used a different formula to get back to this point.

While all-pro defensive tackle Chris Jones is still a constant, bringing an imposing presence (and inside pass-rush) up front, a key reason for the improvement has come on the back end. With cornerback L’Jarius Sneed blossoming into a star, often matched against the top receiver, the maturity of young defensive backs meshing with savvy veterans has also been a factor.

‘Nobody tries to play Hero Ball,’ said Justin Reid, a sixth-year veteran. ‘We just play the defense with intensity and a little bit of violence, and good things happen.’

In the divisional playoff win at Buffalo, the Chiefs didn’t allow a single completion beyond 15 yards. Although the Bills missed on a couple of deep shots, the coverage generally relegated Allen to throw underneath passes. Heading into the game, Spagnuolo praised his secondary for its ability to disguise coverages while limiting big plays. That will be an intriguing subplot on Sunday, particularly considering the result last weekend.

‘We’ve got guys that can truly play off each other,’ second-year nickel back Trent McDuffie said. ‘There’s times I’m supposed to have a flat, but I see my corner take the flat. ‘Ok, I’m going to roll inside.’

‘Little stuff like that. When you watch on film, it’s, ‘Oh, that’s the defense.’ But we’re able to create defenses on our own while we’re out there.’

It figures that beating the Ravens will take a few extra layers of creativity. While the Chiefs haven’t allowed more than 27 points in a game this season, Baltimore has scored at least 30 points in nine games, including postseason. And the Ravens have demonstrated quite the knack for raising their game against the best competition. Their nine victories by at least two touchdowns against teams with winning records is most in NFL history.

Andy Reid knows what all that means for his improved defense.

‘This coming week,’ he said, ‘will be the biggest test of them all.’

This post appeared first on USA TODAY
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Former President Trump’s decisive victory in the New Hampshire primary this week spurred several new endorsements from lawmakers on Capitol Hill who have so far been silent on the race.

Among the most notable pivots was House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good, R-Va., who endorsed Trump over the weekend minutes after his preferred candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, dropped out of the race.

As of Thursday afternoon, Trump has more than 120 House Republican endorsements – the majority of the House GOP Conference and far outpacing former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley’s one backer.

Fox News Digital took a look at some of the senior House Republicans who have yet to weigh in despite mounting calls to unify behind the former president.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky.

Comer has not weighed in on the 2024 presidential primary publicly so far. It’s worth noting his hands have been full on Capitol Hill leading an impeachment inquiry into Trump’s rival, President Biden.

Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith, R-Mo., who are also leading the inquiry, have both endorsed Trump. 

Fox News Digital reached out to Comer’s office but did not immediately hear back.

HALEY AND PHILLIPS OUTPERFORMED IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, BUT IT’S STILL A TRUMP VS BIDEN HORSE RACE 

Problem Solvers Caucus co-Chair Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa.

Fitzpatrick, a more moderate member from a Pennsylvania swing district, also hasn’t picked a side in the 2024 primary.

When Trump was indicted in June over his handling of classified documents, Fitzpatrick was one of the few Republicans who did not rush to his defense. The former FBI agent urged people to respect the legal process and not rush to judgment.

‘No one is above the law or beyond prosecution,’ he said. ‘No one should be targeted for prosecution merely because of their status, position or affiliation.’

Fitzpatrick’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash.

McMorris Rodgers is seen as one of House Speaker Mike Johnson’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, but unlike Johnson, R-La., she has yet to weigh in on the 2024 presidential primary race. Johnson endorsed Trump late last year.

In December 2019, she was named a state honorary co-chair for Trump’s reelection bid, according to the Spokesman-Review newspaper.

She made clear there was some distance between them after the 2021 U.S. Capitol riot, reportedly telling constituents in August 2023 that efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss that day were ‘un-American.’

But she reportedly said, ‘I also believe that Donald Trump, or any American, deserves due process.’

Fox News Digital reached out to McMorris Rodgers’ campaign for comment.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas

Roy went into the 2024 presidential primary cycle as one of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ most enthusiastic supporters. But unlike Freedom Caucus Chair Good, Roy has not stepped behind Trump so far in the two-candidate race. 

Trump threatened to recruit a primary challenger against Roy, who is popular in his district and running unopposed, for his support of Trump’s former rival.

Roy said on CNN in late December, ‘I was just at multiple events with Ron DeSantis, where he’s shaking their hands and looking them in the eye while Donald Trump hangs out in his basement in Florida, afraid to actually debate.’

He said on ‘Fox Across America’ on Thursday that Trump is ‘likely going to be the nominee’ and called on him to ‘stand up in defense of the hardworking American family getting steamrolled by corporate America and by Republicans too weak-kneed to fight for them.’

Roy’s office pointed to his earlier comments when reached by Fox News Digital on Thursday afternoon.

GOP Conference Vice Chair Blake Moore, R-Utah

Moore stepped into House leadership after a crowded race for a position left by Johnson when he took the gavel in October.

He’s rarely spoken out about Republican Party politics in the 2024 presidential primary, preferring to keep election discussions focused on the House of Representatives.

With his recent leadership role, Moore is also the highest-ranking House Republican to have voted in favor of a Sept. 11-style bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Fox News Digital tried to contact his campaign but did not immediately hear back.

Fox News Digital also reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.

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Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is facing growing calls for her to leave the 2024 presidential race as the Republican National Committee (RNC) nearly considered a resolution to declare former President Trump the party’s presumptive nominee for president in 2024.

Trump trounced his rivals with convincing wins in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary this month, and experts agree there is likely little hope for Haley, the only alternative to the former president remaining in the race, in the upcoming South Carolina primary despite it being her home state.

During an appearance on Fox News immediately following Trump’s New Hampshire victory on Tuesday, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was the first to publicly state it was time for Haley to make her exit.

‘In my view, the general election really begins tonight. I think the Republican primary, for all intents and purposes, is over tonight. And I think the party and the country are better off if we see that for what it is,’ he said.

RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel followed shortly after, also telling Fox News she didn’t see a path for Haley going forward.

‘I think she’s run a great campaign, but I do think there is a message that’s coming out from the voters which is very clear: We need to unite around our eventual nominee, which is going to be Donald Trump, and we need to make sure we beat Joe Biden,’ she said.

‘It is 10 months away until the November election, and we can’t wait any longer to put out foot on the gas to beat the worst president, to beat a president that’s kept our borders open, allowed fentanyl to pour through, allowed inflation to go rampant. He is hurting the American people, and we need to do everything we can to unite so that we can defeat him,’ she added.

Others quickly fell in line, including Andy Sabin, a major Republican donor, who said Haley needs to heed the advice of the late country singer Kenny Rogers and ‘know when to walk away,’ and Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., a Trump supporter, told Fox there was ‘no path’ for her to move forward.

Sens. JD Vance, R-Ohio, Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., and House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., have also called for Haley to end her campaign.

The increased calls for Haley to leave the race come as the RNC was set to consider a resolution that, if approved, would have declared Trump to be the party’s presumptive nominee for president. Fox News Digital obtained a copy of the resolution on Thursday, but it was later withdrawn.

Haley’s campaign told Fox News Digital it was up to the millions of Republican voters across the country to decide who the party’s nominee will be, ‘not a bunch of Washington insiders.’

‘Who cares what the RNC says?’ Haley campaign spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said. ‘If Ronna McDaniel wants to be helpful, she can organize a debate in South Carolina, unless she’s also worried that Trump can’t handle being on the stage for 90 minutes with Nikki Haley.’

In a statement, RNC spokesperson Keith Schipper said, ‘Resolutions, such as this one, are brought forward by members of the RNC. Chairwoman McDaniel doesn’t offer resolutions. This will be taken up by the Resolutions Committee, and they will decide whether to send this resolution to be voted on by the 168 RNC members at our annual meeting next week.’

Trump addressed the resolution ahead of its withdrawal, expressing gratitude on Truth Social to those supporting it, but declaring he wanted to win the nomination through support from voters.

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FIRST ON FOX: A nonpartisan election integrity watchdog has released a detailed report outlining over a dozen ‘critical reforms’ that need to be undertaken in states across the U.S. leading up to the 2024 election in order to ‘secure voter integrity.’

We believe very strongly in making it easier to vote and harder to cheat, and in order to do that, there’s a comprehensive set of basic rules and safeguards that I believe every state should adopt and should follow,’ Honest Elections Project (HEP) Executive Director Jason Snead told Fox News Digital about the ‘Safeguarding Our Elections’ report released on Friday.

‘We’ve built everything in this report out over the last few years, talking with experts, working with states, seeing what works and what doesn’t work, just as importantly, and then trying to bring it all together into a single, consolidated, concise piece of literature that you can drop this on the desk of lawmaker, and they can go out and they can get these reforms passed and make their elections work better the voters.‘

The report calls for ‘honest rules for honest elections’ and lists 14 main areas that states should address, including banning ranked choice voting, blocking ‘Zuck Bucks 2.0,’ banning non-citizens from voting in elections, consolidating election dates, requiring voter ID, and protecting vulnerable mail ballots.

The Honest Elections Project has long spoken out against left-wing nonprofit organizations funneling money into elections across the country, including what is known as ‘ZuckBucks’ and its latest iteration, which is known by critics as ‘ZuckBucks 2.0.’

‘Elections should be accountable to the public, not to special interest groups and liberal megadonors,’ the report states. ‘In 2020, left-wing nonprofits pumped more than $400 million from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg into thousands of election offices, giving more money to places that ultimately voted for Joe Biden.’

‘Dozens of states have banned or restricted private election grants, but the same left-wing group behind ‘Zuck Bucks’ in 2020, the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), has already created a new $80 million program, the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, to skirt these laws and influence election offices across America.’

The report also discusses what is known as ranked choice voting, which HEP says should be banned by each individual state.

‘RCV makes it harder to vote, harder to understand the results of elections, and harder to trust the voting process,’ the report states. ‘States across the country are banning RCV and dissatisfied cities are repealing it, but a coordinated campaign driven by left-wing megadonors is promoting RCV to skew politics to the left.’

We’ve seen at this point possibly a dozen states are facing ballot measure fights to bring ranked choice voting to future elections,’ Snead told Fox News Digital. ‘We’ve seen Zuck Bucks 2.0 launch in earnest and they’ve got the new $80 million program. We wanted to make sure that those issues were elevated for policymakers and for folks in the media as well, so that they can understand what these new threats and challenges are.’

Recent polling shows that a vast majority of Americans oppose foreign influence in elections, which Honest Elections Project says occurs in the United States despite laws on the books against it.

‘Federal and state laws bar candidates and campaigns from receiving foreign donations, but these laws generally do not apply to ballot measures,’ the report states. ‘Left-wing groups like the 1630 Fund routinely pour tens of millions into ballot measure campaigns while simultaneously accepting substantial donations from foreign nationals such as Hansjörg Wyss.’

Fox News Digital has reported extensively on Wyss and other liberal dark money networks funneling tens of millions into elections promoting left-wing causes.

Across the country, states like Ohio, Utah, Oklahoma, Mississippi and others have made moves to tighten election integrity, and Snead told Fox News Digital that many of the changes recommended in the report can be made fairly easily.

Ohio and Georgia have taken action against issues recommended in the report since the beginning of this year.

A lot of states are looking for what to do this year that doesn’t involve significant rewrites of election law, doesn’t raise the age-old concern that you’ll get from election clerks and officials that you’re changing things in the middle of an election and that it’s a potential disruptor,’ Snead told Fox News Digital. ‘You can ban ranked choice voting, you can shut off Zuck Bucks 2.0, you can shut off foreign influence in elections by closing foreign influence in polls at the state level. You can bring process audits to your elections and empower secretaries of state to actually go in and make sure that election laws are being followed. None of that is disruptive to elections and it will have meaningful positive impacts for security, transparency and public confidence in the voting process.‘

Snead said the report is not based on ‘platitudes’ or ‘virtue-signaling’ but rather information that is thoroughly researched and ‘backed up’ in order to serve as a handbook or guide to state governments and legislatures on how to ensure their elections are as secure as possible.

‘I hope at least that as far as 2024 is concerned, things will work better than they did in 2020,’ Snead said. ‘We certainly don’t have a global pandemic hanging over us; that alone is a big boon. But there’s still a lot that can go sideways and, of course, in the future, we always need to be mindful of how we can keep improving our elections.’

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Germany Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned that the country is not ready to defend itself from the security problems that will face Europe in the future.

Boris Pistorius, who has frequently called for Germany to become ‘war ready’ since taking the helm last year, questioned the country’s readiness.

‘Are we seriously ready to defend this country in an emergency? And who is this ‘we’? This debate has to be had,’ Pistorius told solider at a military academy in Hamburg, according to The Guardian, citing German-publication Tagesspiegel.

Pistorius added that the peace and freedom that the majority of Europe had enjoyed was ‘no longer an irrefutable certainty.’

He argued that Germany was being ‘more strongly and actively challenged than ever as an active participant in security and policy’.

The defense minister’s comments come as recent leaked Germany documents show that Russia could expand its war on Ukraine by attacking NATO ally countries next year.

German newspaper BILD published classified documents outlining how Germany plans to prepare for an offensive by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The outlet based its claims on information obtained from the German Ministry of Defense and said armed forces in Europe are preparing for an attack by Russia on Eastern Europe, which could include a cyber offensive.

Fox News’ Greg Wehner contributed to this report.

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On this week’s edition of Stock Talk with Joe Rabil, Joe shares his five steps to becoming a better stock picker. He emphasizes the importance of starting with price and using technical analysis to identify potential outperforming stocks. From analyzing monthly and weekly charts to looking at momentum indicators, Joe provides valuable insights to help traders make informed decisions. Join him as he breaks down the process, and also shares his thoughts on the week’s viewer-requested ticker symbols, including Bitcoin, PYPL, and more. Don’t miss out on this valuable lesson and make sure to subscribe for more stock analysis.

This video was originally published on January 25, 2024. Click this link to watch on StockCharts TV.

Archived episodes of the show are available at this link. Send symbol requests to stocktalk@stockcharts.com; you can also submit a request in the comments section below the video on YouTube. Symbol Requests can be sent in throughout the week prior to the next show. (Please do not leave Symbol Requests on this page.)

Are you feeling a bit of FOMO seeing how the SEC’s approval boosted crypto and other crypto-related assets? Well, don’t. There might be an opportunity for a bullish trade with the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US: Coinbase (COIN).

Coinbase’s stock is correlated to Bitcoin and it’s likely to benefit from this new regulatory development. Coinbase is in a downswing, but it’s worth adding the chart to your ChartList and watch for it to land and reverse.

Finding COIN Through a StockCharts Ichimoku Scan 

The good news is that Coinbase was one of the stocks filtered in the StockCharts scan Entered Ichimoku Cloud on Wednesday.

Why this particular scan? Because entering the cloud already pimples a pullback, and it allows you to see the projected bullishness of the price through the color and thickness of the cloud under the prevailing price and projected 26 periods ahead.

COIN presented an intriguing possibility in light of the SEC’s recent actions. Let’s analyze the stock’s technical environment.

COIN: The Technical Scenario

If you’re bullish on crypto and looking to invest in the exchange, start with a birds-eye view of COIN’s price action before drilling down to specific entry points.

The chart below shows COIN’s price trajectory since its IPO launch in April 2021. Note its relatively close correlation to Bitcoin ($BTC), represented by the black line on the chart.

CHART 1. WEEKLY CHART OF COIN. Notice how closely COIN’s price follows Bitcoin’s ($BTCUSD) movements.Chart source: StockCharts.com. For educational purposes.

The above chart captures COIN’s price action from its IPO launch. Note the blue horizontal line connecting the highs of August 2022 and July 2023. These highs and the series of swing lows throughout 2022 and 2023 marked a wide and long-term trading range that COIN couldn’t break above until November 2023.

But while this trading range appeared relatively static, lacking strong upward momentum, the Chaikin Money Flow (CMF), in contrast, rose dramatically (see red arrow tracing the upward path of the CMF levels). As you know, CMF measures buying/selling pressure of a stock. And in this case, the shift from heavy selling to increased buying indicated a bullish shift that wasn’t as pronounced in the price chart alone.

Those who were looking at the longer-term weekly chart might have anticipated the possibility (then) that COIN potentially bottomed at the beginning of 2023, as the CMF finally crossed the zero line into positive territory.

Currently, COIN is in a downswing, but support may be found at the previous resistance level that marked its November breakout. But to get a clearer picture, let’s look at the daily chart to drill down further and find an entry point.

The daily chart below includes the Stochastic Oscillator in the lower panel. The oscillator indicates that the price is at the oversold level. As the scan indicates, COIN has entered the Ichimoku Cloud, which often serves as a support (or in bearish cases, resistance).

CHART 2. DAILY CHART OF COIN. The Fib Retracement, Cloud, and Stochastic Oscillator give a green light for a “long” entry.Chart source: StockCharts.com. For educational purposes.

What’s important is the larger context surrounding the price’s entry into the kumo (Ichimoku cloud). On a weekly scale, there is an increase in buying pressure, as measured by the CMF supporting COIN’s longer-term uptrend. The cloud color is green, and its range has more or less thickened as projected 26 periods from the current day.

To fine-tune the pullback’s measure, note the Fibonacci retracement levels from October 2023 to the December high.

Bullish traders might find the favorable range of entry now, but, as far as pinpointing an ideal entry point, you’d want to see a strong reversal candle in the next few sessions before committing to a long position. Assuming that your entry point is at or above $115.05, which is where the 61.8% Fib retracement level is located, you’d want to place a stop loss below $115, which is also the lower end of the (rising) cloud.

The Bottom Line

The landscape for Coinbase (COIN) looks promising from the fundamental and regulatory end, considering the SEC’s approval for multiple Bitcoin ETFs. Technically, every indicator applied to the chart gives a clear bullish green light on an entry. Of course, it’s important to enter any position cautiously, as several factors can change the market dynamics and investor sentiment.

Final thoughts: Scans are important. In addition to the Ichimoku scan, hundreds of other scans are available in StockCharts. Try them out and see which ones align with your investment goals. Predefined scans are a good starting point, but you can also create your scans.

How To Run an Ichimoku Scan (or any technical scan)

Log in to your StockCharts accountGo to Your Dashboard and, in the Member Tools window, scroll down to Reports & More and click on Sample Scan Library.The Ichimoku Patterns are in the Candlestick Patterns section. Click the Run button next to the scan (in this case, Entered Ichimoku Cloud) and you’ll see a list of the filtered stocks and ETFs.

Disclaimer: This blog is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice. The ideas and strategies should never be used without first assessing your own personal and financial situation, or without consulting a financial professional.

In this edition of StockCharts TV‘s The Final Bar, Dave breaks down the chart of Intel Corp (INTC) to demonstrate the benefits of three important technical indicators: Moving Averages, Relative Strength Index (RSI) and Relative Strength. He shares why a disciplined process of interpreting these indicators can help investors better understand price action, along with how to set up this layout on the StockCharts platform.

This video originally premiered on January 25, 2024. Watch on our dedicated Final Bar page on StockCharts TV!

New episodes of The Final Bar premiere every weekday afternoon. You can view all previously recorded episodes at this link.

Nearly everyone, from the Federal Reserve to big-bank chiefs, thought a recession was likely to hit last year. Instead, 2023 delivered better-than-expected economic growth and falling inflation — welcome news for Wall Street investors and 401(k) holders alike.

All three major stock indexes closed higher on Thursday after new federal data showed the United States’ economy grew by an estimated 2.5% over the course of 2023, defying widespread predictions that gross domestic product would rise by a languid 0.7%.

While economic output has slowed in recent months, investors’ growing optimism that the Fed will cut interest rates this year has helped power the stock market to record highs. The S&P 500 is up more than 2% at the start of this year, after jumping 26% last year. Now, many Americans whose only toehold in markets are their retirement accounts are getting in on the good times, too.

The San Francisco skyline rises behind a bank of cranes and shipping containers at the Port of Oakland.Justin Sullivan / Getty Images file

The average 401(k) balance rose to $107,700 by the third quarter of 2023, up 11% from the year before, according to the latest update from Fidelity Investments, one of the largest retirement plan providers in the nation. That growth appears to have encouraged many savers last year to sit back and relax as markets rose, rather than tinker with their allocations.

Human resources provider Alight found that net trading activity in 401(k) plans has quieted down, falling to a rate of 0.82% last year from 1.27% in 2022 — and down substantially from 3.51% in 2020, the year the pandemic slammed into markets.

The recent gains also lured account holders further into stocks, which comprised an average 70.5% of 401(k) portfolios by year’s end, up from 68.2% at the start of 2023, according to Alight data.

Of course, the stock market is hardly a mirror of the economy as a whole, with share prices rising and falling for many reasons unrelated to macroeconomic trends. And personal finance experts caution against checking your 401(k) balance in panic when markets plummet, or in jubilation when they soar. Retirement savings are meant to be held over the long term and typically reward the patient; the S&P 500 has risen 172% over the last decade, despite many short-term swings.

But for now, last year’s surprisingly strong economic growth has been a welcome development after a steady drumbeat of gloomy expectations.

“The outperformance was really driven by consumer spending that was much stronger than expected, and the main source of support for consumer spending was a resilient labor market,” EY-Parthenon Chief Economist Gregory Daco said.

Retail spending, a litmus test for households’ budgets for goods (like apparel) and services (like dining out), rose 4.8% between December 2022 and December 2023. Despite worries that Americans had burned through cash built up during the pandemic, Thursday’s data showed personal savings expanding as a percentage of disposable income, to 4.5% in 2023 from 3.3% in 2022, driven by rising wages and a robust job market.

“If you have a job and if that job is still paying you well, relative to pre-pandemic, then it’s unlikely that you’re going to be seeing any form of recession,” Daco said.

Stock markets took off as companies dodged a much-feared nosedive in consumer activity, which accounts for about two-thirds of the economy. The S&P 500’s massive gains were largely driven by tech-heavy giants like Nvidia, Meta and Tesla, but smaller companies have also been cheered that households are still spending at a healthy clip.

While Wall Street analysts still broadly expect the stock market to keep rising, many foresee a softer year ahead.

“This does not mean growth will not slow further,” Moody’s Analytics Senior Director Scott Hoyt said in a note after the GDP data landed Thursday.

A recent Bloomberg survey found forecasters expect the S&P 500 to rise to 4,950 by year-end, a 3.8% upside from where the index ended last year. Recession risks haven’t evaporated, either. Some analysts warn that 2024 could see things sour for both the economy and the stock market — potentially imperiling those higher 401(k) figures.

BCA Research said in December that it expects the S&P to fall as much as 27% this year, predicting that the Fed’s rate hikes haven’t fully sunk in across the economy and will further pressure households as resumed student loan payments continue and high credit card rates bite.

“A slowdown in consumer spending is imminent,” the firm said. At the same time, the BCA analysts admitted they had “underestimated the strength of the U.S. consumer coming into 2023.”

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