“Americans shopping for a house are facing an
intensifying set of pressures: Fewer and fewer homes are being listed for sale,
while prices are climbing at a pace that most incomes can't possibly match. The
May sales report released Wednesday by the National
Association of Realtors shows
a housing
market unable to meet
the demand from would-be buyers. Sales edged up 1.1 percent in May to a
seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.62 million…” Story at…
CRUDE INVENTORIES (OilPrice.com)
“With WTI slipping into a bear market, global floating
oil storage at a record
high for this year,
and Libya getting closer to its target of 1 million barrels of oil daily,
things can hardly get any worse for oil prices. The EIA today, however, offered
a tiny sliver of hope by reporting a 2.5-million-barrel draw in crude oil
inventories.” Story at…
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Crude-Inventory-Draw-Offers-Sliver-Of-Hope-For-Oil-Markets.html
ATA TRUCKING UP (American Trucking Assoc.)
“American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally
adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 6.5% in May, following a
1.5% decline during April…Compared with May 2016, the SA index increased 4.8%,
which was the largest year-over-year gain since November.” Press release at…
My cmt: No recession here.
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Wednesday the S&P 500 was down about 0.1% to 2436.
-VIX was down about 1% to 10.75.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 2.152%.
New-Lows are now greater than New-Highs. That’s a pre-requisite for a correction.
Doesn’t mean we’ll see one, but it is necessary for one to occur. This stat is
usually a slow one that lags rather than leads. This time it switched negative just
2-days after the recent all-time high.
Advancing volume is falling; breadth (% of stocks
advancing) is falling; closing tick (sum of last trades of the day) was -677; Money
Trend is drifting down; The sum of 17-indicators is down on a smoothed basis; Smart
money (late-day-action) is falling. Bottom line – indicators continue to get more
bearish, but not drastically so.
Long term, I’m cautiously bullish; I will worry more in
late-summer and into early fall.
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily)
The top ranked ETF receives 100%. The rest are then
ranked based on their momentum relative to the leading ETF. While momentum isn’t stock performance per
se, momentum is closely related to stock performance. For example, over the 4-months
from Oct thru mid-February 2016, the number 1 ranked Financials (XLF) outperformed
the S&P 500 by nearly 20%.
*For additional background on the ETF ranking system see
NTSM Page at…
Over the last 3-days there have been 3 different ETFs
ranked #1. Today is was Health Care (XLV). Yesterday’s highest ranked ETF (ITA)
slipped to #3. I’ve been waiting for a clear leader to get back in. Perhaps it
will be Health Care. It was up 4.1% today, possibly based on comments from
CNBC. Utilities, XLU, was #2. Strong Utilities often means trouble.
I would avoid XLE; its 120-day moving average is falling.
SHORT-TERM TRADING PORTFOLIO - 2017 (Small-% of the
total portfolio)
Neutral with no positions recommended. - 5/24/2017
thru present.
I am still not bullish enough to take a long position in
the trading portfolio.
-“In a bull market, you can only be long or neutral.”
– D. Gartman
-“The best policy is to avoid shorting unless a major
bear market is underway and downside momentum has been thoroughly established.
Even then, your timing must sometimes be perfect. In a bull market the trend is
truly your friend, and trading against the grain is usually a fool's
errand.” – Clif Droke.
-“Commandment #1: “Thou Shall Not Trade Against the Trend.” - James P. Arthur Huprich
WEDNESDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)
Market Internals
remain Neutral on the market.
Market Internals are a decent trend-following analysis of
current market action, but should not be used alone for short term trading.
They are usually right, but they are often late. They are most useful when they diverge from
the Index. In 2014, using these
internals alone would have made a 9% return vs. 13% for the S&P 500 (in on
Positive, out on Negative – no shorting).
LONG TERM INDICATOR
Wednesday, Price is positive; Volume, Sentiment & VIX
indicators were neutral. (With VIX
recently below 10 (May and June), VIX may be prone to incorrect signals.
Usually, a rising VIX is a bad market sign; now it may just signal
normalization of VIX, i.e., VIX and the Index may both rise. As an indicator,
VIX is out of the picture for a while.)
MY INVESTED STOCK POSITION:
TSP (RETIREMENT ACCOUNT – GOV EMPLOYEES) ALLOCATION
I increased
stock allocation to 50% stocks in the S&P 500 Index fund (C-Fund) Friday,
24 March 2017 in my long-term accounts, based on short-term indicators.
Remainder is 50% G-Fund (Government securities). This is a conservative retiree
allocation, but I consider it fully invested for my situation.
