“Several Fed officials voiced concern over the effect
that their recent measures were having on financial market [and] …that keeping
policy loose was posing increasing risks to financial stability and the
economy.” Story at…
FACTORY ORDERS (Reuters)
“New orders for U.S.-made goods fell more than expected
in May, but orders for capital equipment were a bit stronger than previously
reported, suggesting the manufacturing sector remained on a moderate growth
path. Factory goods orders dropped 0.8 percent…” Story at…
SMOOTHED NEW-HIGHS ARE FALLING – SUGGESTING TROUBLE
….but no guarantee – they could reverse upward and the
signal is not always correct. None are.
FIXING COMPUTER PROBLEMS ON OLDER WINDOWS 7 SYSTEMS
As I have noted several times my laptop has been acting
up causing start-up problems and inability to run programs after getting the
computer started, often after multiple tries and restarts/shut-downs. When
running the “Check for performance issues” in the “Troubleshooting” application
in Control Panel, I found “Superfetch” was not always running. I took the
following advice from the internet. “Click the Windows Orb (Start), type %SystemRoot%\Prefetch and press Enter. Now delete everything.” I deleted all FILES not the folder within the Superfetch folder. Computer
is working better now. We’ll see.
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Wednesday the S&P 500 was up about 0.2% to 2433.
-VIX slipped about 1% to 11.07.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury dipped to 2.322%.
Today’s numbers were weak in spite of the upward finish:
Declining stocks outpaced Advancing stocks by nearly 2 to 1; declining volume
was nearly double the advancing volume; the spread (New-highs – new-low) slipped
too. Given the numbers I’d expect the S&P 500 to finish somewhat lower
tomorrow.
Overall though, not much changed. Signals aren’t strong either
way. Short-term it still looks like a small pullback is likely, but certainly
not guaranteed. Longer-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…
Today Biotechnology (IBB) remained #1; but Healthcare (XLV) is close behind.
Either would be OK at this point.
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
remained 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, Sentiment was negative. Price, Volume, &
VIX indicators were neutral. (With VIX
recently below 10 for a couple of days (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.
