“The U.S. economy’s pace of growth in the second quarter
was raised to 3.1% from 3% under the government’s latest revisions to gross
domestic product.” Story at…
JOBLESS CLAIMS (FoxBusiness)
“The number of Americans applying for new unemployment
benefits rose last week, at least partially reflecting job loss due to
hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Initial jobless claims, which reflect nationwide layoffs,
rose by 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 272,000 in the week ended Sept. 23…”
Story at…
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Thursday the S&P 500 was up about 0.1% to 2510.
-VIX slipped about 3% to 9.55.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 2.308%.
My sum of 17 indicators was up to +4 on the day from +3
yesterday. My smoothed version of the 10-day version of this indicator is still
bullish. There are some bearish signs though.
RSI is overbought; the Bollinger Bands are nearly
overbought; Money Trend has turned down; the old advance/decline ratio remains
overbought. The extreme low VIX is a concern too. We could see some short-term
slack or even a pullback of 3-5% start soon. Currently, my indicators are not very negative, so I'm not worried, but a
correction is always possible.
I remain bullish longer-term. One wonders when this party
will end so I will worry if the numbers deteriorate, but I remain fully
invested. There isn’t any news now that signals a bear market and long-term
indicators remain neutral.
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…
Aerospace and Defense (ITA) remained #1 today. I am in
ITA as of 21 Sept.
Avoid XLE; its 120-day moving average is still falling.
SHORT-TERM TRADING PORTFOLIO - 2017 (Small-% of the
total portfolio)
LONG
-“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
THURSDAY 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
Thursday, the Price
indicator was positive; Sentiment, VIX & Volume indicators were neutral.
With VIX recently below 10 for a couple of days in May, June, July, August and
September, VIX may be prone to incorrect signals. Usually, a rising VIX is a
bad market sign; now it may move up, but that might 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) 24 March
2017 in my long-term accounts, based on short-term indicators. The remainder
is 50% G-Fund (Government securities). This is a conservative retiree
allocation, but I consider it fully invested for my situation.
