“The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits
jumped to a more than two-year high last week amid a surge in applications in
hurricane-ravaged Texas, but the underlying trend remained consistent with a
strong labor market.” Story at…
PRODUCTIVIY/LABOR COSTS (RTTNews.com)
“The Labor Department said labor productivity climbed by
1.5 percent in the second quarter…unit labor costs rose by 0.2 percent during
the quarter compared to the previously reported 0.6 percent growth.” Story at…
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Thursday the S&P 500 slipped a point to 2465.
-VIX dropped about 1% to 11.55.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 2.047%.
This is another “ditto” report. Not much has changed. Price and Internals
were pretty much flat on the day. Overall though, Market Internals remain
bullish; the old standby advance-decline ratio remains “overbought.”
As noted previously, the sum of 17-indicators was little
changed today, but the 10-day value shows a vastly brighter view of the
markets. It indicates the markets have improved a lot in the last 10-days.
Late-day action was up today, but the general direction
remains down to neutral on a longer-term basis. In theory, this shows that the
Pros are worried…perhaps it will turn around soon since it did improve slightly.
Overall the short-term indicators remain bullish today.
Longer-term, I’m cautiously bullish; I will worry more 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…
Biotechnology (IBB) remained #1 today. Avoid XLE &
XLF; their 120-day moving averages are falling.
SHORT-TERM TRADING PORTFOLIO - 2017 (Small-% of the
total portfolio)
LONG
I haven’t been doing much trading recently. I do own SSO
(2xS&P 500 ETF) that I established 23 July. My trading has been so bad recently
that I didn’t want to encourage anyone to follow my example so I didn’t post it
here.
-“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 Positive 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, Price,
Sentiment, VIX & Volume indicators were neutral. With VIX recently
below 10 for a couple of days (May, June, July and August), 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.
