Friday, February 26, 2021

Personal Spending ... PCE Prices ... Chicago PMI ... Michigan Sentiment … Inflation Will be Out of Control-Schiff ... Coronavirus (Covid-19) … Stock Market Analysis … ETF Trading … Dow 30 Ranking

“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.

 

“The big money is not in the buying and selling. But in the waiting.” - Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway

 

This country was founded by the bayonet; it survives by the ballot.  Those who falsely disparage the honesty of our elections are striking a blow at the foundations of our nation and should be charged with sedition.” – Meade Stith

 
















PERSONAL SPENDING / PCE PRICES (Reuters)

“U.S. consumer spending increased by the most in seven months in January as the government doled out more pandemic relief money to low-income households...Inflation was benign. The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index excluding the volatile food and energy component rose 0.3% after a similar gain in December.” Story at... 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy/us-consumer-spending-rebounds-inflation-muted-idUSKBN2AQ24B

 

CHICAGO PMI (ShareCast)

“The MNI Chicago business barometer fell to 59.5 from January’s two-and-a-half year high of 63.8, missing expectations for a reading of 61.0. A reading above 50.0 indicates expansion...” Story at...

https://www.sharecast.com/news/international-economic/chicago-pmi-ticks-lower-in-february--7826206.html

 

UNIV OF MICHIGAN SENTIMENT (UnivMichigan)

“The Consumer Sentiment Index was 79.0 in the January 2021 survey, just below December’s 80.7 but substantially below last January’s 99.8.” Press release at...

https://news.umich.edu/consumer-expectations-stabilize-despite-partisan-extremes/

 

THE REALITY NOBODY WANTS TO ACKNOWLEDGE (Schiff Gold)

“Wall Street traders are convinced that rising bond yields mean the economy is really strong, and because the economy is really strong, the Fed is going to raise rates sooner rather than later, and a premature tightening is going to push up the dollar, and a strong dollar is going to be bearish for gold.” But Peter [Schiff] said they are completely wrong in this assessment. Bond yields are not spiking because the economy is strong. They are spiking because of inflation.

Bond yields are going up because there is a massive supply of bonds because we have massive deficits. And even though the Fed is buying a lot of bonds, they ain’t buying enough. So, those extra bonds, there’s no buyer, and so the price keeps falling...Simply put, the Fed is not going to fight inflation. It is going to keep stoking the inflationary fire until it’s burning out of control.” – Peter Schiff,  Chief global strategist, Euro Pacific Capital Inc. Commentary at...

https://schiffgold.com/peters-podcast/peter-schiff-the-reality-the-nobody-wants-to-acknowledge/

 

CORONAVIRUS (NTSM)

Here’s the latest from the COVID19 Johns Hopkins website as of 6:00pm Friday. US total case numbers are on the left axis; daily numbers are on the right side of the graph with the 10-dMA of daily numbers in Green.


MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS

-Friday the S&P 500 fell about 0.5% to 3811.

-VIX dropped about 3% to 27.95.

-The yield on the 10-year Treasury dipped to 1.415%.

 

In 1999, the year before the stock market, Dot.com crash, that cut the S&P 500 in half, the TR Price Small Cap Value fund trounced the S&P 500. Currently, the Small Cap Value fund is outperforming the S&P 500, 32% to 14% respectively. Just sayin’...

 

Here’s today’s Friday run-down of some important indicators. These tend to be both long-term and short-term, so they are somewhat different than the 20 that I report on daily.

 

BULL SIGNS

-The 50-dMA % of stocks advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) is above 50%.

-The 100-dMA of the % of stocks advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) is above 50%.

-The S&P 500 is outperforming Utilities ETF (XLU).

-The smoothed advancing volume on the NYSE is rising.

-Cyclical Industrials (XLI-ETF) are outperforming the S&P 500.

 

NEUTRAL

-The Fosback High-Low Logic Index is very bullish. (We’ve seen high new-highs and low new-lows although that s changing.)

-RSI.

-Non-crash Sentiment indicator remains neutral, but it is too bullish and that means it is leaning bearish.

-Bollinger Bands are close to oversold, but are not there yet.

-Breadth on the NYSE compared to the S&P 500 index is neutral.

-The 5-10-20 Timer System is HOLD; the 5-dEMA and 10-dEMA are NOT both above the 20-dEMA. 

-Overbought/Oversold Index (Advance/Decline Ratio).

-The Smart Money (late-day action) is falling. This indicator is based on the Smart Money Indicator (a variant of the indicator developed by Don Hayes).

-We’ve seen 3 up-days over the last 10-days. Neutral.

-There have been 10 up-days over the last 20 days. Neutral

-The size of up-moves has been smaller than the size of down-moves over the last month, but by less than is required to give a signal.

-Statistically, the S&P 500 gave a panic-signal, 27 January. This usually means more downside to come, but the signal has expired.

-The market has broadened out; 7.6% of all issues traded on the NYSE made new, 52-week highs when the S&P 500 made a new all-time-high on 12 Feb. (there is no bullish signal for this indicator.)

-6 Jan, the 52-week, New-high/new-low ratio improved by 4.3 standard deviations – very bullish and also rare. Signal has expired.

-46% of the 15-ETFs that I track have been up over the last 10-days – neutral. This stat is falling sharply so it could be in the Bear category. For now, let’s call it neutral.

 

BEAR SIGNS

-Distribution warnings

-The 10-dMA of stocks advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) is below 50%

-MACD of S&P 500 price made a bearish crossover 22 February.

-MACD of the percentage of stocks advancing on the NYSE (breadth) made a bearish crossover 21 Jan.

-McClellan Oscillator is negative.

-VIX is climbing sharply.

-The S&P 500 is 10.5% above its 200-dMA (Sell point is 12%.); but when Sentiment is considered, the signal is bearish.

-My Money Trend indicator is bearish.

-Long-term new-high/new-low data is falling.

-Short-term new-high/new-low data is falling.

-Slope of the 40-dMA of New-highs is falling.

 

On Friday, 21 February, 2 days after the top of the Coronavirus pullback, there were 10 bear-signs and 1 bull-sign. Now there are 11 bear-signs and 5 bull-signs. Last week, there were 5 bear-signs and 8 bull-signs.

 

The daily sum of 20 Indicators declined from -7 to -8 (a positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the 10-day smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations dipped from -27 to -36 (These numbers sometimes change after I post the blog based on data that comes in late.) Most of these indicators are short-term and many are trend following.

 

The Long Term NTSM indicator ensemble remained to SELL. Sentiment & Price are neutral; Volume & VIX are negative.

 

The S&P 500 closed 0.1% above its 50-dMA.

 

There’s an old saying on Wall Street: “Never on a Friday.” Once the markets get into one of these weekly down-moves, they rarely bottom on a Friday. They typically give participants over the weekend to brood about their losses and then they show up the next Monday in “sell mode.”  This leads to Turning-Tuesday. If the bromide is true this time, we would expect the markets to bottom Monday.   

 

There were signs of a bottom today, Friday; volume was smaller as we made the new-low and market internals improved. It was not enough for me to call a definitive bottom, but for small pullbacks the signals are small.

 

Bottom line: I’ll follow the crowd Monday and increase stock holdings to fully invested if we see a strong move higher. Otherwise, I’ll add some to stock holdings and then wait-and-see. If I can see a definitive bottom on Monday, I’ll post during the day, hopefully well before the close, but it will depend on the numbers.

 

Friday looked a lot like 29 January, the last time the Index dipped to the 50-dMA. The markets bounced strongly higher then; it remains to be seen what will happen this time.

 

MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:

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.

*For additional background on the ETF ranking system see NTSM Page at…

http://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/exchange-traded-funds-etf-ranking.html

 

TODAY’S RANKING OF THE DOW 30 STOCKS (Ranked Daily)

Here’s the revised DOW 30 and its momentum analysis. The top ranked stock receives 100%. The rest are then ranked based on their momentum relative to the leading stock.

For more details, see NTSM Page at…

https://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/a-system-for-trading-dow-30-stocks-my_8.html

 

FRIDAY 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.  

 

Using the Short-term indicator in 2018 in SPY would have made a 5% gain instead of a 6% loss for buy-and-hold. The methodology was Buy on a POSITIVE indication and Sell on a NEGATIVE indication and stay out until the next POSITIVE indication. The back-test included 13-buys and 13-sells, or a trade every 2-weeks on average.  

 

My current stock allocation is about 40% invested in stocks. You may wish to have a higher or lower % invested in stocks depending on your risk tolerance. 40% is a conservative position that I re-evaluate daily.

 

The markets have not retested the lows on recent corrections and that has left me under-invested on the bounces. I will need to put less reliance on retests in the future.

 

As a retiree, 50% in the stock market is about fully invested for me – it is a cautious and conservative number. If I feel very confident, I might go to 60%; if a correction is deep enough, 80% would not be out of the question.

Thursday, February 25, 2021

Jobless Claims ... Durable Orders ... GDP … Coronavirus (Covid-19) … Stock Market Analysis … ETF Trading … Dow 30 Ranking

“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.

 

“The big money is not in the buying and selling. But in the waiting.” - Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway

 

This country was founded by the bayonet; it survives by the ballot.  Those who falsely disparage the honesty of our elections are striking a blow at the foundations of our nation and should be charged with sedition.” – Meade Stith

 



 















JOBLESS CLAIMS (CNBC)

“Jobless claims fell sharply last week despite severe winter storms that swept across Texas and other parts of the South, the Labor Department reported Thursday. First-time filings for unemployment insurance totaled 730,000 for the week ended Feb. 20...” Story at...

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/25/weekly-jobless-claims.html

 

DURABLE ORDERS (ABC News)

“Orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket goods shot up 3.4% in January, pulled up by surge in orders for civilian aircraft.” Story at...

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/orders-us-durable-goods-climb-34-january-76107567

 

GDP – 2ND ESTIMATE (US News)

“THE NATION'S GROSS domestic product increased 4.1% in the fourth quarter, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Thursday.” Story at...

https://www.usnews.com/news/economy/articles/2021-02-25/gdp-rose-41-in-the-fourth-quarter-while-jobless-claims-dropped-sharply-last-week

 

“Gross Domestic Product (GDP). GDP is simply the total amount of spending in an economy. GDP, as currently measured, does not distinguish between “good” spending and “bad” spending. GDP does not distinguish between consumption spending and investment spending. GDP also does not distinguish whether spending is generated by existing wealth, by going into debt temporarily, or by going into debt permanently. In this world, every dollar spent on education or new means of production, is counted the same as every dollar spent on epic bachelor parties and video games.” – Michael Lebowitz, Real Investment Advice

 

CORONAVIRUS (NTSM)

Here’s the latest from the COVID19 Johns Hopkins website as of 6:00pm Thursday. US total case numbers are on the left axis; daily numbers are on the right side of the graph with the 10-dMA of daily numbers in Green.


MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS

-Thursday the S&P 500 fell about 2.5% to 3829.

-VIX jumped about 35% to 28.89.

-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.525%.

 

Yesterday, it appeared that FED Chair Powell said the right things, because the markets reacted with some very positive action. Needless to say, that thought was premature to say the least.

 

I linked a story, Wednesday, that suggested inflation worries were the cause of the current market worries.  If that were true, we’d expect to see gold (GLD) rising.  Today, GLD was down almost 2%, so it doesn’t seem like inflation is the problem. Business-news reports that bond-yields are the cause of the current market weakness. That may be - yields are rising rapidly.

 

Today was another Distribution day and the 5-week total remains 6-distribution days so we still have a bearish “distribution” signal.

 

The S&P 500 is 11.2% above its 200-dMA (Sell point is 12%.); this is below my bearish limit. However, when Sentiment is considered, the signal remains bearish.

 

Today was a statistically significant down-day. That just means that the price-volume move exceeded my statistical parameters. Data shows that a statistically-significant, down-day is followed by an up-day about 60% of the time. 

 

The positive signs I mentioned yesterday are still there. Cyclical Industrials (XLI-ETF) are turning up and are improving vs. the S&P 500; Utilities (XLU-ETF) are underperforming the Index. New-highs are still reasonably high, but the Fosback New-High/New-Logic Indicator is now neutral. Other indicators declined.

 

The daily sum of 20 Indicators declined from zero to -7 (a positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the 10-day smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations dipped from -19 to -27 (These numbers sometimes change after I post the blog based on data that comes in late.) Most of these indicators are short-term and many are trend following.

 

The Long Term NTSM indicator ensemble declined to SELL. Sentiment & Price are neutral; Volume & VIX are negative.

 

The S&P 500 closed 0.6% above its 50-dMA, now 3805. I would wait until that level is broken decisively before making significant portfolio changes. I am not convinced that this downturn is going to turn into a major sell-off. It could, but we don’t really know. The market has broadened out; 7.6% of all issues traded on the NYSE made new, 52-week highs when the S&P 500 made a new all-time-high on 12 Feb. That suggests that the correction will be less than 10%. If the Index falls much below the 50-dMA, it will be time to reconsider.

 

MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:

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.

*For additional background on the ETF ranking system see NTSM Page at…

http://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/exchange-traded-funds-etf-ranking.html

 

TODAY’S RANKING OF THE DOW 30 STOCKS (Ranked Daily)

Here’s the revised DOW 30 and its momentum analysis. The top ranked stock receives 100%. The rest are then ranked based on their momentum relative to the leading stock.

For more details, see NTSM Page at…

https://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/a-system-for-trading-dow-30-stocks-my_8.html

 

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. 

 

Using the Short-term indicator in 2018 in SPY would have made a 5% gain instead of a 6% loss for buy-and-hold. The methodology was Buy on a POSITIVE indication and Sell on a NEGATIVE indication and stay out until the next POSITIVE indication. The back-test included 13-buys and 13-sells, or a trade every 2-weeks on average.  

 

My current stock allocation is about 40% invested in stocks. You may wish to have a higher or lower % invested in stocks depending on your risk tolerance. 40% is a conservative position that I re-evaluate daily.

 

The markets have not retested the lows on recent corrections and that has left me under-invested on the bounces. I will need to put less reliance on retests in the future.

 

As a retiree, 50% in the stock market is about fully invested for me – it is a cautious and conservative number. If I feel very confident, I might go to 60%; if a correction is deep enough, 80% would not be out of the question.

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

New Home Sales ... EIA Crude Inventories ... CASS Freight Index ... Inflation Concerns ... RIA Commentary Excerpt … Coronavirus (Covid-19) … Stock Market Analysis … ETF Trading … Dow 30 Ranking

“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.

 

“The big money is not in the buying and selling. But in the waiting.” - Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway

 

This country was founded by the bayonet; it survives by the ballot.  Those who falsely disparage the honesty of our elections are striking a blow at the foundations of our nation and should be charged with sedition.” – Meade Stith

 

NEW HOME SALES (Reuters)

“Sales of new U.S. single-family homes increased more than expected in January, boosted by historically low mortgage rates and an acute shortage of previously owned houses on the market. New home sales rose 4.3%...” Story at...

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-economy-housing/us-new-home-sales-exceed-expectations-in-january-idUSL1N2KU1LF

 

EIA CRUDE INVENTORIES (EIA)

“U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 1.3 million barrels from the previous week. At 463.0 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 0% below the five-year average for this time of year.” Press release at...

https://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/wpsrsummary.pdf

 

CASS FREIGHT INDEX SHIPMENTS AND EXPENDITURES (CASS Information Systems)

“The shipments component of the Cass Freight Index accelerated to 8.6% y/y growth in January 2021 from 6.7% y/y growth in December...This acceleration takes us another step closer to the strong growth environment which we expect to continue in 2021, due in no small part to easy comparisons. On a two-year stacked basis, the Cass Shipments Index was still 1.6% below January 2019...The strong acceleration in the Cass Expenditures Index continued in January to 19.5% y/y growth from 13.0% in December.”

Press release at...

https://www.cassinfo.com/freight-audit-payment/cass-transportation-indexes/january-2021

My cmt: We note a 10% increase in shipment rates in the chart above. Interesting, that so far, the FED does not see any inflation. There seems to be a lot of inflation (e.g., PPI and Commodities - lumber cost has doubled) that is not showing up in Personal Consumption Expenditures. The next piece suggests that the current market weakness is inflation related.

 

WILL INFLATION JUSTIFY INVESTOR CONCERNS (Financial Times)
“Wall Street is beginning to fret about the prospect of rising inflation...The 10-year break-even rate, a common marker of investors’ inflation expectations, hovered around 2.2 per cent last week, reflecting concerns that a looming $1.9tn stimulus package from the Biden administration, paired with continued loose monetary policy from the Federal Reserve, will eventually lead to stronger inflation.” Story at...

https://www.ft.com/content/84012e15-554c-485c-8064-dbc6b4098bca

 

BLOWING UP THE EVERYTHING BUBBLE (Real Investment Advice)

“The US economy is literally on perpetual life support. Recent events show too clearly that unless fiscal and monetary stimulus continues, the economy will fail and, by extension, the stock market...What the average person fails to understand is that the next “financial crisis” will not just be a stock market crash, a housing bust, or a collapse in bond prices...It could be the simultaneous implosion of all three...I am not saying with certainty it will happen, as I hope sanity prevails and actions are taken to mitigate the consequences. Unfortunately, history suggests such is unlikely to be the case.” - Lance Roberts, Chief Portfolio Strategist/Economist for RIA Advisors. Commentary at...

https://realinvestmentadvice.com/technically-speaking-blowing-up-the-everything-bubble/

 

CORONAVIRUS (NTSM)

Here’s the latest from the COVID19 Johns Hopkins website as of 7:00pm Wednesday. US total case numbers are on the left axis; daily numbers are on the right side of the graph with the 10-dMA of daily numbers in Green.


MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS

-Wednesday the S&P 500 rose about 1.1% to 3926.

-VIX fell about 8% to 23.11.

-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.397%.

 

Monday and Friday were both Distribution days and the 5-week total was 6-distribution days so we got a bearish “distribution” signal on Monday. I am not a big fan of this indicator, but it does suggest that we are in a down-trend until we see other signs of a trend change. Volume was not high enough to flip this indicator positive today.

 

In addition, there is one bearish top-indicator: The S&P 500 is a bearish 14.1% above its 200-dMA (Sell point is 12%.); when Sentiment is considered, the signal is also bearish.

 

Today was a statistically significant up-day. That just means that the price-volume move exceeded my statistical parameters. Data shows that a statistically-significant, up-day is followed by a down-day about 60% of the time. 

 

Still, there are some good bull-signs. Cyclical Industrials (XLI-ETF) are turning up and are improving vs. the S&P 500; Utilities (XLU-ETF) are underperforming the Index. These indicate that investors don’t seem worried about a correction or recession. New-highs jumped up today after some weakness earlier.

 

The daily sum of 20 Indicators improved from -6 to zero (a positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the 10-day smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations dipped from -17 to -19 (These numbers sometimes change after I post the blog based on data that comes in late.) Most of these indicators are short-term and many are trend following.

 

The Long Term NTSM indicator ensemble remained HOLD. Volume, VIX, Sentiment & Price are neutral.

 

Apparently, FED Chair Powell said the right things. The markets reacted upward today with some very positive action. I’m guessing that the pullback is postponed.  I plan to watch market action Thursday. I’ll add to stock holdings if the markets are trending upward.  I’ll wait a bit longer if the market action is weak.     

 

MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:

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.

*For additional background on the ETF ranking system see NTSM Page at…

http://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/exchange-traded-funds-etf-ranking.html

 

TODAY’S RANKING OF THE DOW 30 STOCKS (Ranked Daily)

Here’s the revised DOW 30 and its momentum analysis. The top ranked stock receives 100%. The rest are then ranked based on their momentum relative to the leading stock.


For more details, see NTSM Page at…

https://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/a-system-for-trading-dow-30-stocks-my_8.html

 

WEDNESDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)

Market Internals improved to 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. 

 

Using the Short-term indicator in 2018 in SPY would have made a 5% gain instead of a 6% loss for buy-and-hold. The methodology was Buy on a POSITIVE indication and Sell on a NEGATIVE indication and stay out until the next POSITIVE indication. The back-test included 13-buys and 13-sells, or a trade every 2-weeks on average. 



My current stock allocation is about 40% invested in stocks. You may wish to have a higher or lower % invested in stocks depending on your risk tolerance. 40% is a conservative position that I re-evaluate daily.

 

The markets have not retested the lows on recent corrections and that has left me under-invested on the bounces. I will need to put less reliance on retests in the future.

 

As a retiree, 50% in the stock market is about fully invested for me – it is a cautious and conservative number. If I feel very confident, I might go to 60%; if a correction is deep enough, 80% would not be out of the question.

Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Consumer Confidence ... Hussman Commentary excerpt … Coronavirus (Covid-19) … Stock Market Analysis … ETF Trading … Dow 30 Ranking

“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.

 

“The big money is not in the buying and selling. But in the waiting.” - Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway

 

This country was founded by the bayonet; it survives by the ballot.  Those who falsely disparage the honesty of our elections are striking a blow at the foundations of our nation and should be charged with sedition.” – Meade Stith

 

CONSUMER CONFIDENCE (Conference Board)

“The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index® improved again in February, after increasing in January. The Index now stands at 91.3 (1985=100), up from 88.9 in January. The Present Situation Index—based on consumers’ assessment of current business and labor market conditions—climbed from 85.5 to 92.0. However, the Expectations Index—based on consumers’ short-term outlook for income, business, and labor market conditions—fell marginally, from 91.2 last month to 90.8 in February...

...’After three months of consecutive declines in the Present Situation Index, consumers’ assessment of current conditions improved in February,” said Lynn Franco, Senior Director of Economic Indicators at The Conference Board. “This course reversal suggests economic growth has not slowed further. While the Expectations Index fell marginally in February, consumers remain cautiously optimistic, on the whole, about the outlook for the coming months. Notably, vacation intentions—particularly, plans to travel outside the U.S. and via air—saw an uptick this month, and are poised to improve further as vaccination efforts expand.’”  

https://www.conference-board.org/data/consumerconfidence.cfm

 

DETACHED PARABOLAS (Hussman Funds)

“Nothing so animates a speculative herd as a parabolic price advance in an asset detached from any standard of value. I am convinced that future generations will use the present moment to define the concept of a reckless speculative extreme, in the same way our generation uses “1929” and “2000”...On Wall Street, urgent stupidity has one terminal symptom, and it is the belief that money is free. Investors have turned the market into a carnival, where everybody “knows” that the new rides are the good rides, and the old rides just don’t work...Even at those pre-crash extremes, the S&P never sold above 20 times record earnings. The market clearly faces problems at a multiple of 32...” – John P. Hussman, Ph.D., March 7, 2000...

 

...The current situation would not be as dangerous if the stocks in the highest valuation deciles accounted for a small percentage of S&P 500 market capitalization. Unfortunately, that is not the case.  The largest S&P 500 components by market capitalization have eclipsed the price/revenue multiples observed among the largest stocks at the 2000 pre-collapse peak, while the smallest S&P 500 components have eclipsed the price/revenue multiples observed at the 2007 pre-collapse peak. As my friend Jesse Felder puts it, this is an “everything” bubble.” John Hussman, Phd. Commentary at...

https://www.hussmanfunds.com/comment/mc210201/

 

CORONAVIRUS (NTSM)

Here’s the latest from the COVID19 Johns Hopkins website as of 6:00pm Tuesday. US total case numbers are on the left axis; daily numbers are on the right side of the graph with the 10-dMA of daily numbers in Green.


MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS

-Tuesday the S&P 500 rose about 0.1% to 3877.

-VIX slipped about 1% to 23.11.

-The yield on the 10-year Treasury dipped to 1.349%.

 

“Distribution” in the stock market refers to the increased selling of stock by large institutions. It is indicated by down days greater than 0.2% that occur on more volume than the previous day. It is thought that four to six days of distribution over a period of four or five weeks, are often enough to turn a previously advancing market into decline. For my purposes, I look for more than 5 distribution-days over a 5-week period to give a bearish signal. The signal is cancelled by a statistically-significant, up-day, on higher volume than the previous day.

 

Yesterday (Monday) and Friday were both Distribution-days and the 5-week value was 6 distribution-days so we got the bearish signal yesterday. I am not a big fan of this indicator, but it does suggest that we are in a down-trend until we see other signs of a trend change.

 

The daily sum of 20 Indicators remained -6 (a positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the 10-day smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations dipped from -5 to -17 (These numbers sometimes change after I post the blog based on data that comes in late.) Most of these indicators are short-term and many are trend following.

 

The Long Term NTSM indicator ensemble remained HOLD. Volume, VIX, Sentiment & Price are neutral.

 

It seems that we are in a bit of a pullback.  We’ll see what happens at the 50-dMA.  The last time we were there, 29 Jan, the S&P 500 bounced strongly upward. We may get lower this time, but I doubt that it will get too much smaller.  The breadth was pretty good at the last all-time high on the Index, and that suggests a pullback of less than 10%. The 50-dMA is now 3793, about 2.2% lower than today’s close.

 

I am still conservatively positioned, but I did add the XLE-ETF 10 Feb.  I won’t rush to add more stocks, but I may bump stock holdings up to get to 50%, fully invested, if I can identify a buy signal.

 

MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:

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.


*For additional background on the ETF ranking system see NTSM Page at…

http://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/exchange-traded-funds-etf-ranking.html

 

TODAY’S RANKING OF THE DOW 30 STOCKS (Ranked Daily)

Here’s the revised DOW 30 and its momentum analysis. The top ranked stock receives 100%. The rest are then ranked based on their momentum relative to the leading stock.

For more details, see NTSM Page at…

https://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/a-system-for-trading-dow-30-stocks-my_8.html

 

TUESDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)

Market Internals dropped to BEARISH 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. 

 

Using the Short-term indicator in 2018 in SPY would have made a 5% gain instead of a 6% loss for buy-and-hold. The methodology was Buy on a POSITIVE indication and Sell on a NEGATIVE indication and stay out until the next POSITIVE indication. The back-test included 13-buys and 13-sells, or a trade every 2-weeks on average.  

 

My current stock allocation is about 40% invested in stocks. You may wish to have a higher or lower % invested in stocks depending on your risk tolerance. 40% is a conservative position that I re-evaluate daily.

 

The markets have not retested the lows on recent corrections and that has left me under-invested on the bounces. I will need to put less reliance on retests in the future.

 

As a retiree, 50% in the stock market is about fully invested for me – it is a cautious and conservative number. If I feel very confident, I might go to 60%; if a correction is deep enough, 80% would not be out of the question.