“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
“In my decades of investing experience, I have not seen
such mindless and uninformed speculation as I have witnessed recently. Indeed, in nominal
dollar terms...it is far in excess of the dot.com boom.” – Doug Cass.
“The Senate ought not act rashly by changing its rules to
satisfy a strong-willed majority acting in the heat of the moment…Proponents of
the ‘nuclear option’ argue that their proposal is simply the latest iteration
of a growing trend towards majoritarianism in the Senate. God save us from that
fate, if it is true…Adopting the ‘nuclear option’ would change this fundamental
understanding and unbroken practice of what the Senate is all about. Senators
would start thinking about changing other rules when they became “inconvenient.”
…Altering Senate rules to help in one political fight or another could become
standard operating procedure, which, in my view, would be disastrous.” - Senator
Joe Biden defending the filibuster in 2005.
“The foundation for the filibuster today can be traced to
an argument by former Vice President Aaron Burr that led to a change in the
early 1800s. The minority has used versions of the rule to block or force
consensus on controversial legislation, ranging from war actions to oil
mandates. It was not created in the Jim Crow era.” – From... https://jonathanturley.org/2021/03/29/democrats-cannot-erase-the-history-or-hypocrisy-of-the-filibuster/
CONSUMER CONFIDENCE (Conference Board via PRnewswire)
“The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index® surged
in March to its highest reading in a year, after a modest increase in February.
The Index now stands at 109.7 (1985=100), up from 90.4 in February...‘Consumer
Confidence increased to its highest level since the onset of the pandemic
in March 2020," said Lynn Franco, Senior Director of Economic Indicators at
The Conference Board. "Consumers' assessment of current conditions and
their short-term outlook improved significantly, an indication that economic
growth is likely to strengthen further in the coming months. Consumers' renewed
optimism boosted their purchasing intentions for homes, autos and several
big-ticket items. However, concerns of inflation in the short-term rose,
most likely due to rising prices at the pump, and may temper spending intentions
in the months ahead.’" Press release at...
JIM EAGLE AND GEORGIA’S VOTING LAW (WSJ)
“Georgia passed its over-hyped voting law on Thursday,
and the news was met with more of the same. President Biden said at his news
conference that the voting bills percolating in GOP state Legislatures are
“un-American,” “sick,” “pernicious,” and worse: “This makes Jim Crow look like
Jim Eagle.”
C’mon, man, as Mr. Biden likes to say. The comparison is
grotesque, and seeing that only requires swimming sideways for a minute to
escape the rip current of the media narrative. Take a look at what’s actually
in the legislation—and what isn’t.
Georgia’s new law leaves in place Sunday voting, a point
of contention with earlier proposals... [it] expand[s] weekend early voting
statewide, by requiring two Saturdays instead of only one under current law...[it]
also leaves in place no-excuses absentee voting...it gets rid of signature
matching, so election workers aren’t trying to verify mail ballots by comparing
John Hancocks...Instead of signature matching, voters will submit a state ID
number with their mail ballots or applications...Much hay is being made about a
provision that prevents third parties from giving gifts, including “food and
drink” to those standing in line at the polls. But the point is to prevent
activists from showing up in union shirts—or National Rifle Association shirts,
for that matter—and passing out drinks and snacks, with some subtle
electioneering thrown in...Democrats aren’t smearing Georgia because they
believe their “Jim Crow” nonsense. Their strategy is to play the race card to
justify breaking the Senate filibuster, so they can jam through their election
reform known as H.R.1 and overrule 50 state voting laws.” See the full piece
at...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/jim-eagle-and-georgias-voting-law-11616799451
My cmt: Did I say I hate all politicians?
CORONAVIRUS (NTSM)
Here’s the latest from the COVID19 Johns Hopkins website
as of 6:15pm 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. There
was another big jump in numbers today. The 10-dMA of new daily cases is about
60,000. Today there were over 90,000 new cases.
“A single dose of Pfizer’s or Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine was
80% effective in preventing coronavirus infections, according to a new Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention study of vaccinated health-care workers.” Story at...
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Tuesday the S&P 500 fell
about 0.1% to 3971.
-VIX dipped about 5% to 19.61.
-The yield on the 10-year
Treasury rose to 1.722%.
On the NYSE, advancers
outpaced decliners by nearly 2 to 1; advancing volume outpaced declining volume
by more than 2 to one; VIX declined 5%; and the spread between new-highs and
new-lows was +82. These are good numbers and it looks like we’ll see a bullish
day Wednesday.
The daily sum of 20 Indicators
dipped from -3 to +1 (a positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the
10-day smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations dropped from -16 to -23
(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 BUY. Price & VIX are bullish; Volume &
Sentiment are neutral.
I remain Bullish.
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 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.
As of 9 March, my
stock-allocation is about 60% invested in stocks. You may wish to have a higher
or lower % invested in stocks depending on your risk tolerance. 50% is a
conservative position that I consider fully invested for most retirees.
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, and
I can call a bottom, 80% would not be out of the question.
The markets have not
retested the lows on recent corrections and that left me under-invested on the
bounces. I will need to put less reliance on retests in the future.
