“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
“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.
DURABLE ORDERS (Bloomberg)
“Orders for U.S. durable goods unexpectedly declined in
February for the first time in nearly a year, indicating a pause in the
months-long manufacturing rebound. Bookings for durable goods -- or items meant
to last at least three years -- decreased 1.1% from the prior month...” Story
at...
IHS MARKIT COMPOSITE PMI (HIS Markit)
“Private sector companies across the U.S. registered a
further substantial increase in business activity at the end of the first
quarter. The expansion was largely driven by service providers, as input
shortages and supplier delays limited the expansion of manufacturing production
capacity. Adjusted for seasonal factors, the IHS Markit Flash U.S. Composite
PMI Output Index posted 59.1 in March, down slightly from 59.5 in February, to
signal the second-fastest private sector upturn for six years...” Press release
at...
https://www.markiteconomics.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/565cc8b204be4b789af68dbfabf9746b
EIA CRUDE INVENTORIES (EIA)
“U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those
in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 1.9 million barrels from the
previous week. At 502.7 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about
6% above the five-year average for this time of year.” Press release at...
https://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/wpsrsummary.pdf
My cmt: I was hoping for a declining inventory number.
Still, the Energy Select Sector (XLE-ETF) was up 2.5% on the day. That’s a good sign since it had been falling
in recent sessions.
TRUMP LAWYER, SIDNEY POWELL, ADMITS IT WAS ALL A LIE
(Vox)
“As a former Trump campaign lawyer, Sidney Powell did
more than perhaps anyone to push the big lie that President Joe Biden’s victory
over Donald Trump was the result of fraud involving Dominion Voting Systems
machines....Powell faces a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit from Dominion
because of her false claims, and on Monday her lawyers offered her defense:
that “no reasonable person would conclude that the statements” Powell made
about election fraud “were truly statements of fact...the allegedly defamatory
statements further support Defendants’ position that reasonable people would
not accept such statements as fact but view them only as claims that await
testing by the courts through the adversary process.” Story at...
Sidney
Powell gives up the game, admits Trump’s election conspiracies weren’t factual
(msn.com)
My Cmt: So, in summary, Powell’s lawyers are saying her
claims of Trump’s stolen-election were so ridiculous, that no reasonable person
would believe them.
CORONAVIRUS (NTSM)
Here’s the latest from the COVID19 Johns Hopkins website as
of 8:45pm 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. Another big jump in new cases today - I hope this trend doesn't continue!.
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Wednesday the S&P 500
fell about 0.6% to 3889.
-VIX rose about 4% to 21.20.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury
unchanged at 1.617%.
Today, we had very high,
unchanged-volume. In theory this in an
indication that investors are confused and it can signal a reversal, in this
case down. I’ve tried to develop an indicator based on this without much
success. Sometimes it’s true; sometimes
not. But I will note this: the last time it was this high was the day before
the top on 12 Sep 2019 that preceded a small pullback of 4%.
I wrote yesterday that it looks
like we are beginning another pullback. There was nothing in today’s numbers that
would change my mind. Volumes have been increasing for the last week, as
would be expected in a downturn. The 40-dMA of new-highs is headed down - my
favorite trend indicator.
We continue to have “Distribution
Days.” Today was another. Now, there have been 10 in the last 3-weeks; 5 is the
sell sign. There have been no follow-thru days that would cancel this sign.
The daily sum of 20 Indicators
dipped from -6 to -7 (a positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the
10-day smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations dropped from +34 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 HOLD. Price is bullish; Volume, VIX & Sentiment are
neutral.
It looks like the S&P 500
will test the 50-dMA. The S&P 50 is now 0.5% above its 50-dMA. If that
level fails, we can guess at more to come.
The S&P 500 is 10.3% above its 200-dMA (Sell point is
12%.); but when Sentiment is considered, the signal is bearish.
To clear the indicator, the Index would have to fall farther. The last correction in September
2020 was 10% top to bottom. It took the S&P 500 to 4.3% above its 200-dMA. If the Index drops to 4% above the 200-day this time, it would give us, very roughly, a 6% drop
from today’s close or about 7% top to bottom. That guess is as good as any.
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 dropped to NEGATIVE 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 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.
