Friday, March 5, 2021

Payroll (Jobs) Report ... Hourly earnings ... Factory Orders … 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

 

PAYROLL REPORT / HOURLY EARNINGS (Yahoo Finance)

“The U.S. economy added back the most jobs in four months in February, as easing COVID-19 case counts and a ramping vaccine rollout allowed distancing restrictions to begin to moderate... "Today’s employment report smashed expectations as 379K jobs returned to the economy during the month of February..." Charlie Ripley, senior investment strategist for Allianz Investment Management, said...” Story at...

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/february-jobs-report-labor-department-unemployment-pandemic-192526748.html

Hourly earnings were up 2.3% as expected.

 

FACTORY ORDERS (FX Street)

“New orders for manufactured goods, Factory Orders, in the US rose by $5.2 billion, or 1.1%...” Story at...

https://www.fxstreet.com/news/us-factory-orders-rise-by-11-in-december-vs-07-expected-202102041505

 

CORONAVIRUS (NTSM)

Here’s the latest from the COVID19 Johns Hopkins website as of 8:00pm 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 jumped about 2% to 3842.

-VIX fell about 14% to 24.66.

-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.568%.

 

Correction Data:

-Friday was Day-14 of the correction. (From top to bottom the average small correction {<10%} over the last 10-years has lasted about 33 days.)

-The S&P 500 is down 2.4% from its all-time high. The average drop from the top for a small correction is about 8%.

-The Index is 10.7% above its 200-dMA

-The Index is 0.5% above its 50-dMA

 

I took a large short-position 4 March using SDS.  This effectively reduced my % of stocks invested from 60% to a more conservative 50%. I still have that in place.

 

Here's Friday's 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 smoothed advancing volume on the NYSE is rising.

-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%.

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

-The size of up-moves has been larger than the size of down-moves over the last month.

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

 

NEUTRAL

-Bollinger Bands were oversold 3/4/2021, but are neutral again.

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

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

-My Money Trend indicator is bullish.

-VIX is neutral.

-The Fosback High-Low Logic Index is neutral.

-RSI.

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

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

-We’ve seen 4 up-days over the last 10-days. Neutral.

-There have been 8 up-days over the last 20 days. Neutral

-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.

-45% of the 15-ETFs that I track have been up over the last 10-days – neutral.

 

BEAR SIGNS

-Distribution warnings. There have been 7 Distribution days in the last 25-trading days.

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

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

-There have been 7 Statistically Significant days in the last 15-days. This signal can be Bearish or Bullish. This time the Index is close to a top, so its bearish.

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

-McClellan Oscillator is negative.

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

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

-The 5-10-20 Timer System is SELL; the 5-dEMA and 10-dEMA are both below the 20-dEMA.  

-The S&P 500 is 10.7% above its 200-dMA (Sell point is 12%.); but when Sentiment is considered, the signal is bearish.

-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 6 bull-signs. Last week, there were 11 bear-signs and 5 bull-signs.

 

The daily sum of 20 Indicators improved from -2 to -1 (a positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the 10-day smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations improved from -45 to -39 (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. Sentiment & VIX are neutral; Volume is bearish; Price is bullish.

 

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. As noted above, this is a bearish sign.  These back-and-forth, big-moves tend to happen at tops.

 

I haven’t seen a good sign to indicate that this pullback is over. Yesterday’s high-volume was a possible bottom, but I would have preferred a down-day today with lower volume to give us a chance at a more reliable buy-signal.  The signals were a lot more bullish last Friday which suggests that the pullback may be shorter than the average correction. We’ll see. The Index hasn’t tested its recent low of 3714.  If that were to fail, 3669, a prior low, or even the 200-dMA of 3472 are possible targets for a more extended correction.

 

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.  

 

As of 4 March, my stock-allocation is about 50% 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 a retiree.

 

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.