JOBLESS CLAIMS (Yahoo Finance)
New unemployment claims rose but remained near a 52-year
low last week, with the weekly pace of new claims holding below pre-pandemic
levels as the labor market sees job openings near a record high... Initial jobless claims, week ended Jan.
1: 207,000 vs. 195,000 expected and a revised 200,000
during the prior week...” Story at...
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/weekly-unemployment-claims-week-ended-jan-1-2022-194734695.html
FACTORY ORDERS (WTVBam)
"New orders for U.S.-manufactured goods accelerated in
November, but business spending on equipment likely struggled to rebound in the
fourth quarter. The Commerce Department said on Thursday that factory orders
rose 1.6% in November.” Story at...
https://wtvbam.com/2022/01/06/u-s-factory-orders-increase-strongly-in-november/
ISM NON-MANUFACTURING INDEX (ISM via PRnewswire)
“The December Manufacturing PMI® registered
58.7 percent, a decrease of 2.4 percentage points from the
November reading of 61.1 percent. This figure indicates expansion in the
overall economy for the 19th month in a row after a contraction in April 2020... The forecast released this month indicates
a strong 2022 performance expectation in terms of revenue growth and
profitability...” Story at...
CORONAVIRUS (NTSM)
Here’s the latest from the COVID19 Johns Hopkins website
as of 5:00 PM ET Thursday. U.S. total case numbers are on the left axis; daily
numbers are on the right side of the graph in Red with the 10-dMA of daily
numbers in Green. I added the smoothed 10-dMA of new cases (in purple) to the
chart.
I am still sick with Omicron left-overs. A lot of coughing today. I am improving. Today is day 11.
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Thursday the S&P 500 slipped about 0.1% to 4696
-VIX slipped about 1% to 19.61
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.724%.
Markets were a little on-edge today after yesterday’s big
selloff. There were improving signs
today in internals, but New-lows outpaced new-highs 185 to 64. Utilities were selling off; Industrials were
bought – those were good signs. We may avoid a significant pullback at this
time. The S&P 500 is now only 0.5%
above its 50-dMA. The Index hasn’t been much below that level since last
October.
Otherwise, MACD of price turned bearish today while
Indicators generally drifted down. The close was weak as the Index lost about
half % in late-day action.
Tech sold off again today. Both Apple and Microsoft were down for the
day. That’s concerning since they have been leaders in the rally.
The daily sum of 20 Indicators declined from -2 to -8
today (a positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the 10-day
smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations improved from +16 to +17 (The
trend direction is more important than the actual number for the 10-day value.)
These numbers sometimes change after I post the blog based on data that comes
in late. Most of these indicators are short-term so they tend to bounce around
a lot.
I have no top warnings now, so the markets are not
overstretched to the upside.
The Long Term NTSM indicator
ensemble remained HOLD. Price, Volume, VIX & Sentiment are Neutral.
Indicators are concerning, but
not overly bearish yet, so I am Neutral until we see some more clues about
where the markets are headed. Tomorrow we’ll get the Friday run-down to give a
read on the market.
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 HOLD.
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.
My stock-allocation in the
portfolio is now about 40% invested in stocks; I hadn’t calculated this number
since I made some year-end stock sales. This is close to my “normal” fully
invested stock-allocation of 50%. I trade about 15-20% of the total portfolio
using the momentum-based analysis I provide here.
I consider this fully invested
since my moves were based on year-end tax strategy and Apple’s slipping
momentum. I’ll asses momentum and add to my stock portfolio soon.
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 general rule, some
suggest that the % of portfolio invested in the stock market should be one’s
age subtracted from 100. So, a
30-year-old person would have 70% of the portfolio in stocks, stock mutual
funds and/or stock ETFs. That’s ok, but
for older investors, I usually don’t recommend keeping less than 50% invested
in stocks (as a fully invested position) since most people need some growth in
the portfolio to keep up with inflation.
