PPI ... Retail Sales ... Empire State Manufacturing ... Crude Inventories ... Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis ...

 
“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.
 
PSYCHOLOICAL PROFILE OF ADOLF HITLER (Jewish Virtual Library)
“His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.” – Walter C.  Langer, Office of Strategic Services (OSS).
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/psychological-analysis-of-hitler-s-life-and-legend-2
(The OSS was formed on 13 June 1942 in response to the intelligence failure that led to the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.)
The above could describe Donald Trump; or a host of other Politicians on both sides of the aisle. It’s scary that our politicians have become so unprincipled.
 
RETAIL SALES (Yahoo Finance)
“October retail sales fell less than Wall Street feared, reiterating that the American consumer remains in better shape than many economists have projected. The 0.1% drop marked the first headline monthly decline in sales since March.” Story at...
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/retail-sales-fall-less-than-forecast-in-october-as-us-consumers-defy-expectations-again-133915577.html
 
PPI / CORE PPI (CNBC)
“Wholesale prices in October posted their biggest decline in 3½ years, providing another indication that the worst of the inflation surge may have passed. The producer price index, which measures final-demand costs for businesses, declined 0.5% for the month... On a yearly basis, headline PPI posted a 1.3% increase, down from 2.2% in September. Excluding food and energy, core PPI was unchanged, also below the forecast...” Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/15/wholesale-prices-fell-0point5percent-in-october-for-biggest-monthly-drop-since-april-2020.html
 
EMPIRE STATE MANUFACTURING (New York Fed)
“Business activity grew modestly in New York State, according to firms responding to the November 2023 Empire State Manufacturing Survey. The headline general business conditions index climbed fourteen points to 9.1... Looking ahead, firms became much less sanguine about the outlook. The index for future business conditions plunged twenty-four points to -0.9, its lowest level in nearly a year. Only 29 percent of respondents expect conditions to be better in six months.” Report at...
https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/Survey/Empire/empire2023/ESMS_2023_11.pdf?sc_lang=en&hash=98A7DE8F63ACCF189A480E826DC75BFB
 
EIA CRUDE INVENTORIES (EIA)
“U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 3.6 million barrels from the previous week. At 439.4 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 2% below the five year average for this time of year.” Report at...
https://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/wpsrsummary.pdf
 
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Wednesday the S&P 500 rose about 0.2% to 4503.
-VIX rose about 0.1% to 14.18.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.52%.
 
PULLBACK DATA:
-Drop from Top: 6.1%. 25.4% max (on a closing basis).
-Trading Days since All-Time Top: 470-days. (The top was 3 January 2022.)
The S&P 500 is 5.6% ABOVE its 200-dMA and 3.8% ABOVE its 50-dMA.
*I won’t call the correction over until the S&P 500 makes a new-high; however, evidence suggests the major bear-market bottom (25% decline) was in the 3600 area and we called a buy on 4 October 2022.
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
XLK – Technology ETF (holding since the October 2022 lows).
XLY - Consumer Discretionary ETF. (Holding since the October 2022 lows - I bought more XLY Monday, 8/21.)
I took profits and then reestablished positions as follows:
SPY – I bought a large position in the S&P 500 Friday, 8/14, in my 401k (it has limited choices).
XLE – Added Tuesday, 8/22.
SSO – 2x S&P 500 ETF. Added 8/24.
CSCO – added 9/5.
I was holding Cisco until their earnings came out – not a good idea.  They reported today. Earnings and revenue were above expectations, but guidance was bad.  CSCO fell about 10% after hours.  Microsoft or Intel would be better choices.
 
TODAY’S COMMENT:
Volume remains high on the NYSE, suggesting FOMO (Fear-of-Missing-Out) has taken hold of the markets. Volume yesterday was 17% above the average over the last month. Today it was about 10% above the monthly average.
 
While prognosticators continue to talk about recession on the financial shows, market participants don’t agree, at least in the short term.  That’s why I follow the markets rather than trying to out think (predict) the economy. It goes back to the motto of this Blog – “Trade what you see (the indicators) not what you think.”
 
That doesn’t mean that there won’t be a recession. It’s just that investors don’t’ expect one in the near term. We’ll watch the signals carefully, especially after the S&P 500 makes a new all-time high. I will let market participant tell us when the next recession is coming.
 
The daily spread of 20 Indicators (Bulls minus Bears) declined from +10 to +9 (a positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the 10-day smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations improved from +77 to +84. (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 20 indicators are short-term so they tend to bounce around a lot.
 
LONG-TERM INDICATOR: The Long Term NTSM indicator remained BUY: PRICE, & VOLUME are bullish; VIX & SENTIMENT are neutral.
 
(The important major BUY in this indicator was on 21 October 2022, 7-days after the bear-market bottom. For my NTSM overall signal, I suggested that a short-term buying opportunity occurred on 27 September (based on improved market internals on the retest), although without market follow-thru, I was unwilling to call a buy; however, I did close shorts and increased stock holdings. I issued a Buy-Signal on 4 October, 6-days before the final bottom, based on stronger market action that confirmed the market internals signal. The NTSM sell-signal was issued 21 December, 9 sessions before the high of this recent bear market, based on the bearish “Friday Rundown” of indicators.)
 
BOTTOM LINE
I remain bullish.
 
ETF - MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily)
ETF ranking follows:

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
 
DOW STOCKS - TODAY’S MOMENTUM RANKING OF THE DOW 30 STOCKS (Ranked Daily)
DOW 30 momentum ranking follows:
 

 
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)

My basket of Market Internals remained BUY. (My basket of Market Internals is a decent trend-following analysis of current market action, but should not be used alone for short term trading. They are most useful when they diverge from the Index.) 
 

...My current invested position is about 75% stocks, including stock mutual funds and ETFs. I’m usually about 50% invested in stocks. I’m “over invested” now expecting new, all-time highs this year. That burns all the cash.  I have about 25% of the portfolio in bonds.
 
I trade about 15-20% of the total portfolio using the momentum-based analysis I provide here. When I see a definitive bottom, I add a lot more stocks to the portfolio using an S&P 500 ETF as I did back in October.