“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.
Merry Christmas everyone. I'll be back for Tuesday's blog
NY TIMES BLASTS HARVARD’S GAY IN PLAGIARISM REVIEW
(ZeroHedge)
“The New York Times has come out with a scathing article, analyzing five instances of plagiarism committed by Harvard President Claudine Gay. To review, Gay has been credibly accused of more than 40 acts of plagiarism during her tenure at Harvard - which the university secretly investigated, threatened journalists over, and ultimately concluded was no big deal - clearing her of breaching Harvard's "standards for research misconduct." Story at...
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ny-times-blasts-harvards-gay-detailed-plagiarism-review-scandal-spirals-out-control
TREASON OF THE INTELECTUALS (The Free Press)
“In 1927 the French philosopher Julien Benda published La trahison des clercs —“The Treason of the Intellectuals”— which condemned the descent of European intellectuals into extreme nationalism and racism...
Those who were meant to pursue the life of the mind, he wrote, had ushered in “the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds.” And those hatreds were already moving from the realm of the ideas into the realm of violence—with results that would be catastrophic for all of Europe.
A century later, American academia has gone in the
opposite political direction—leftward instead of rightward—but has ended up in
much the same place. The question is whether we—unlike the Germans—can do
something about it...
... The lesson of German history for American academia should by now be clear. In Germany, to use the legalistic language of 2023, “speech crossed into conduct.” The “final solution of the Jewish question” began as speech—to be precise, it began as lectures and monographs and scholarly articles. It began in the songs of student fraternities. With extraordinary speed after 1933, however, it crossed into conduct: first, systematic pseudo-legal discrimination and ultimately, a program of technocratic genocide...
... Today’s academic leaders would never recognize themselves as the heirs of those Benda condemned, insisting that they are on the left, whereas Benda’s targets were on the right. And yet, as Victor Klemperer came to understand after 1945, totalitarianism comes in two flavors, though the ingredients are the same.” - Niall Ferguson, trustee University of Austin, Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford.
https://www.thefp.com/p/niall-ferguson-treason-intellectuals-third-reich?_hsmi=287090390
My cmt: This was a very long piece. I’ve only excerpted a small part above.
PERSONAL INCOME / SPENDING (The Real Economy Blog)
“November’s personal income and spending report, released by the Commerce Department on Friday, showed a 0.4% monthly increase in nominal income and spending, while inflation-adjusted spending advanced by 0.3%.” Discussion at...
https://realeconomy.rsmus.com/u-s-income-and-spending-see-strong-gains-as-year-nears-an-end/
PCE PRICES (CNBC)
“The core personal consumption expenditures price index, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, increased 0.1% for the month, and was up 3.2% from a year ago... On a six-month basis, core PCE increased 1.9%, indicating that if current trends continue the Fed essentially has reached its goal... Including food and energy costs, so-called headline PCE actually fell 0.1% on the month and was up just 2.6% from a year ago...”Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/22/pce-inflation-november-2023-.html
DURABLE ORDERS (Marketplace.org)
“...today’s durable goods orders numbers from the Census Bureau...shot up nearly 5.5% in November, way more than economists were expecting, and reversing October’s big decline.” Story at...
https://www.marketplace.org/2023/12/22/durable-goods-orders-rise-as-businesses-spend-to-boost-productivty-regardless-of-higher-interest-rates/
NEW HOME SALES (YahooFinance)
“Sales of new homes fell 12.2% in November from a month prior...” Story at...
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/home-sales-tumbled-12-2-154310462.html
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Friday the S&P 500 rose about 0.2% to 4755.
-VIX dipped about 2% to 13.31.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 3.901%.
PULLBACK DATA:
-Drop from Top: 1%. 25.4% max (on a closing basis).
-Trading Days since All-Time Top: 496-days. (The top was 3 January 2022.)
The S&P 500 is 9.7% ABOVE its 200-dMA and 6.4% 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 of the 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 8/21/23.)
INTC – Added 12/6/2023.
BA – Added 12/6/2023.
DWCPF - Dow Jones U.S. Completion Total Stock Market
Index. – Added 12/7/2023. This is a large position in my retirement account
betting on Small Caps.
TODAY’S COMMENT:
On 1 September there were Zero bear signals and 22 bull. That was at a short-term top and the S&P 500 fell nearly 9% from there. That’s just a reminder that indicators give a most likely direction for the markets – they are not perfect. Further, a lot of indicators are trend following and unless there are divergences with market action, they don’t always give us very good information. Still, it’s the best we’ve got.
We look at a summary of indicators on Friday. (These
indicators tend to be both long-term and short-term, so they are different than
the 20 that I report on daily.) The weekly rundown of indicators remained very
bullish this week: now 3-bear and 21-bull.
BULL SIGNS
-The 10-dMA percentage of issues advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) is above 50%.
-The 50-dMA percentage of issues advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) is above 50%.
-The 100-dMA percentage of issues advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) is below 50%
-MACD of the percentage of issues advancing on the NYSE (breadth) made a bullish crossover 12 October.
-Smoothed Buying Pressure minus Selling Pressure.
-MACD of S&P 500 price made a bullish crossover 12 Dec.
-My Money Trend indicator is rising.
-Long-term new-high/new-low data.
-Short-term new-high/new-low data.
-Slope of the 40-dMA of New-highs is rising.
-The graph of the 100-day Count (the 100-day sum of up-days).
-McClellan Oscillator.
-On average, the size of up-moves has been larger than the size of down-moves over the last month.
-VIX indicator.
-There was a high up-volume day on 21 December canceling the High down-volume day on 20 December. In addition, there were back-to-back, high up-volume days (80%+) on the NYSE 13 & 14 Dec.
-XLI-ETF (Cyclical Industrials) vs the S&P 500. The 40-dMA of spread is turning up – call it bullish.
-S&P 500 spread vs. Utilities (XLU-ETF) is bullish.
-The 5-day EMA is above the 10-day EMA, so short-term momentum is bullish.
-The 5-10-20 Timer System is BUY.
-There was a Zweig Breadth Thrust 3 November. That’s a rare, very-bullish sign, that will remain bullish until the McClellan Oscillator turns negative.
-69% of the 15-ETFs that I track have been up over the last 10-days. (45-55% is neutral.)
NEUTRAL
-There was a Distribution Day 20 Dec.
-There have been 4 Statistically-Significant days (big moves in price-volume) in the last 15-days.
-Bollinger Bands.
-Overbought/Oversold Index (Advance/Decline Ratio).
-Sentiment.
-Bollinger Band Squeeze 28 April - expired.
-The 50-dMA percentage of issues advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) has not been below 50%, for more than 3 days in a row.
-The short-term, 10-day EMA, Fosback Hi-Low Logic Index.
-The long-term, 50-dEMA, Fosback Hi-Low Logic Index.
-There have been 13 up-days over the last 20 sessions.
-There have been 8 up-days over the last 10 sessions.
-RSI.
-The Smart Money (late-day action).
-The Calm-before-the-Storm/Panic Indicator flashed a top warning signal 15 Sept., but it may well have been a bottom signal. - Expired
-There was a New-high/New-low spread reversal on 4 October (based on std deviation of spread). - Expired
-The S&P 500 is 9.7% above its 200-dMA. (Bear indicator is 12% above the 200-day.)
-There were Hindenburg Omen signals 11 & 12 Sept 2023 – expired. The McClellan Oscillator turned positive.
-2.8% of all issues traded on the NYSE made new, 52-week highs when the S&P 500 made a new all-time-high, 3 January 2022. (There is no bullish signal for this indicator.) This indicated that the advance was too narrow and a correction was likely to be >10%. It proved correct, but is now Expired.
BEAR SIGNS
-The smoothed advancing volume on the NYSE is falling.
-Issues advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) compared to the S&P 500.
-20 December there was a Bearish Outside Reversal Day. I’ll keep this in effect until the S&P 500 closes above the high for 20 December, 4778.
On Monday’s update of the Friday summary of indicators (20
December 2021), 9 days before the top of the current 25% correction, there were
21 bear-signs and zero bull-signs. Now there are 3 bear-signs and 21-Bull.
Last week, there were 5 bear-sign and 23 bull-signs.
The daily spread of 20 Indicators (Bulls minus Bears) declined
from +11 to +10 (a positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the
10-day smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations improved from +97
to +103. (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 & VIX are bullish; SENTIMENT is neutral. (One
warning: The Long-Term Indicator is not a good top-indicator. It can signal BUY
at a top.)
(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
FRIDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE
DATA)
My basket of Market Internals declined to HOLD. (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.)
“The New York Times has come out with a scathing article, analyzing five instances of plagiarism committed by Harvard President Claudine Gay. To review, Gay has been credibly accused of more than 40 acts of plagiarism during her tenure at Harvard - which the university secretly investigated, threatened journalists over, and ultimately concluded was no big deal - clearing her of breaching Harvard's "standards for research misconduct." Story at...
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ny-times-blasts-harvards-gay-detailed-plagiarism-review-scandal-spirals-out-control
“In 1927 the French philosopher Julien Benda published La trahison des clercs —“The Treason of the Intellectuals”— which condemned the descent of European intellectuals into extreme nationalism and racism...
Those who were meant to pursue the life of the mind, he wrote, had ushered in “the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds.” And those hatreds were already moving from the realm of the ideas into the realm of violence—with results that would be catastrophic for all of Europe.
... The lesson of German history for American academia should by now be clear. In Germany, to use the legalistic language of 2023, “speech crossed into conduct.” The “final solution of the Jewish question” began as speech—to be precise, it began as lectures and monographs and scholarly articles. It began in the songs of student fraternities. With extraordinary speed after 1933, however, it crossed into conduct: first, systematic pseudo-legal discrimination and ultimately, a program of technocratic genocide...
... Today’s academic leaders would never recognize themselves as the heirs of those Benda condemned, insisting that they are on the left, whereas Benda’s targets were on the right. And yet, as Victor Klemperer came to understand after 1945, totalitarianism comes in two flavors, though the ingredients are the same.” - Niall Ferguson, trustee University of Austin, Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford.
https://www.thefp.com/p/niall-ferguson-treason-intellectuals-third-reich?_hsmi=287090390
My cmt: This was a very long piece. I’ve only excerpted a small part above.
“November’s personal income and spending report, released by the Commerce Department on Friday, showed a 0.4% monthly increase in nominal income and spending, while inflation-adjusted spending advanced by 0.3%.” Discussion at...
https://realeconomy.rsmus.com/u-s-income-and-spending-see-strong-gains-as-year-nears-an-end/
“The core personal consumption expenditures price index, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, increased 0.1% for the month, and was up 3.2% from a year ago... On a six-month basis, core PCE increased 1.9%, indicating that if current trends continue the Fed essentially has reached its goal... Including food and energy costs, so-called headline PCE actually fell 0.1% on the month and was up just 2.6% from a year ago...”Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/22/pce-inflation-november-2023-.html
“...today’s durable goods orders numbers from the Census Bureau...shot up nearly 5.5% in November, way more than economists were expecting, and reversing October’s big decline.” Story at...
https://www.marketplace.org/2023/12/22/durable-goods-orders-rise-as-businesses-spend-to-boost-productivty-regardless-of-higher-interest-rates/
“Sales of new homes fell 12.2% in November from a month prior...” Story at...
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/home-sales-tumbled-12-2-154310462.html
-Friday the S&P 500 rose about 0.2% to 4755.
-VIX dipped about 2% to 13.31.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 3.901%.
-Drop from Top: 1%. 25.4% max (on a closing basis).
-Trading Days since All-Time Top: 496-days. (The top was 3 January 2022.)
The S&P 500 is 9.7% ABOVE its 200-dMA and 6.4% 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 of the 25% decline was in the 3600 area and we called a buy on 4 October 2022.
XLK – Technology ETF (holding since the October 2022 lows).
XLY - Consumer Discretionary ETF. (Holding since the October 2022 lows - I bought more XLY 8/21/23.)
BA – Added 12/6/2023.
On 1 September there were Zero bear signals and 22 bull. That was at a short-term top and the S&P 500 fell nearly 9% from there. That’s just a reminder that indicators give a most likely direction for the markets – they are not perfect. Further, a lot of indicators are trend following and unless there are divergences with market action, they don’t always give us very good information. Still, it’s the best we’ve got.
-The 10-dMA percentage of issues advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) is above 50%.
-The 50-dMA percentage of issues advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) is above 50%.
-The 100-dMA percentage of issues advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) is below 50%
-MACD of the percentage of issues advancing on the NYSE (breadth) made a bullish crossover 12 October.
-Smoothed Buying Pressure minus Selling Pressure.
-MACD of S&P 500 price made a bullish crossover 12 Dec.
-My Money Trend indicator is rising.
-Long-term new-high/new-low data.
-Short-term new-high/new-low data.
-Slope of the 40-dMA of New-highs is rising.
-The graph of the 100-day Count (the 100-day sum of up-days).
-McClellan Oscillator.
-On average, the size of up-moves has been larger than the size of down-moves over the last month.
-VIX indicator.
-There was a high up-volume day on 21 December canceling the High down-volume day on 20 December. In addition, there were back-to-back, high up-volume days (80%+) on the NYSE 13 & 14 Dec.
-XLI-ETF (Cyclical Industrials) vs the S&P 500. The 40-dMA of spread is turning up – call it bullish.
-S&P 500 spread vs. Utilities (XLU-ETF) is bullish.
-The 5-day EMA is above the 10-day EMA, so short-term momentum is bullish.
-The 5-10-20 Timer System is BUY.
-There was a Zweig Breadth Thrust 3 November. That’s a rare, very-bullish sign, that will remain bullish until the McClellan Oscillator turns negative.
-69% of the 15-ETFs that I track have been up over the last 10-days. (45-55% is neutral.)
-There was a Distribution Day 20 Dec.
-There have been 4 Statistically-Significant days (big moves in price-volume) in the last 15-days.
-Bollinger Bands.
-Overbought/Oversold Index (Advance/Decline Ratio).
-Sentiment.
-Bollinger Band Squeeze 28 April - expired.
-The 50-dMA percentage of issues advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) has not been below 50%, for more than 3 days in a row.
-The short-term, 10-day EMA, Fosback Hi-Low Logic Index.
-The long-term, 50-dEMA, Fosback Hi-Low Logic Index.
-There have been 13 up-days over the last 20 sessions.
-There have been 8 up-days over the last 10 sessions.
-RSI.
-The Smart Money (late-day action).
-The Calm-before-the-Storm/Panic Indicator flashed a top warning signal 15 Sept., but it may well have been a bottom signal. - Expired
-There was a New-high/New-low spread reversal on 4 October (based on std deviation of spread). - Expired
-The S&P 500 is 9.7% above its 200-dMA. (Bear indicator is 12% above the 200-day.)
-There were Hindenburg Omen signals 11 & 12 Sept 2023 – expired. The McClellan Oscillator turned positive.
-2.8% of all issues traded on the NYSE made new, 52-week highs when the S&P 500 made a new all-time-high, 3 January 2022. (There is no bullish signal for this indicator.) This indicated that the advance was too narrow and a correction was likely to be >10%. It proved correct, but is now Expired.
-The smoothed advancing volume on the NYSE is falling.
-Issues advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) compared to the S&P 500.
-20 December there was a Bearish Outside Reversal Day. I’ll keep this in effect until the S&P 500 closes above the high for 20 December, 4778.
I remain bullish.
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 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
