Crude Inventories ... Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis ...

 
The Thursday Blog-Post will be late, possibly on Friday or even Saturday. The NYSE is closed Good Friday.
 
“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.
 
“Far more money has been lost by investors in preparing for corrections, or anticipating corrections, than has been lost in the corrections themselves.” - Peter Lynch, former manager of Fidelity’s Magellan® fund.
 
“In yet another damaging blow to relations between the Biden Presidency and the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, [Vice President Kamal] Harris warned Israel against a military offensive in Rafah, while ludicrously boasting ‘I have studied the maps.’ Harris, whose expertise on the Middle East is close to zero, saw fit to berate America’s closest ally in the region on its own counter-terrorism policy. The arrogance was breathtaking, and the ignorance of the complexities on the ground simply stunning... Many Americans I have spoken to genuinely fear her one day taking over the presidency. With good reason. The only thing more embarrassing for the Biden presidency than Joe Biden himself are the media utterances made by his deputy, Kamala Harris.” - Nile Gardiner, Director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC. Story from the Telegraph (a British newspaper) at ...
Kamala Harris is Hamas’ useful idiot (msn.com)
 
CRUDE INVENTORY (EIA)
“U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 3.2 million barrels from the previous week. At 448.2 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 0.9% to 5248.
-VIX dropped about 4% to 12.74.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.190%.
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
QLD- Added 2/20/2024
UWM – Added 1/22/2024.
XLK – Technology ETF (holding since the October 2022 lows).
 
INTC – Added 12/6/2023.
CRM – Added 1/22/2024
DWCPF - Dow Jones U.S. Completion Total Stock Market Index. – Added 12/7/2023 when I sold the S&P 500. This is a large position in my retirement account betting on Smaller Caps.
 
TODAY’S COMMENT:
Today, the CNBC news/discussion was about a delivering alpha investor survey that indicated about two thirds of investors believe the markets have gone too far, too fast. Hmmm. Going back to the top in January of 2022, the S&P 500 is up 9.4% as of today’s close. The return for buy-and-hold investors is less that 10% over the last 2+ years. It doesn’t seem too fast or two far for me.  Markets have jumped up since the 25% down, Bear-market-bottom in October of 2022, but that’s what happens when Bear markets end.
 
The S&P 500 touched its lower trendline yesterday and bounced higher today – buy the dip remains.
 
8.4% of all issues on the NYSE made new-highs today when the S&P 500 made a new all-time high. The 5-year average was for this stat is roughly 6.7% so this is a sign of a healthy market.
 

The above chart is the spread between Bull indicators and Bear Indicators (Bull minus Bear) shown in Red. Neutral indicators are ignored. The Purple line is the 10-dMA of indicator spread (red line). The data suggests that a sharply falling 10-dMA spread usually (but not always) precedes, or occurs early in corrections. Currently, the 10-dMA of Indicator spread is moving higher so we don’t have a correction indication yet. The caveat is that there is only about a year of data in the chart above so we can’t get over confident in that conclusion.
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Indicators moved sharply to the bull side.
Today there are 17 bear-signs and 6-Bull. Tuesday, there were 10 bear-signs and 13 bull.
 
-The S&P 500 remains stretched and is now 13.8% above its 200-dMA. The Bear indicator is 12% above the 200-day, but I don’t trade one signal – we care more about the ensemble.
 
LONG-TERM INDICATOR: The Long Term NTSM indicator remained HOLD: PRICE is positive; SENTIMENT, VOLUME & VIX are neutral.
 
(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 am 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
XLK moved to 5th place.
 
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
I skipped my rules on Intel and it has been a disappointment. Serves me right!  Now, Salesforce (CRM) has fallen out of the top 3. It is an AI play so it is not clear that selling it is the best move.  I’ll wait a bit longer.
 
WEDNESDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)

My basket of Market Internals remained 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.) 
 

...My current invested position is about 65% stocks, including stock mutual funds and ETFs. I’m usually about 50% invested in stocks. I’m “over invested” now expecting continuation of bullish market action.
 
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.