Michigan Sentiment ... Empire State Manufacturing ... Industrial Production ... Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis ...
“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.
“More than one million people die in traffic accidents
globally each year. Overnight, governments could solve this entirely man-made
problem by reducing speed limits everywhere to 3 miles an hour, but we’d laugh any
politician who suggested it out of office. It would be absurd to focus solely
on lives saved if the cost would be economic and societal destruction. Yet
politicians widely employ the same one-sided reasoning in the name of fighting
climate change... Climate change is a real problem but isn’t the imminent
existential crisis of which the media and activist politicians breathlessly
warn. They run headlines and give speeches about extreme weather events, though
the United Nations’ panel of climate scientists hasn’t been able to document
evidence of most of them worsening... The world still gets four-fifths of
its energy from fossil fuels, because renewable sources rarely provide good
alternatives. Half the world’s population entirely depends on food grown with
synthetic fertilizer produced almost entirely by natural gas. If we rapidly
ceased using fossil fuels, four billion people would suddenly be without
food... Our goal in forming climate policy should be the same we bring to
traffic laws and any other political question: achieve more benefits than costs
to society.’ - Bjorn Lomborg, president of
the Copenhagen Consensus and visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover
Institution. Commentary at...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/follow-the-science-leads-to-ruin-climate-environment-policy-3f427c05?mod=opinion_feat2_commentary_pos3
“Rolf Habben Jansen, CEO of Hapag-Lloyd, the world’s
fifth-largest ocean carrier, tells CNBC he has an improved view on trade for
the rest of 2024.“ ...inventories are depleted in many cases and so far we’ve
seen a good recovery after Chinese New Year,” Jansen said. “So we’ve been
fairly happy with that.” Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/15/ceo-of-top-ocean-freight-carrier-hapag-lloyd-on-global-economy-demand.html
MICHIGAN SENTIMENT (Univ of Michigan)
“Consumer sentiment moved little this month with a 0.4
index point decrease that is well within the margin of error, and thus
sentiment has been steady and essentially unchanged since January 2024.
Sentiment remained almost 25% above November 2023 and is currently halfway
between the historic low reached during the peak of inflation in June 2022 and
pre-pandemic readings. Small improvements in personal finances were offset by
modest declines in expectations for business conditions. After strong gains between
November 2023 and January 2024, consumer views have stabilized into a holding
pattern; consumers perceived few signals that the economy is currently
improving or deteriorating. Indeed, many are withholding judgment about the
trajectory of the economy, particularly in the long term, pending the results
of this November’s election.” From Univ of Michigan at...
http://www.sca.isr.umich.edu/
EMPIRE STATE MANUFACTURING (NY Fed)
“Business activity continued to decline in New York
State, according to firms responding to the March 2024 Empire State Manufacturing Survey.
The headline general business conditions index fell nineteen points to -20.9.
Demand softened as new orders declined significantly, and shipments were lower.
Unfilled orders continued to shrink, and delivery times were little changed.
Inventories declined. Labor market indicators weakened, as employment and hours
worked both decreased. The pace of input price increases moderated somewhat,
while the pace of selling price increases held steady. Firms expect conditions
to improve over the next six months, though optimism remained subdued.” Report
at...
https://www.newyorkfed.org/survey/empire/empiresurvey_overview
INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION (Breaking the News)
“Industrial production in the United States rose by 0.1%
in February after declining 0.5% in the previous month... Manufacturing output
rose 0.8% compared to the month before and dropped 0.7% on an annual basis.”
Story at...
https://breakingthenews.net/Article/US-industrial-production-up-0.1-in-February/61693749
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Friday the S&P 500 slipped about 0.7% to 5117.
-VIX rose about 0.1% to 14.41. (Options players don’t’
seem too concerned.)
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.308%.
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 Small Caps.
TODAY’S COMMENT:
Internals were good today so I didn’t make any portfolio
changes. Advancing issues outpaced declining issues 1553 to 1246; advancing
volume was higher than declining volume and new-highs were nearly double
new-lows. That’s usually a good sign the coming trading day.
The S&P 500 is either at its lower trend line or
below it depending on the scales one uses to draw the charts.
Today was an Option Expiration Day and that can skew with
the indicators since some are volume weighted.
Friday, unchanged volume was again very high. As I’ve
often said, many believe that this indicator suggests investor confusion at
market turning points. The trend has been up for some time so I would interpret
this signal as predicting a turn down. Still, “High-unchanged-volume” is not
one of my indicators because it is often wrong.
Indicators improved to the Bull side today although they
are a little below the numbers we saw a week ago.
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Now there are 9 bear-signs and 14-Bull. Thursday,
there were 12 bear-signs and 11 bull. Here are a few of the significant indicators.
- The S&P 500 is 11.8% above its 200-dMA. The Bear
indicator is 12% above the 200-day so this indicator has dropped into neutral
territory.
On the BULL side,
-Buying-Pressure minus Selling-Pressure remains bullish.
-Almost all the Breadth indicators look OK including the
MACD of Breadth that turned Bullish today.
For the BEARS:
- All the ETFs I track were above their respective 200-dMA,
today, 3/15/2024. That’s too bullish, so it’s a bearish indicator.
-McClellan Oscillator improved, but remained bearish.
-The Bearish Outside Reversal (ORD) signal will remain in
place until the S&P 500 closes above the intraday high registered on the
day of the ORD.
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 remain cautiously bullish, but watching price action
and the lower trend line.
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 DOW added Amazon to the Dow 30 & Monday I added it to the 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)
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.
