FED Minutes ... Home Sales ... 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.
 
“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.
 
"Today in Georgia, they won't allow water to be available to you while you wait in line to vote in an election," Biden told the graduating class at Morehouse College, a historically Black university in Atlanta, over the weekend. "What in the hell is that all about?"
..."It’s obviously a factually false statement," Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Zack Smith told Fox News Digital. "Every state bans electioneering near polling places. Prohibiting giving money and gifts to potential voters – as Georgia election law does – to prevent unduly influencing them as they wait to vote is a good and reasonable policy." – Story at...
Biden blasted by experts for repeating 'debunked lie' to Black students at HBCU graduation: 'Factually false' (msn.com)
My cmt: Biden’s home state of Delaware has a similar rule. In Virginia, “it is unlawful for any person (i) to loiter or congregate within 40 feet of any entrance of any polling place; (ii) within such distance to give, tender, or exhibit any ballot, ticket, or other campaign material to any person or to solicit or in any manner attempt to influence any person in casting his vote...”
 
FED MINUTES (CNBC)
“Federal Reserve officials grew more concerned at their most recent meeting about inflation, with members indicating that they lacked the confidence to move forward on interest rate reductions... The minutes also showed “various participants mentioned a willingness to tighten policy further should risks to inflation materialize in a way that such an action became appropriate.” Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/22/fed-minutes-may-2024-.html
 
EXISTING HOME SALES (ABC News)
"Existing home sales fell 1.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.14 million in April...” Story at... 
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/us-existing-home-sales-drop-19-april-pushed-110466713
 
CRUDE INVENTORIES (EIA)
“U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 1.8 million barrels from the previous week. At 458.8 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 3% 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 declined about 0.3% to 5307.
-VIX rose about 3% to 12.22.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.426%.
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
UWM – Added 5/2/2024
QLD – Added 4/29/2024
SSO – Added 4/29/2024.
XLE – Added 4/24/2024
 
CRM – Added 1/22/2024.
XLK – Technology ETF (holding since the October 2022 lows). I don’t want to pay taxes on this gain, so I am holding this position.
 
DWCPF - Dow Jones U.S. Completion Total Stock Market Index. – Added 12/7/2023 when I sold the S&P 500.
“The Dow Jones U.S. Completion Total Stock Market Index, also known as the DWCPF, is a widely used financial index that provides a comprehensive measure of the US equity market. The DWCPF includes all US stocks that are not included in the Dow Jones US Total Stock Market Index, which comprises large-cap and mid-cap companies. As a result, the DWCPF provides a complete picture of the US stock market, including small-cap and micro-cap companies, which are often overlooked by other indexes.” From...
https://fi.money/blog/posts/what-is-dow-jones-u-s-completion-total-stock-market-index-dwcpf
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
The Bull/Bear Spread (Bull Indicators minus Bear Indicators) continued its slide to the bear-side and switched to bearish (but close to neutral) at 13 Bear-signs and 10-Bull. (The rest are neutral. It is normal to have a lot of neutral indicators since many of those are top or bottom indicators that will signal only at extremes.) The 10-dMA of spread (purple line in the chart below) was down again today.
 

TODAY’S COMMENT:
CNBC wrote today that “Troubling market internals warrant buying some portfolio protection.” Most of my indicators are based on market internals and we can certainly see that indicators are deteriorating and have now turned bearish. The catch is that I know of very few ways to predict the amount of decline that may occur. The S&P 500 is 2.5 % above its 50-dMA.  That usually tracks the lower trend line so a fall to the current 50-dMA of 5167 would be perfectly normal. The S&P 500 just completed a 10% correction on 19 April so it seems unlikely that the markets would experience another significant correction so soon.
 
Many on CNBC have suggested the recent market weakness has been due to concern over Nvidia’s earnings announcement today.  If so, there was nothing to worry about. Today, Nvidia reported a sales increase of 262%. Nvidia was up about 6% around 5:30pm in afterhours trading.
 
While indicators have slipped, Breadth indicators are all bullish. (Even the Breadth vs the S&P 500 indicator is close to issuing a buy signal.) The market still looks OK to me.
 
LONG-TERM INDICATOR: The Long Term NTSM indicator declined to HOLD: PRICE is bullish; VOLUME, VIX & SENTIMENT 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
 
DOW STOCKS - TODAY’S MOMENTUM RANKING OF THE DOW 30 STOCKS (Ranked Daily)
 

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 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 75% stocks, including stock mutual funds and ETFs. I’m usually about 50% invested in stocks, so this is a bullish, over-invested position. This is my max % for stock allocation.
 
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, usually by using an S&P 500 ETF as I did back in October 2022 and 2023.