CPI ... 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.
 
WE’RE WASTING $2 TRILLION ANNUALLY CHASING GREEN FANTASIES (NY POST)
“Globally, we are already spending almost $2 trillion annually to try to force an energy transition. Over the past decade, solar and wind energy use has increased to their highest-ever levels. But it hasn’t reduced fossil fuels — on the contrary, we have added even more fossil fuels over the same time. Countless studies show that when societies add more renewable energy, most of it never replaces coal, gas or oil. It simply adds to energy consumption....
...The only realistic way to achieve a transition is to vastly improve green energy alternatives. This means more investment in green energy research and development. Innovation is needed in wind and solar, but also in storage, nuclear energy, and many other possible solutions. Bringing alternative energy costs below the price of fossil fuels is the only way that green solutions can be implemented globally, and not just by the elite in a few climate-concerned, wealthy countries. 
When politicians tell you the green transition is here and we need to get on board, they are really just asking voters to support them throwing more good money after bad. We need to be much smarter.” - Bjorn Lomborg, President of the Copenhagen Consensus, Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and author of “False Alarm.” Story at...
We are wasting $2 trillion a year chasing ‘green’ fantasies (msn.com)
 
CPI (CNN)
“...for the first time in more than three years, the Consumer Price Index has landed below 3%...Consumer prices rose 2.9% for the 12 months ended in July, slowing from June’s 3% annual gain, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest CPI report released Wednesday. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.2%” Story at...
https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/14/economy/us-cpi-consumer-price-index-inflation-july/index.html
 
EIA CRUDE INVENTORIES (EIA)
“U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 1.4 million barrels from the previous week. At 430.7 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 5% 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 0.4% to 5455.
-VIX fell about 11% to 16.19. 
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 3.839% (compared to this time, prior trading day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
XLK – Holding since the October 2022 lows.
XLK – added more 7/26. This reestablishes the position I had before this recent weakness.
UWM – added 7/15.
QLD – added 7/24.
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
The Bull/Bear Spread count improved to the bull side at 7 Bear-signs and 12-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 Bull/Bear, 50-Indicator spread (Bull Indicators minus Bear Indicators) improved from +3 to +5 (5 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators). The 10-dMA is rising, confirming the buy signal from 4 days ago.
 
TODAY’S COMMENT:
Today there was more improvement in indicators and that’s a good sign. Some are still worrisome.  Utilities are still outpacing the S&P 500 and Breadth hasn’t recovered too much. Tomorrow will bring some more closely watched news.
 
Retail Sales news is due out tomorrow, but Markets don’t seem too worried about it. That’s a big one though. Retail Sales comprise 6.4% of GDP and employ over 16 million people.
 
LONG-TERM INDICATOR: The Long Term NTSM indicator remained HOLD: VOLUME is bearish; VIX, SENTIMENT & PRICE are neutral.
This indicator can be late – now is the time to buy not sell.
 
{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 2022 (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 the 2022 bear market, based on the bearish “Summary of 50” indicator.}
 
BOTTOM LINE
I’m 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. Utilities are leading momentum due to the flight-to-safety trade.  I think Technology (XLK) is probably the best ETF to own now based on recent price action.
 
*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 was SELL. (This has been “sell” for 3-days, but I missed it.) (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 when markets are stretched; my current stock position is above the norm. (75% is my max stock allocation when I am strongly bullish.)
 
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.