“I know not with what weapons World War III will be
fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” - Albert
Einstein
“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.
“It is clear we need to fundamentally change our strategy
to win back customers... We have a clear plan and are moving quickly to return
Starbucks to growth.” - Brian Niccol Starbucks CEO.
My cmt: I think they need to fundamentally make better coffee. We have been disappointed in the quality and consistency of their offerings recently.
“Both of the candidates worry me. This left, right and
fighting each other is a problem as it becomes more of the extremes. I think
there needs to be a bringing of Americans together, that middle of that, and
making great reforms... There needs to be a strong leader of the middle, I
believe, that makes great reforms... Neither of the candidates does that for
me.” – Ray Dalio, Chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates
“I’m under the age of 80, I speak in complete sentences, I’m not a convicted felon...It’s a very low bar, but I’ve managed to clear that.” - Chase Oliver, Libertarian candidate for President.
SUPREME COURT FUTURE IS ON THE BALLOT (WSJ)
“Would Kamala Harris support packing the Supreme Court by adding, say, three Justices? She was asked that in a CNN town hall last week, and what a chance to present herself as a safe pair of hands... [Her answer]...
...“The American people increasingly are losing confidence in the Supreme Court, in large part because of the behavior of certain members of that Court and because of certain rulings... So I do believe that there should be some kind of reform of the Court, and we can study what that actually looks like.” There you have it. Ms. Harris has already endorsed President Biden’s plan to impose “ethics” rules on the Justices that would invite political harassment and compromise judicial independence. Now she won’t disavow packing the Court. She has called for Democrats, if they keep the Senate in November, to bypass the 60-vote filibuster rule, letting them enact such bills without even a modicum of compromise...
... If Ms. Harris wins next week, while Democrats hang on to 50 Senate seats, they have promised progressive voters they’ll take a wrecking ball to the current Supreme Court. It used to be a fringe position to propose fundamental “reform” of the Court, but Mr. Biden has embraced it, Ms. Harris has endorsed it, and the Senate Judiciary Committee has passed it.
Democrats are serious. They say Mr. Trump is a threat to democracy and U.S. institutions, while they’re pledging to restructure the judiciary wholesale. Do they notice the cognitive dissonance? Apparently not. But voters might.” – The Editorial Board, WSJ. Opinion at...
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-supreme-courts-future-is-on-the-ballot-harris-packing-reform-65de837f
GDP / PCE (CNBC)
“The U.S. economy posted another solid though slightly disappointing period of growth in the third quarter, propelled higher by strong consumer spending that has defied expectations for a slowdown.
Gross domestic product, a measure of all the goods and services produced during the three-month period from July through September, increased at a 2.8% annualized rate... Personal consumption expenditures, the proxy for consumer activity, increased 3.7% for the quarter, the strongest performance since Q1 of 2023, contributing nearly 2.5 percentage points to the total.” Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/30/us-gdp-q3-2024.html
ADP EMPLOYMENT (ADP via prnewswire)
“Private sector employment increased by 233,000 jobs in October and annual pay was up 4.6 percent year-over-year, according to the October ADP® National Employment Report™ produced by ADP Research in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab ("Stanford Lab").. "Even amid hurricane recovery, job growth was strong in October," said Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP. "As we round out the year, hiring in the U.S. is proving to be robust and broadly resilient." Press release at...
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/adp-national-employment-report-private-sector-employment-increased-by-233-000-jobs-in-october-annual-pay-was-up-4-6-302291459.html
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Wednesday the S&P 500 declined about 0.3% to 5814.
-VIX rose about 5% to 20.35.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose (compared to about this time, prior trading day) to 4.30%.
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
XLK – Holding since the October 2022 lows. Added more 9/20.
QLD – added 7/24.
SSO – added 10/16.
SPY – added 9/19 & more 10/16
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 15 gave Bear-signs and 7 were Bullish. The rest are neutral. (It is normal to have a lot of neutral indicators since many of the indicators are top or bottom indicators that will signal only at extremes.)
The daily Bull/Bear, 50-Indicator spread (Bull Indicators minus Bear Indicators, red curve in the chart above) declined to -8 (8 more Bear indicators and Bull indicators).
TODAY’S COMMENT:
Today’s Bull-Bear spread of -8 is bearish. The 10-dMA of the 50-Indicator Spread (purple line in the chart above) remained bearish since it is still moving lower. (I follow the 10-dMA for trading buy-signals and as an indicator for sell signals.) This is slightly worse than the spread I saw today at 2pm, because internals declined late in the day and created another bear sign. Indicators remain under stress.
I sold my leveraged position in QLD (2x Nasdaq 100) today.
With indicators falling, it makes sense to cut some risk until the uncertainty is
resolved.
The 50-dMA is about 2% lower than today’s close and
that’s a strong level of support. I still don’t expect to see a big drop when
it does happen assuming we see a decline fairly soon.
Who knows, with Consumer confidence rising, we might even
see a pre-election bounce higher.
BOTTOM LINE
I’m neutral on the markets. If the pullback resumes, the drop should be small. While indicators have been falling, the S&P 500 has drifted higher and is now only 0.9% below its all-time high.
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 SELL. (My basket of Market
Internals is a decent trend-following analysis that is most useful when it
diverges from the Index.)
...My current invested
position is about 60% stocks, including stock mutual funds and ETFs. I’m
usually about 50% invested in stocks when markets are stretched. (75% is my max
stock allocation when I am confident that markets will continue higher.)
I trade about 15-20% of the total portfolio using the
momentum-based analysis I provide here. When I see bullish signs, 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.
My cmt: I think they need to fundamentally make better coffee. We have been disappointed in the quality and consistency of their offerings recently.
“I’m under the age of 80, I speak in complete sentences, I’m not a convicted felon...It’s a very low bar, but I’ve managed to clear that.” - Chase Oliver, Libertarian candidate for President.
“Would Kamala Harris support packing the Supreme Court by adding, say, three Justices? She was asked that in a CNN town hall last week, and what a chance to present herself as a safe pair of hands... [Her answer]...
...“The American people increasingly are losing confidence in the Supreme Court, in large part because of the behavior of certain members of that Court and because of certain rulings... So I do believe that there should be some kind of reform of the Court, and we can study what that actually looks like.” There you have it. Ms. Harris has already endorsed President Biden’s plan to impose “ethics” rules on the Justices that would invite political harassment and compromise judicial independence. Now she won’t disavow packing the Court. She has called for Democrats, if they keep the Senate in November, to bypass the 60-vote filibuster rule, letting them enact such bills without even a modicum of compromise...
... If Ms. Harris wins next week, while Democrats hang on to 50 Senate seats, they have promised progressive voters they’ll take a wrecking ball to the current Supreme Court. It used to be a fringe position to propose fundamental “reform” of the Court, but Mr. Biden has embraced it, Ms. Harris has endorsed it, and the Senate Judiciary Committee has passed it.
Democrats are serious. They say Mr. Trump is a threat to democracy and U.S. institutions, while they’re pledging to restructure the judiciary wholesale. Do they notice the cognitive dissonance? Apparently not. But voters might.” – The Editorial Board, WSJ. Opinion at...
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-supreme-courts-future-is-on-the-ballot-harris-packing-reform-65de837f
“The U.S. economy posted another solid though slightly disappointing period of growth in the third quarter, propelled higher by strong consumer spending that has defied expectations for a slowdown.
Gross domestic product, a measure of all the goods and services produced during the three-month period from July through September, increased at a 2.8% annualized rate... Personal consumption expenditures, the proxy for consumer activity, increased 3.7% for the quarter, the strongest performance since Q1 of 2023, contributing nearly 2.5 percentage points to the total.” Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/30/us-gdp-q3-2024.html
“Private sector employment increased by 233,000 jobs in October and annual pay was up 4.6 percent year-over-year, according to the October ADP® National Employment Report™ produced by ADP Research in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab ("Stanford Lab").. "Even amid hurricane recovery, job growth was strong in October," said Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP. "As we round out the year, hiring in the U.S. is proving to be robust and broadly resilient." Press release at...
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/adp-national-employment-report-private-sector-employment-increased-by-233-000-jobs-in-october-annual-pay-was-up-4-6-302291459.html
-Wednesday the S&P 500 declined about 0.3% to 5814.
-VIX rose about 5% to 20.35.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose (compared to about this time, prior trading day) to 4.30%.
XLK – Holding since the October 2022 lows. Added more 9/20.
QLD – added 7/24.
SSO – added 10/16.
SPY – added 9/19 & more 10/16
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 15 gave Bear-signs and 7 were Bullish. The rest are neutral. (It is normal to have a lot of neutral indicators since many of the indicators are top or bottom indicators that will signal only at extremes.)
The daily Bull/Bear, 50-Indicator spread (Bull Indicators minus Bear Indicators, red curve in the chart above) declined to -8 (8 more Bear indicators and Bull indicators).
Today’s Bull-Bear spread of -8 is bearish. The 10-dMA of the 50-Indicator Spread (purple line in the chart above) remained bearish since it is still moving lower. (I follow the 10-dMA for trading buy-signals and as an indicator for sell signals.) This is slightly worse than the spread I saw today at 2pm, because internals declined late in the day and created another bear sign. Indicators remain under stress.
I’m neutral on the markets. If the pullback resumes, the drop should be small. While indicators have been falling, the S&P 500 has drifted higher and is now only 0.9% below its all-time high.
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily) ETF ranking follows:
*For additional background on the ETF ranking system see NTSM Page at…
http://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/exchange-traded-funds-etf-ranking.html
For more details, see NTSM Page at…
https://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/a-system-for-trading-dow-30-stocks-my_8.html
