“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.
“It is common today to think of our branches of government as coequal, as Daniel Henninger writes in his column “Trump’s Imperial Presidency?” (Wonder Land, Jan. 23). But this is incorrect. The Founders would say our branches are coordinate, that each has its own role...
...Unfortunately, our government today bears little resemblance to this constitutional vision. It is, as Mr. Henninger writes, closer to an imperium, with the president as elected emperor. The blame for this situation belongs to Congress, which has over the last century ceded de facto lawmaking powers to the executive branch and its legions of unelected bureaucrats. This violates an essential maxim of our constitutional order: that the preservation of liberty requires that the executive, legislative and judicial powers mostly be kept separate...
...Perhaps congressional dysfunction isn’t a consequence of our civic malady but its cause. By divesting itself of power, Congress has robbed the people of meaningful input into the rules that govern them. If some wish to “Make America Great Again,” as President Trump and his supporters proclaim, the executive should return to Congress the powers that, under the Constitution, it never should have had in the first place.” - Jay Cost, American Enterprise Institute. Full letter at...
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trump-isnt-king-and-congress-isnt-coequal-trump-republic-1f7f46f1?mod=letterstoeditor_more_article_pos13
my cmt: Of course this didn’t start with Trump, Biden or even Obama, though they all assumed powers that were not granted to the President.
“In a widely anticipated move, the central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee left unchanged its overnight borrowing rate in a range between 4.25%-4.5%... The post-meeting statement dropped a few clues about the reasoning behind the decision to hold rates steady. It offered a somewhat more optimistic view on the labor market while losing a key reference from the December statement that inflation ‘has made progress toward’ the Fed’s 2% inflation goal.” Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/29/fed-rate-decision-january-2025.html
“U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 3.5 million barrels from the previous week. At 415.1 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 6% below the five year average for this time of year.” Report at...
https://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/wpsrsummary.pdf
-Wednesday the S&P 500 declined about 0.5% to 6039.
-VIX rose about 0.9% to 16.56.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury was unchanged (compared to about this time, prior trading day) at 4.534%.
XLK – Holding since the October 2022 lows. Added more 9/20.
SPY – added 12/20. (IRA acct.)
QLD – added 12/20. (IRA acct.)
NVDA – added 1/6/2025.
...Down 17% Monday; up 9% Tuesday; down 4% Wednesday – whiplash!
Nvidia was up 2% after hours Wednesday so perhaps investors were encouraged by earnings from Microsoft and Meta.
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 4 gave Bear-signs and 17 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.)
Overall, the daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators is a bullish +13. The 10-dMA of the spread is also moving higher, another bull-sign. The decline in indicators is not particularly concerning, especially on a Fed-decision day. There’s often angst when the Fed is talking. There were some critical earnings due today and that may have also worried investors.
I remain bullish.
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
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 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.
