Monday, January 13, 2025

... 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.
 
"The United States is taking sweeping action against Russia's key source of revenue for funding its brutal and illegal war against Ukraine...With today's actions, we are ratcheting up the sanctions risk associated with Russia's oil trade, including shipping and financial facilitation in support of Russia's oil exports." - Janet Yellen, Treasury Secretary, last week.
WTF? Why didn’t they do this 3 years ago? Now we’re getting tough with Russia? Apparently, Biden thinks this makes him look good – it actually makes him look like a complete idiot.
 
ANOTHER BIDEN PARTING BLOW (NY Post)
“In a final (we hope) slam of regular Americans, Team Biden’s green crusaders just targeted yet another common household appliance: gas-fired tankless water heaters. Scheduled to kick in 2029, the new rule bans 40% of new water-heater models, forcing consumers to pay another $450 for electric alternatives that won’t work if the power goes out. This follows last year’s rule to effectively prohibit new non-condensing gas furnaces by 2028 — and raise consumer costs by over $900.
It’s all in service to the green delusion that forcing Americans to rely on electric everything will somehow reduce carbon emissions — even though the US electric supply will remain every bit as dependent on burning fossil fuels for the foreseeable future.
The growth in wind, solar and other “alternatives” isn’t even enough to make up for growing electric demand.” Story at...
Another parting Biden blow to American families: A war on water heaters
 
LESSONS LEARNED FROM A FIERY DECADE IN L.A. (WSJ-Excerpt)
“Shortly after my wife and I bought our all-wood Victorian home in Malibu in 2000, our next-door neighbor... said something I’ve never forgotten. “You know you’re going to have to fight a wildfire one day to save this house.”... He explained that firefighters would likely be overwhelmed by the size and ferocity of these fast-moving, wind-driven wildfire events. He and his father had saved their nearby family home themselves in a previous fire... he listed the items I’d need to save my home, including a fire retardant just like what the fire departments drop from planes and helicopters. Apparently, we were to spray our own house in advance of the fire. I never imagined I’d use any of it... Then in 2018, the Woolsey Fire burst alive in the mountains above my home. The blaze turned out to be one of the most destructive in California history, burning 100,000 acres, forcing 250,000 people to evacuate and destroying nearly 2,000 homes and structures. On my street, 17 of 19 homes burned to the ground. Because of Tim and our spraying, our Victorian was one of the few homes to survive... Spraying, or gelling, in advance of a fire is just one way to give your home a fighting chance to survive. (If no fire comes, the product can be power-washed off.) Removing dry brush and dead leaves and the most flammable vegetation is another critically important step. Experts I’ve interviewed say the most significant thing homeowners can do to mitigate fire risk is to reduce the amount of available fuel.” Story at...
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/climate-environment/lessons-learned-from-a-fiery-decade-in-l-a-f188cb7d
My cmt: This was an interesting story reminding us that California fires are nothing new. Here’s a description of “Barricade,” a fire retardant: “When mixed with water at the end of a garden hose, superabsorbent polymers in the gel-concentrate trap water molecules and suspend them in millions of tiny “bubblets.” Sprayed onto the flammable surfaces of roofs, windows, eaves and walls of a house, vehicles, or propane tanks, a “wet blanket” wrap of Barricade Fire Gel Retardant can be applied up to 24 hours before an approaching wildfire.”
 
BOND SELLOFF (WSJ via msn)
“Wall Street is really worried about bonds. It might be time to buy some.
On Friday, a jobs report that blew past expectations pushed yields on 10-year Treasurys to 4.772%, the highest close since Nov. 1, 2023, and those on 30-year paper to 4.962%.mWhat is spooking markets, however, is that much of the recent rise in yields doesn’t appear to reflect expectations of stronger economic growth. Rather, it might be the result of investors applying a higher discount or “term premium” to hold long-term bonds...
...inflation-linked Treasurys have sold off too, belying the idea that markets see a hot economy and tariffs as a serious inflationary problem. It might all have to do with interest rates after all... The reason alarm bells are ringing is that longer-term bonds have sold off even more—a “bear steepening” trade, in Wall Street lingo. Three out of four times, yield curves steepen for the opposite reason, historical data shows: A fall in short-term yields driven by central banks cutting rates very fast. Bear steepenings following a period of inverted yield curves are rare, and mostly are reminiscent of the “stagflation” periods of the 1970s and 1980s.” Story at...
A Bond Selloff Is Rocking the World. You Might Want to Take the Other Side.
 
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS AS OF 1PM FRIDAY
-Monday the S&P 500 rose about 0.2% to 5836.
-VIX declined about 2% to 19.22.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose (compared to about this time, prior trading day) to 4.782%.
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
XLK – Holding since the October 2022 lows.  Added more 9/20.
 
SSO – added 12/20. (IRA acct.)
SPY – added 12/20. (IRA acct.)
QLD – added 12/20. (IRA acct.)
NVDA – added 1/6/2025
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 19 gave Bear-signs and 3 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 -16 (16 more Bear indicators than Bull indicators).
 
TODAY’S COMMENT

Today’s action in the S&P 500 was bullish – let’s hope it carries through.
 
The market has been weak since its high in December.  One would think the markets have collapsed since then, but the S&P 500 has only fallen 4.2%. Market internals improved today, but indicators (in a surprise) did not. The Index has fallen about a half percent below the 19 December low of 5867 – I thought that was the low based on analysis and indicators. I still suspect markets are close to their lows.
 
The Index closed on its 100-dMA yesterday and remained above it today – good news.
 
The S&P 500 is now 4.2% above its 200-dMA (5575) and that is probably a reasonable worst-case scenario.  There are many more disastrous outcomes for the markets, but at this point, they don’t seem reasonable unless there is some unforeseen political news, like war. The S&P 500 hasn’t visited its 200-dMA since October 2023.
 
Looking over S&P 500 price moves, I see that it has been 23-days since the top with rallies of only 3-days or less. This recalls the old Wall Street adage I learned from Jeffrey Saut. He has previously written about other corrections noting “... we could be in one of these “selling stampedes” that tend to last 17 – 25 sessions, with only 1.5- to three-day pauses/throwback rallies, before they exhaust themselves on the downside...[it is] too soon to tell yet if this is such a stampede, but “Never on a Friday.” The reference was that once the markets get into one of these weekly downside skeins, they rarely bottom on a Friday. Nope, they typically give participants over the weekend to brood about their losses and then they show up the next Monday in “sell mode” leading to Turning Tuesday.”
 
By this measure the weakness should be ending, but on the other hand, this hasn’t been a “stampede," but rather, an orderly walk.
 
The daily, bull-bear spread of -14 is Bearish, however, indicator-spread has improved compared to the prior low in S&P 500 price.  This “divergence” again suggests that weakness is ending. Futures are up as I write this so let’s hope they stay that way.
 
BOTTOM LINE
I am neutral, expecting this weakness to end very soon.  If not, I’ll have to consider taking a much more conservative market position.
 
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

MONDAY 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 75% stocks, including stock mutual funds and ETFs. 50% invested in stocks is a normal position. (75% is my max stock allocation when I am confident that markets will continue higher; 30% in stocks is my Bear market position.)
                                             
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.