PPI ... Michigan Sentiment ... 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.
 
"Investors should not try to ‘catch a falling knife...This is an epic economic and market event similar to 1971 and the end of the gold standard except with immediate negative consequences...Trump can’t back down anytime soon...He’s too macho for that.” – Bill Gross.
 
“I think probably [a recession is] a likely outcome, because markets, I mean, when you see a 2,000-point decline [in the Dow Jones Industrial Average], it sort of feeds on itself, doesn’t it...It makes you feel like you’re losing money in your 401(k), you’re losing money in your pension. You’ve got to cut back.” – Jamie Dimon on Fox Business, “Mornings With Maria” show.
 
PPI (CNN)
“US wholesale prices fell last month, new data showed Friday, an indication that inflationary pressures weren’t necessarily building before they reach the consumer...prices paid to producers fell 0.4% in March from the month before and slowed sharply to an annual rate of 2.7%, from 3.2%...” Story at... 
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/11/economy/us-producer-price-index-ppi-inflation-march/index.html
 
UNIV OF MICHIGAN SENTIMENT (CNN)
“Americans are rarely this pessimistic about the economy. Consumer sentiment plunged 11% this month to a preliminary reading of 50.8, the University of Michigan said in its latest survey released Friday, the second-lowest reading on records going back to 1952. April’s reading was lower than anything seen during the Great Recession.”
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/11/economy/us-consumer-sentiment-april/index.html
 
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS AS OF 1PM FRIDAY
-Friday the S&P 500 rose about 1.8% to 5363.
-VIX declined about 8% to 37.56.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.497% (compared to about this time prior market day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
NONE
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 17 gave Bear-signs and 8 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.)
 

 
TODAY’S COMMENT
The daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators improved, but remained bearish at -9 (9 more Bear indicators than Bull indicators) - the 10-dMA of the spread reversed upward – a bullish sign. 
 
We have seen other bullish signs, especially the 90% up-volume on Wednesday. It suggests the bottom may be in for the correction. I think it is, but it would be very unusual for a correction as deep (and long) as this one to move higher without testing the 4983 low we saw Tuesday. I can think of only one correction this deep that did not retest the low - the Coronavirus, 34% correction/bear-market in 2020. Like the ongoing Trump-Tariff correction, the Coron-virus pullback was characterized by unknowns. As reported by Forbes, shortly before the corona-virus bottom, “Congress and the Fed stepped in, interest rates were cut to near zero and a $2.3 trillion fiscal rescue package was launched, providing life support to markets, businesses, households and local governments.” This time it was Donald Trump who stemmed the tide of the stock market decline by pausing the Tariffs. So in both cases, outside Government forces stepped in to stop the correction.
 
Is that similarity enough to suggest there will be no retest of the prior low? Perhaps. I’ll be watching the charts. A move above the top trend line would suggest the answer is, “Yes.”
 
Still, there are worrisome bear signs. Most Breadth measures remain stubbornly to the bear side.  The down-sloping chart of the S&P 500 is not currently bullish and the 50-indicator ensemble is still in bear territory.
 
I still think it is likely that the prior lows will be retested, but we need to keep an open mind that it is also possible there will not be a retest of the low.
 
BOTTOM LINE
I am neutral, leaning bearish, in a wait-and-see mode. I’ll be bullish when there is a resolution to the crisis or technical indicators give a buy-signal.
 
ETF - MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily) ETF ranking follows:
All of the ETFs I track are below their 120-dMA the chart is blowing up. None have positive momentum, but IEFA is #1, ITA is #2.
 
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
 
FRIDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)

My basket of Market Internals remained HOLD. (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 30% 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.