Thursday, May 22, 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.
 
"One thing that we've heard is that a lot of the tariff impact to date has actually not shown up in the numbers yet. There's been a lot of front-running, building inventories and all those sorts of things. And we are hearing from an increasing number of businesses that those strategies ... are starting to run their course...If these pre-tariff strategies have run their course, we're about to see some changes in prices, and then we're going to learn how consumers are going to respond to that." – Raphael Bostic, Atlanta Fed Chair at the Atlanta Fed conference in Florida.
 
“In fiscal year 2024, the U.S. government paid a total of $1,126.5 billion in interest on its debt. This represents a significant increase from the $881 billion paid in the previous year. The rising cost of borrowing, driven by higher interest rates and a larger national debt, led to this substantial increase.” From...
https://www.pgpf.org/programs-and-projects/fiscal-policy/monthly-interest-tracker-national-debt/
1.1-trillion dollars per year just to pay the interest on the debt. Unreal...
 
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Thursday the S&P 500 declined about 3 pts to 5842.
-VIX declined about 3% to 20.28.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.527% (compared to about this time prior market day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
XLK-sold 5/21
SPY-sold 5/21
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 7 gave Bear-signs and 12 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 declined, to a neutral +5 (5 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators) I consider 5 neutral. The 10-dMA of the spread has turned down – a bearish sign suggesting a reversal down. 
 
Thursday, there was very high unchanged volume. I know, you’re tired of reading my standard note:
As I’ve often said, many believe that this indicator suggests investor confusion at market turning points. Are markets turning back down? That could always happen and the indicators are suggesting a possible downturn now. Still, “High-unchanged-volume” is not one of my indicators because it is often wrong.
 
A drop to the lower trend line would put the S&P 500 somewhere around 5600. If this decline continues - and I don’t know if it will – a significant break below that 5600 zone would signal a likely retest of the April lows. That has been one of the reasons I am being very conservative now. A return to the April lows has always been a possibility. Still, given the strong signals we got during the rally up from the low (Zweig Breadth Thrust; 90% up-volume day; broken downtrend in the charts), a drop to the April lows probably has a less than 50% chance.
 
BOTTOM LINE
I am neutral, but worried. Let’s see where the indicators go.
 
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
 
THURSDAY 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 50% stocks, including stock mutual funds and ETFs. 50% invested in stocks is a normal, conservative 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.