New Home Sales ... Crude Inventories ... 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.
 
"This is maybe the most dangerous market of my career, and that includes 1987's crash, that includes the savings and loan debacle market of the early '90s, that includes the 1999 to 2009 lost decade in the S&P 500 in the dot-com bubble. This is the most difficult market of my 45 years." -  Bill Smead, Smead Value Fund (SMVLX).
 
"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups." – George Carlin
 

MAYDAY ON THE FISCAL TITANIC (WSJ)
“...If the Republicans were serious, why not begin by cutting 3% off every line in the budget, no exceptions, other than interest on the debt? If the Republicans were serious about addressing entitlements, why not start with Medicare, an $850 billion program that exclusively benefits the elderly, the wealthiest cohort of society?
If the Republicans were serious, why not address the single largest federal expenditure, Social Security, which clocks in over $1 trillion? Means test the benefits, and silence the naysayers who complain that they “paid in” by allowing them to collect until they get back as much as they contributed. These kinds of measures may be bold and ambitious, but they are necessary. It isn’t serious merely to rearrange the deck chairs on our fiscal Titanic.” - Kenneth A. Margolis, WSJ Letters.
 
NEW HOME SALES (CNBC)
“Sales of new single-family homes dropped 13.7% in May compared with April... That sales total was 6.3% lower than May 2024...” Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/25/may-2025-new-home-sales.html
 
CRUDE INVENTORIES (EIA)
“U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 5.8 million barrels from the previous week. At 415.1 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 11% below the five year average for this time of year.” Report at...
https://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/wpsrsummary.pdf
 
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Wednesday the S&P 500 was unchanged at 6092.
-VIX declined about 4% to 16.76.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.291% (compared to about this time prior market day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
SPY – added 6/5/2025
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 10 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 Neutral at +2 (2 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators). I consider +5 to -5 the neutral zone. The 10-dMA of the spread continued down – a bearish sign.
 
The S&P 500 finished unchanged, but internals were surprisingly weak. Declining issues were more than twice advancers; down-volume was 3 times up-volume; the 10-dMA of issues advancing on the NYSE finished below 50%; the McClellan Oscillator is negative; and Utilities (XLU) are outperforming the S&P 500. There were others but you get the idea.  
 
There were good signs too, and as noted above, indicators are neutral. I am not particularly concerned, but I try to put extra funds into stocks when conditions are very strong. Today, we got some signs that conditions may not be as good as the price action is suggesting. At 50% invested in stocks, I am fully invested for my risk-tolerance.
 
As markets approach the previous all-time high, breadth is looking weak. We’ll see what happens when markets get to the old high. Hopefully breadth will improve by the time markets get there. We may not have long to wait.  
 
The S&P 500 is about 0.8% below its all-time high of 6144 on 19 February.
 
BOTTOM LINE
I am cautiously Bullish.
 
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 declined to 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 50% stocks, including stock mutual funds and ETFs. 50% invested in stocks is a normal, conservative position for a retiree. (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.