CPI ... NY FED Manufacturing ... Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis ...

I’ll be posting late for the next few days. It’s a busy time.
 
“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).
 
CPI (CNBC)
Consumer prices rose in June as President Donald Trump’s tariffs began to slowly work their way through the U.S. economy.
The consumer price index, a broad-based measure of goods and services costs, increased 0.3% on the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.7%...” Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/15/cpi-inflation-report-june-2025.html
 
NY FED MANUFACTURING (RTT News)
“The New York Fed said its general business conditions index surged to a positive 5.5 in July from a negative 16.0 in June, with a positive reading indicating growth. Economists had expected the index to rise to a negative 10.0.” Story at...
https://www.rttnews.com/3553548/new-york-manufacturing-index-unexpectedly-turns-positive-in-july.aspx
 
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Tuesday the S&P 500 declined about 0.4% to 6260.
-VIX rose about 1% to 17.38.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.477% (compared to about this time prior market day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
SPY – added 6/5/2025 & 6/27/2025
XLK – added 6/27/2025
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 12 gave Bear-signs and 10 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

That’s not a very encouraging daily chart for the S&P 500.
 
The daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators declined and remained a Neutral position at -2 (2 more Bear indicators than Bull indicators). I consider +5 to -5 the neutral zone. The 10-dMA curve of the spread remained heading down – a bearish sign. “Danger Will Robinson.”
 
The 10-dMA of spread is now falling and that is not a good sign. It usually signals a drop, but that drop might be small (a few precent) or large (use your imagination). We still don’t expect a drop of more than 10% if a correction was to develop.
 
The S&P 500 may have broken its lower trendline on successive days.  I say “maybe,” because charts depend on the scales used to draw the chart. Spread out the horizontal axis with a longer distance between days and there would be no break of the trendline. I’ll wait a little before I make a move with the trading portfolio.
 
I’ll just finish this with a quote: “I have a bad feeling about this.”
 
BOTTOM LINE
I am neutral. We are watching the S&P 500 and the lower trendline.
 
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
 
TUESDAY 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 55% 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.