Navigate the Stock Market: September 2025

Friday, September 5, 2025

Payroll Report ... 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), May 2025.

RFK OPERATION WARPED MEMORY (WSJ)
“Is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suffering from long Covid? His memory was foggy during a Senate hearing on Thursday, in which the Health and Human Services Secretary hailed as “genius” President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, which produced Covid vaccines in record time. Mr. Trump must have liked hearing that. But these are the same vaccines that RFK has also called “a crime against humanity.”... He has called the Covid jabs the “deadliest vaccine ever made.” Last month he moved to end $500 million in contracts for other mRNA vaccine development...“In your confirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines,” Wyoming GOP Sen. John Barrasso said. “Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned.” Mr. Kennedy struggled to defend his inconsistencies.” – The Editorial Board, WSJ. Opinion at...
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/rfk-jr-operation-warp-speed-covid-vaccines-donald-trump-10f56acc?mod=opinion_lead_pos4
My cmt: What a nut case - Trump’s worst appointment.

"When I see all these senators trying to lecture and 'gotcha' Bobby Kennedy today all I can think is: You all support off-label, untested, and irreversible hormonal 'therapies' for children, mutilating our kids and enriching big pharma. You're full of s--- and everyone knows it." – JD Vance. VP of the United States.
My cmt. What a tasteless comment from the VP of the United States.

DOCTORED IMAGE OF TRUMP? (Snopes)

Is this a legitimate photo or was it altered? Snopes asked California Governor’s Newsome’s office for a comment since they had disseminated the photo. Their response? "Of course it's edited — that's why it's so funny. We posted it so the world can laugh at the bumbling, senile President of the United States," Izzy Gordon, director of communications for Newsom's office, said in response to our [Snopes] inquiry.” The original photo of Trump was taken by an Associated Press photographer in July 2022. Story at...
Doctored image of Trump spreads online amid health concerns
My cmt: Remind me again why I hate all politicians.

“The supreme leader of the world’s greatest superpower is, objectively, a Soviet, or Russian, asset. He functions as an asset... I am saying that, objectively, the new U.S. leadership has strategically favored the Russian Federation.” - Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

TRUMP MURDERS DRUG SMUGGLERS? (WSJ-but my headline)
“President Trump was operating within his constitutional powers as commander in chief when he ordered the U.S. military to destroy a vessel in the Caribbean, administration officials said, describing the drugs it was allegedly smuggling as an imminent national security threat. But that claim was sharply disputed by legal experts and some lawmakers, who said that Trump exceeded his legal authority by using lethal military force against a target that posed no direct danger to the U.S. and doing so without congressional authorization...Unlike the interdictions which are usually conducted by the U.S. Coast Guard, the strike was carried out without warning shots, and no effort was made to detain the ship, apprehend its crew, or confirm the drugs on board. “Instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders they blew it up,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in Mexico City on Wednesday... “You don’t just send a missile and destroy a boat. It is the equivalent of a police officer walking up to a drug trafficker on the street and shooting him” [said Mike Vigil, a former DEA director of international operations.] Story at...
Did a Boat Strike in Caribbean Exceed Trump’s Authority to Use Military Force?
My cmt: Disturbing. The US chose to attack and kill the crew of an open boat in international waters. There could have been American citizens on board. Yes, they were probably drug smugglers, but the attack is another Trumpian failure to follow the law.

PAYROLL REPORT / UNEMPLOYMENT RATE (CNBC)
“Job creation sputtered in August, adding to recent signs of labor market weakening and likely keeping the Federal Reserve on track for a widely anticipated interest rate cut later this month. Nonfarm payrolls increased by just 22,000 for the month, while the unemployment rate rose to 4.3...” Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/05/jobs-report-august-2025.html

MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Friday the S&P 500 declined about 0.3% to 6482.
-VIX declined about 1% to 15.18. (The Options players are not worried.)
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.076% (compared to about this time prior market day).

MY TRADING POSITIONS:
SPY – Added 8/26/2025
XLK – Added 8/26/2025

CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 4 gave Bear-signs and 18 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 from +13 to +14 (14 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators) and is now giving a Bullish indication. I consider +5 to -5 the neutral zone. The 10-dMA curve of the spread remained headed upward – another Bullish sign.

The Jobs Report was weak today. The markets liked the news at first and increased, but on reflection, decided that a slowing economy might be a worry. The news was not great, but not bad enough to suggest a half point reduction in Fed rates. According to CME Fed Watch, the probability of a quarter point rate cut is now 88% for the 17 September Fed meeting.

Friday there was a Bearish outside reversal:
“An outside reversal is a price pattern that indicates a potential change in trend on a price chart. The two-day pattern is observed when a security’s high and low prices for the day exceed the high and low of the previous day’s trading session...Technical analysts and experienced traders prefer to build trading signals using this identification in conjunction with other information such as trend, support and resistance or technical studies.” – Investopedia.

Friday, the Bolinger Band Squeeze remains in place. As noted yesterday:
Today, there was a Bollinger Squeeze signal that occurs when Bollinger Bands are close together. “A Bollinger Band... is defined by a series of lines that are plotted two standard deviations—both positively and negatively—away from the simple moving average (SMA) of the price of an asset... A Squeeze is triggered when volatility reaches a six-month low and is identified when Bollinger Bands reach a six-month minimum distance apart...” The Bollinger Squeeze predicts a big move (breakout) in the S&P 500, but it doesn’t tell us the direction of such a move. To determine breakout direction, Bollinger suggests looking at other indicators. He suggests using the relative strength index (RSI). Bollinger bands are discussed at Investopedia...
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/accumulationdistribution.asp
RSI is near the middle of its range so it will not tell us what direction a breakout may be. In addition, Bollinger mentions a few other indicators I don’t use. From my indicators we see that the daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators improved to a Bullish +14 (14 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators) and the 10-dMA of the spread is now rising – a bullish sign. This suggests the breakout should be upward.

All of the ETFs that I track for momentum purposes are above their respective 120-dMAs. That signals a top, but declines following the signal are often small, and the signal can be early.

I considered adding to my trading positions, but the bearish outside reversal pattern was a worry so I decided to wait.

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

FRIDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)

My basket of Market Internals remained BUY. (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.

Thursday, September 4, 2025

Jobless Claims ... ISM Services ... ADP Employment ... Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis ...

“What the welfare system and other kinds of governmental programs are doing is paying people to fail. Insofar as they fail, they receive the money; insofar as they succeed, even to a moderate extent, the money is taken away.” ― Thomas Sowell, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

“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), May 2025.

"Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed—and no republic can survive". - JFK

TRUMP STILL CLAIMS MAIL-IN VOTING COST HIM THE 2020 ELECTION
“President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that U.S. Space Command's headquarters will move to Alabama from Colorado, reversing a Biden administration decision. In remarks at the White House, Trump said he was making the shift in part because of Colorado's use of mail-in voting. "The problem I have with Colorado, one of the big problems, they do mail-in voting, they went to all mail-in voting, so they have automatically crooked elections," Trump said in the Oval Office.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-moving-space-command-hq-alabama-colorado-mail-voting-system-rcna228647

Let’s check “voter fraud” in the 2020 election.
2020 VOTER FRAUD (Heritage Foundation Database)
Heritage Foundation reports that there have been 17 convictions for voter fraud in 2020. [Could be higher now; I haven’t checked this in a while.] Convictions included the following offenses: False Registrations; Buying Votes; Ballot Petition Fraud; Illegal "Assistance" At The Polls; Fraudulent Use Of Absentee Ballots; and Ineligible Voting. A few examples follow:
-“Randy Allen Jumper voted twice in the 2016 general election. He voted by absentee ballot in Arizona and again by absentee ballot in Nevada. He pleaded guilty to attempted illegal voting, a class 6 felony. He was sentenced to two years probation, fined $5,000, and is barred from voting in Arizona.”
- “April Atilano, of Monterey County, pleaded guilty to 6 counts of felony voter fraud for falsifying voter registration forms. Atilano falsified a number of voter registration cards by changing party affiliation and forging signatures. The forms were submitted to the Madera County Registrar of Voters in July 2019. Atilano was sentenced to one year in prison and three years probation.”
-“Delores "Dee" Handy, of Crowley was found guilty of failing to mark a ballot as instructed when assisting an elderly voter, a misdemeanor. She was sentenced to 11 months in jail which was suspended, two years of probation, and fined $800.”

According to Trump. he was robbed in Georgia due to absentee voting, so let’s look at the numbers.
Donald trump won Georgia by 211,000 votes in 2016; Trump lost Georgia by 12,000 in 2020. So, by Trump’s claims, the Democrats would have needed to falsify at least 233,000 votes to flip the election. Since paper ballots matched the voting machines, the machines weren’t to blame. [Fox paid $750-million for lying about voter-machine fraud.] Absentee ballots? Absentee ballots were matched to voter registrations and signatures were checked. The Dems would have needed to forge close to a quarter-million signatures of existing voters and get them past the verifiers certifying the election - Absurd. Oh, by the way, if any of the 233,000 real people whose identities were stolen voted, they would be identified for duplicate voting. Could the Dems register a quarter million fake names and use them to vote? Not likely. As noted above, Ms. Alitano got caught submitting 6 false registrations.

It is simply impossible to steal an election on the scale that Trump continues to claim.
For more, see the Heritage Foundation website and search the database at...
https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud

On the most commonsense level, Trump was behind in the polls before the 2020 election. Why would anyone be surprised he lost? Further, it the Dems were so good at faking votes, why didn’t they give themselves a clear majority in the Senate so they could do whatever they wanted? (They didn’t get a majority in the Senate until runoff elections in Georgia were held after the Presidential election. Democrats won both Senate seats in the Georgia runoff after the November election thanks to Trump’s lying about the stolen election.)

RAY DALIO WORRIED ABOUT THE US ECONOMY AND SUPRESSION OF CRITICISM (Fortune)
“Billionaire investor Ray Dalio has delivered a stark warning about the state of American discourse around the nation’s economic challenges, saying fear of retaliation, particularly from the Trump administration, is keeping investors and business leaders from voicing critical concerns about the country’s fiscal trajectory... “Most people are silent because they are afraid of retaliation if they criticize,” Dalio said, highlighting what he sees as a dangerous suppression of economic debate at a critical juncture for the United States...Dalio’s alarm centers on what he describes as an impending ‘debt-induced heart attack in the relatively near future,’ which he said could strike the U.S. economy within the next three years. The numbers support his concern: America’s national debt has reached a staggering $37 trillion as of August, representing approximately 124% of the nation’s gross domestic product—levels not seen since World War II. More troubling, the Congressional Budget Office projects the debt-to-GDP ratio will climb from 100% in 2025 to 156% by 2055 if current policies remain unchanged.” Story at...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/ray-dalio-says-most-people-are-silent-because-they-re-afraid-to-talk-about-what-s-really-happenin
My cmt: Ray Dalio is a founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund with approximately $130 billion under management. These are not anti-Trump comments; rather, they are economic realities. Is he right about a crisis starting within three years? I don’t know. I will rely on my stock-market indicators to warn me if there is a major crisis coming. My indicators have been very reliable warning of major tops. They even called the top in the Covid pandemic - the Fosback High/Low Index called the top of the pandemic to the day.

JOBLESS CLAIMS (Yahoo Finance)
“Applications for US unemployment benefits rose to the highest since June, with initial claims increasing by 8,000 to 237,000 in the week ended Aug. 30.” Story at...
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/us-economy-jobless-claims-rise-124620779.html

ISM SERVICES / PRODUCTIVITY (ISM)
“Economic activity in the services sector grew in August for the third consecutive month, say the nation's purchasing and supply executives in the latest ISM® Services PMI® Report. The Services PMI® indicated expansion at 52 percent, above the 50-percent breakeven point for the 13th time in the last 14 months... “The Prices Index registered 69.2 percent in August, a 0.7-percentage point decrease from July’s reading of 69.9 percent.” Report at...
https://www.ismworld.org/supply-management-news-and-reports/reports/ism-pmi-reports/services/august/

ADP EMPLOYMENT (CNBC)
“Private payrolls increased by just 54,000 in August, according to data from processing firm ADP published Thursday morning. That’s below the consensus forecast of 75,000 from economists polled by Dow Jones, and marks a significant slowdown from the revised gain of 106,000 seen in the prior month... Thursday’s ADP report adds to an already concerning picture of the labor market.” Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/04/adp-jpb-data-august-2025.html

MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Thursday the S&P 500 rose about 0.8% to 6502.
-VIX declined about 6% to 15.29.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.161% (compared to about this time prior market day).

MY TRADING POSITIONS:
SPY – Added 8/26/2025
XLK – Added 8/26/2025

CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 4 gave Bear-signs and 17 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 from +6 to +13 (13 more Bull
indicators than Bear indicators) and is now giving a Bullish indication. I consider +5 to -5 the neutral zone. The 10-dMA curve of the spread reversed upward – another Bullish sign.

On Thursday there was a new all-time high for the S&P 500. At all-time highs, I always check breadth on the NYSE. When we look at New, 52-week highs, we see that around 4% of issues on the NYSE made new 52-week highs today. That number is disappointing and well below the 5-year average of about 7%. 54% of issues on the NYSE have been up over the last 2-weeks. The take-away here is that breadth is not sending a warning signal, but we’d like to see better numbers.

One signal that we rarely see is the Fosback, 10-dMA Hi/Lo Logic Index. It is still close to issuing a buy-signal, although it is not there yet. The 5-day version of this indicator remains bullish, although the 5-day version is not in my 50-indicator ensemble.

The Bolinger Band Squeeze remains in place. As noted yesterday:
Today, there was a Bollinger Squeeze signal that occurs when Bollinger Bands are close together. “A Bollinger Band... is defined by a series of lines that are plotted two standard deviations—both positively and negatively—away from the simple moving average (SMA) of the price of an asset... A Squeeze is triggered when volatility reaches a six-month low and is identified when Bollinger Bands reach a six-month minimum distance apart...” The Bollinger Squeeze predicts a big move (breakout) in the S&P 500, but it doesn’t tell us the direction of such a move. To determine breakout direction, Bollinger suggests looking at other indicators. He suggests using the relative strength index (RSI). Bollinger bands are discussed at Investopedia...
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/accumulationdistribution.asp
RSI is near the middle of its range so it will not tell us what direction a breakout may be. In addition, Bollinger mentions a few other indicators I don’t use. From my indicators we see that the daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators improved to a Bullish +13 (13 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators) and the 10-dMA of the spread is now rising – a bullish sign. This suggests the breakout should be upward.

The biggest concern remains: all of the ETFs that I track for momentum purposes are above their respective 120-dMAs. That signals a top, but declines following the signal are often small, and the signal can be early.

BOTTOM LINE
I am cautiously bullish.

ETF - MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily) ETF ranking follows:

My basket of Market Internals improved to BUY. (My basket of Market Internals is a decent trend-following analysis that is most useful when it diverges from the Index.)

Wednesday, September 3, 2025

Factory Orders ... Durable Goods ... FED Beige Book ... Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis ...

TODAY’S COMMENT
The daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators remained +6 (6 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators) and is now giving a slightly Bullish indication. I consider +5 to -5 the neutral zone. The 10-dMA curve of the spread continued down (although at a slower rate of decline) – a bearish sign.

Today, there was a Bollinger Squeeze signal that occurs when Bollinger Bands are close together. “A Bollinger Band... is defined by a series of lines that are plotted two standard deviations—both positively and negatively—away from the simple moving average (SMA) of the price of an asset... A Squeeze is triggered when volatility reaches a six-month low and is identified when Bollinger Bands reach a six-month minimum distance apart...” The Bollinger Squeeze predicts a big move (breakout) in the S&P 500, but it doesn’t tell us the direction of such a move. To determine breakout direction, Bollinger suggests looking at other indicators. He suggests using the relative strength index (RSI). Bollinger bands are discussed at Investopedia...
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/accumulationdistribution.asp
RSI is near the middle of its range so it will not tell us what direction a breakout may be. In addition, Bollinger mentions a few other indicators I don’t use. Looking at some of my indicators, we see the following: Buying-pressure minus selling-pressure is basically flat. The daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators improved to a slightly Bullish +6 (6 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators). The 10-dMA of the spread is slowly falling – a bearish sign.

We’re not getting a strong indicator of direction, up or down. The S&P 500 bounced up from its lower trendline Wednesday and it is sitting at the same level as it was 5-weeks ago. We may be tempted to guess the breakout will be to the upside, but given the indicators, I won’t try to trade the move.

The biggest concern remains: all of the ETFs that I track for momentum purposes are above their respective 120-dMAs. That signals a top, but declines following the signal are often small, and the signal can be early.

BOTTOM LINE
I remain cautiously bullish to neutral.

ETF - MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily) ETF ranking follows:

My basket of Market Internals slipped to 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 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.

Tuesday, September 2, 2025

Trump Tariffs ... ISM Manufacturing ... Construction Spending ... Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis ...

What do you know? When government increases the price of labor, employers use less of it. Teen unemployment rates in Colorado (16.4%), Washington state (14.8%) and Illinois (14.2%) were also among the highest in the country. So are their minimum wages: Washington ($16.66 an hour), Illinois ($15), and Colorado ($14.81)...
... Politicians love to claim credit for raising the minimum wage, but they never consider the unintended casualties—idle young people who will be less equipped for future careers and life.” – The Editorial Board, WSJ. Commentary at...
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/teen-unemployment-minimum-wage-states-8b32de44?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

THE PRESIDENT MAKES THE DEMOCRATS EFFORTS AGAINST HIM LOOK LIKE CHILDS PLAY (WSJ)
“...The list of Trump administration investigations into political opponents seems as long as a congressional omnibus. Trump personnel have reportedly launched probes into Mr. Comey (a former Federal Bureau of Investigation director), Mr. Smith (a former special counsel), members of Mr. Smith’s legal team, John Brennan (a former Central Intelligence Agency director), federal prosecutors who brought Jan. 6 charges, New York Attorney General Letitia James, California Sen. Adam Schiff, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook, and Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue. To name some.
Note, too, political affiliation. Mr. Trump is targeting Republican critics and Democrats alike. The GOP list incudes former national security adviser John Bolton, former senior Homeland Security Department official Miles Taylor, and former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency head Christopher Krebs. Mr. Trump even suggested reinvestigating former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie over the 2013-14 hoopla of Bridgegate, “for the sake of JUSTICE” and because “NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW!”...
... Generations of leaders understood the risk of criminalizing political acts and creating a prosecutorial race to the bottom. No longer. We’re there now. Congrats, D.C. What a skill to have honed.” - Kimberley A. Strassel, Opinion Columnist, Potomac Watch, The Wall Street Journal. Commentary at...
https://www.wsj.com/news/author/kimberley-a-strassel
My cmt: No one is above the law? Hilarious comment from the Criminal in Chief. The man who still claims he won the 2020 election that he clearly lost.

TRUMP TARIFFS ARE ILLEGAL (CBS News)
“The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled Friday that Mr. Trump went too far when he declared national emergencies to justify tariffs on nearly every country on Earth. The ruling largely upheld a May decision by a federal trade court in New York. But Friday's 7-4 appeals court decision tossed out a part of that ruling striking down the tariffs immediately, giving his administration time to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.” Story at...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-tariffs-federal-appeals-court-rules-illegal-what-happens-next/

“I am a free market with guardrails guy. I like small government and less government intervention, regardless of party. I have been firmly against this or any president publicly attacking the Fed nor its Chair. It undermines the independence and damages credibility. It’s also not good for our capital markets. I know Truman and Nixon also had more public beefs with the Fed in different times. I do not like any president picking winners and losers and corporate America. I want all of corporate America to succeed on a level playing field. As such I am firmly against the government taking equity stakes in any company, including Intel. I do not want the government buying stakes in a bunch of “strategically important” companies which would disadvantage others.” – Paul Schatz, President Heritage Capital.

CONSTRUCTION SPENDING (Yahoo Finance)
The Commerce Department's Census Bureau said on Tuesday that construction spending slipped 0.1% after an unrevised 0.4% drop in June.” Story at...
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-construction-spending-dips-july-142517067.html

ISM MANUFACTURING (ISM via prnewswire)
“Economic activity in the manufacturing sector contracted in August for the sixth consecutive month, following a two-month expansion preceded by 26 straight months of contraction, say the nation's supply executives in the latest ISM® Manufacturing PMI® Report... ‘In August, U.S. manufacturing activity contracted at a slightly slower rate, with new orders growth the biggest factor in the 0.7-percentage point gain of the Manufacturing PMI®. However, since production contracted at a rate nearly equal to the expansion in new orders, the Manufacturing PMI® increase was nominal.’” Press release at...
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/manufacturing-pmi-at-48-7-august-2025-ism-manufacturing-pmi-report-302543264.html

MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Tuesday the S&P 500 declined about 0.7% to 6416.
-VIX rose about 12% to 17.17.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.265% (compared to about this time prior market day).

MY TRADING POSITIONS:
SPY – Added 8/26/2025
XLK – Added 8/26/2025

CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 7 gave Bear-signs and 13 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 from +4 to +6 (6 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators) and is now giving a slightly Bullish indication. I consider +5 to -5 the neutral zone. The 10-dMA curve of the spread continued down (although at a slower rate of decline) – a bearish sign.

Tariffs are actually paid here in the US, by businesses and consumers.)
One would think that cancelling tariffs would be good for business, but Interest rates shot up today on the illegal tariff news (see above article). 30-year US Treasuries rose to nearly 5% today. If tariffs are illegal, then the US will have to reimburse the funds collected sending the deficit higher than its already extreme number.

Checking the charts, the S&P 500 is on its lower trendline; however, it is 1.4% above its 50-dMA and the 50-day often aligns with the lower trendline. There is good support at the 50-day and at the lower trendline. The Index is 7.6% above its 200-dMA if this weakness deteriorates into more selling.

The high for the day was essentially at the close; that’s a good sign – let’s hope there is some follow-through Wednesday.

As we noted earlier, there are still 13 Bull indicators so a major crash is not indicated now. It could always happen – PEs are elevated/sentiment is high – but indicators don’t suggest it yet.

The biggest concern remains: all of the ETFs that I track for momentum purposes are above their respective 120-dMAs. That signals a top, but declines following the signal are often small, and the signal can be early.

I suggested earlier that the most likely interpretation is that this decline over the last 5-days or so (the Index is now slightly below where it was 5-days ago) may just be a return to the lower trendline. We’ll see...

BOTTOM LINE
I remain cautiously bullish to neutral.

ETF - MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily) ETF ranking follows:

DOW STOCKS - TODAY’S MOMENTUM RANKING OF THE DOW 30 STOCKS (Ranked Daily)

TUESDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)

My basket of Market Internals improved to BUY. (My basket of Market Internals is a decent trend-following analysis that is most useful when it diverges from the Index.)