Leading Economic Indicators … 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.”
 
U.S. TO SELL HIGH PERFORMING NVIDIA CHIPS TO CHINA? (CNBC)
“President Donald Trump on Monday said Nvidia will be allowed to ship its H200 artificial intelligence chips to “approved customers” in China and elsewhere, on the condition that the U.S. gets a 25% cut.” Story at…
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/08/trump-nvidia-h200-sales-china.html
My cmt: The H200 has been surpassed by the Blackwell B100 and B200, however, the H200 is a powerful chip and it is questionable whether it should be sold to our enemies. Before WWI, the U.S. sold huge quantities of scrap steel to Japan. Need we remind readers what Japan did with those purchases.
 
LEADING ECONOMIC INDICATORS (Conference Board)
“The US LEI fell again in September, marking a second consecutive decline,” said Justyna Zabinska-La Monica, Senior Manager, Business Cycle Indicators, at The Conference Board. “Weakening expectations from consumers and businesses led the overall contraction in the Index…The LEI suggests slowing economic activity at the end of 2025 and into early 2026, with GDP weakening after strong mid-year consumer spending and Q4 disruptions amid the federal government shutdown. Overall, growth remains fragile and uneven as businesses adjust to tariff changes and softer consumer momentum. The Conference Board expects GDP to expand by 1.8% in 2025, before falling to 1.5% in 2026.” Report at… 
https://www.conference-board.org/topics/us-leading-indicators/
 
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Tuesday the S&P 500 declined about 0.1% to 6841.
-VIX rose about 2% to 16.93.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.182% (compared to about this time prior market day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS
XLK – Added 11/26/2025 & 12/1/2025
SPY – Added 12/1/2025. Stick with quality.
NVDA – Added a small position 12/1/2025.
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
At the close today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 3 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 +17 to +14 (14 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators), a very BULLISH indication.  I consider +5 to -5 the neutral zone. The 10-dMA curve of the spread (purple on the chart above) smooths daily fluctuations; it continued higher, a BULLISH sign.
 
The S&P 500 is 0.7% below its all-time high.
 
The Fed meeting wraps up tomorrow; should be interesting.
 
BOTTOM LINE
I’m bullish and fully invested.
 
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.) 
 
 
 
 

As of Monday, 1 December, my 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 although I don’t trade as much as I used to. 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.