“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.
"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.”
“One former ICE official defended the agents’ actions, saying that the shooting of Good in Minnesota was justified. ‘She takes the vehicle, lunges the vehicle, drives through after they stopped her. And she dies because they defend themselves, and people want to know whether or not it’s justified. Yes, it’s justified, it is absolutely justified,’ the former ICE official, who requested anonymity to speak freely about a sensitive case, told Newsweek.” Story at…
Former ICE agents break down Jonathan Ross' actions
My cmt: I don’t have an opinion. I wasn’t there so I’ll leave it to investigators to determine the legality. I wanted to provide another side since mostly we hear the left-wing or anarchist view vilifying law enforcement.
· “Since President Trump's tariffs took effect, unemployment has reached a four-year high, jobs growth has slowed dramatically, and consumer sentiment has reached a record low.
· Contrary to Trump's predictions, U.S. companies and consumers (not foreign exporters) are paying his tariffs, and domestic factory activity has declined (not increased).
· The S&P 500 had a CAPE ratio of 39.9 in December, a valuation last seen during the dot-com crash in 2000; history says the index will decline over the next one and two years.” Story at…
The stock market flashes a warning as investors get bad news about President Trump's tariffs. History says this will happen next.
My cmt: This overstates the CAPE ratio impact. Charts I have seen show the CAPE ratio at 44.2 at the peak of the Dot.com era. Interestingly, the CAPE peak was in November 1999 while the S&P 500 didn’t peak until 24 March 2000.
“The US economy added 50,000 jobs in December, according to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate fell to 4.4% from 4.5% in November.”
Story and chart at…
https://www.morningstar.com/economy/december-us-jobs-report-expected-slowdown-materializes-with-50000-rise-payrolls
My cmt: As shown above, the slowdown is obvious when charted.
“Housing starts in the US fell in October to the lowest level since the onset of the pandemic as data delayed by last fall’s government shutdown showed builders continued to cut back amid still-high prices and mortgage rates. New residential construction decreased 4.6% to an annual rate of 1.25 million homes in October…” Story at…
https://www.cnbctv18.com/world/us-housing-starts-fall-to-lowest-level-since-may-2020-19817998.htm/amp
“Consumer sentiment inched up for the second straight month and reached its highest reading since September 2025. Improvements in January were seen among lower-income consumers, while sentiment fell for those with higher incomes. All told, while consumers perceived some modest improvement in the economy over the past two months, their sentiment remains nearly 25% below last January’s reading. They continue to be focused primarily on kitchen table issues, like high prices and softening labor markets. Although consumers’ worries about tariffs appear to be gradually receding, they remain guarded about the overall strength of business conditions and labor markets.” Press release at…
https://www.sca.isr.umich.edu/
-Friday the S&P 500 was up about 0.7% to 6966.
-VIX declined about 6% to 14.49.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury dipped slightly to 4.167% (compared to about this time prior market day).
XLK – Added 11/26/2025 & 12/1/2025
SPY – Added 12/1/2025.
NVDA – Added a small position 12/1/2025.
SSO – Added 1/7/2026.
At the close today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 4 gave Bear-signs and 16 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.)
The daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators improved from +10 to +12 (12 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators), a BULLISH indication. I consider +5 to -5 the neutral zone. The 10-dMA curve of the spread (purple on the chart above) that smooths daily fluctuations continued down, a BEARISH sign.
I’m bullish and fully invested.
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
For more details, see NTSM Page at…
https://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/a-system-for-trading-dow-30-stocks-my_8.html
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.
