Friday, February 13, 2026

CPI … 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.”
 
SCATHING REBUKE OF HEGSETH’S BID TO PUNISH SENTATOR (Rolling Stone)
“Judge Richard Leon, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, wrote on Thursday that Hegseth's efforts to demote Kelly and relieve him of veterans benefits had "trampled on Senator Kelly's First Amendment freedoms and threatened the constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees." 
"Secretary Hegseth relies on the well-established doctrine that military servicemembers enjoy less vigorous First Amendment protections given the fundamental obligation for obedience and discipline in the armed forces. Unfortunately for Secretary Hegseth, no court has ever extended those principles to retired servicemembers, much less a retired servicemember serving in Congress and exercising oversight responsibility over the military," wrote Leon, an appointee of former President George W. Bush. "This Court will not be the first to do so!" … Judge Leon … used some decidedly colorful language when putting it to paper. The judge called the Defense Department's case against Kelly a pile of "Horsefeathers!" and "anemic!" Story at…
My cmt: Hegseth still claims Kelly’s comments were seditious. Ridiculous. He merely quoted the Military Code of Conduct - Do not obey illegal orders.
 
CPI (CNBC)
“The consumer price index, a key inflation gauge, rose 2.4% in January from 12 months earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Tuesday.” Story at…
Story and charts at…
 
-Friday the S&P 500 rose about 0.05% to 6836.
-VIX declined about 1% to 20.6.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.05% (compared to about this time prior market day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS
XLK – SOLD 2/11/2026
SPY – Added 12/1/2025.
NVDA – Added 12/1/2025 & 2/6/2026
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
At the close 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 – INDICATORS IMPROVED BUT OTHERWISE NOT MUCH DIFFERENT THAN YESTERDAY
The daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators improved from -11 to -2 (2 more Bear indicators than Bull indicators), a NEUTRAL 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.
 
The McClellan Oscillator switched to positive; that also cancels the Hindenburg Omen and the Fosback Hi/Lo Logic Indicator.
 
The S&P 500 is 0.8% below the 50-dMA so the markets didn’t clear much today from a price perspective.
 
Levels of support are the 100-dMA and the 200-dMA: The S&P 500 is 0.3% above the 100-dMA and 5.1% above the 200-dMA.
 
While the market doesn’t feel good now, the S&P 500 is only 2.0% below its all-time high. Further, Breadth was good at the all-time high suggesting that if there is a correction, it is likely to be a retreat of less than 10% (from the high) based on past history.
 
Since I don’t anticipate a big decline, I do not plan to reduce stock holdings further unless indicators collapse.
 
Maybe the 100-day moving average will save the market again.
 
BOTTOM LINE
Given the indicators, it is hard to be anything other than Bearish for the short term – but let’s wait and see. Markets could still shrug off the weakness next week.
 
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…
 
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…
 
FRIDAY 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.) 
 
 
 
 
My invested position is about 55% stocks, including stock mutual funds and ETFs. 50% invested in stocks is a normal, conservative position for a retiree. (80% 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.
 

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