Saturday, March 28, 2026

Jobless Claims … Michigan Sentiment … Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis

 I was too busy to post Friday, so today we catchup. 

 

"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.”
 
JOBLESS CLAIMS (Reuters)
“New applications for U.S. unemployment benefits rose slightly last week, suggesting the labor market remains stable and likely giving the Federal Reserve scope to hold interest rates steady while monitoring inflation risks from the conflict in ​the Middle East… Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 210,000 for the week ended March 21.” Story at…
 
MICHIGAN SENTIMENT (Univ of Michigan)
“Consumer sentiment fell 6% this month for its lowest reading since December 2025, according to the University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers. These declines were seen across age and political party. Consumers with middle and higher incomes and stock wealth, who are buffeted both by escalating gas prices and volatile financial markets, exhibited particularly large drops in sentiment… Consumers perceived meaningful declines in the trajectory of multiple dimensions of the economy. Year-ahead expectations for personal finances fell 10%, while one-year expected business conditions plunged 14%. About 61% of consumers expect unemployment to rise in the year ahead, up from 58% last month.” Story at…
 
QUICK MARKET SUMMARY
-Friday the S&P 500 declined about 1.7% to 6369.
-VIX rose about 13% to 31.05.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.428% (compared to about this time prior market day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS
SPY – Added 12/1/2025.
NVDA – Added 12/1/2025 & 2/6/2026
“Despite all the bearish noise, Goldman Sachs isn’t backing down on Nvidia (NVDA) stock yet. After another stellar GTC showing, the bank reiterated its $250 price target and maintained a buy rating, underscoring confidence in the AI giant’s tremendous upside from current levels.” Story at…  
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
At the close today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 20 gave Bear-signs and 8 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
S&P 500 drop from the Top: 8.7%
S&P 500 % above 200-dMA: -4%
Trading Days since top: 52. (Avg top to bottom for corrections less than 10% = 32 days, but the 10% correction in Sept of 2023 lasted 64-days top to bottom.)
 
The daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators declined from -11 to -12 (12 more Bear indicators than Bull indicators), a BEARISH 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 higher, albeit at a slower rate – a BULLISH indication. The continued improvement of the 10-dMA is a good sign.
 
The 10-day is more important than the daily numbers since it is still showing an underlying improvement in the markets. The new lows gave us some bullish indicators.
 
Both Bollinger Bands and RSI were oversold. This can sometimes be a good bottom signal, but our main way to identify bottoms looks at volume and internals.  Neither volume nor internals suggested a bottom Friday.  We did get a weak bottom signal Thursday. That still could be a good signal, but weak bottom signals can be early. In March of 2025 a weak, buy-signal was followed by a 4% drop before there was a final bottom. In that 10% correction, we did not see another buy-signal at the final bottom.
 
As I noted after Thursday’s buy-signal, this presents a difficult question for investors.  Do we buy the signal? My recommendation was to see if there was confirmation from investors on Friday.
 
There was no confirmation Friday. Instead of a strong up-day that would have confirmed the buy-signal, we got a strong down-day and more selling. So, no bottom yet.
 
BOTTOM LINE
I am still optimistic that a bottom is not far away. We’ll see.  Maybe we’ll see a “Turning Tuesday.” I discussed this under the Paragraph “Bottom Signals” in Jeffrey Saut’s comment at…
 
 
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 remained HOLD. (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.
Posted by at