Thursday, April 16, 2026

Philly Fed … Jobless Claims … Industrial Production … … 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.”
 
“Never, never, never, believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The Statesman who yields to war fever . . . is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.” - Winston Churchill.
 
TRUMP ATTORNEY DISBARRED (NBC News)
“John Eastman, a former attorney for President Donald Trump who helped engineer a last-ditch strategy to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, was disbarred in California on Wednesday over his efforts more than five years ago. The California Supreme Court said in a filing that Eastman could no longer practice law in the state, upholding a State Bar Court recommendation, and ordered him to pay $5,000 in sanctions.” Story at…
 
PHILLY FED INDEX (Sharecast)
“Manufacturing conditions in the Philadelphia region strengthened sharply in April, with the Philadelphia Federal Reserve's manufacturing index rising to 26.7 from 18.1 in March - its highest reading since January 2025 and well above expectations…” Story at…
 
JOBLESS CLAIMS (ABC News)
"U.S. applications for unemployment benefits fell last week, remaining in the range of the past few years even as the war in Iran continues to threaten the global economy. The number of Americans applying for jobless aid for the week ending April 11 fell by 11,000 to 207,000 from the previous week’s 218,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday.” Story at… 
 
INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION (Plastics Today)
“US factory production unexpectedly fell in March after two straight months of solid gains, according to data compiled by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Manufacturing output dipped 0.1% last month…” Story at…
 
QUICK MARKET SUMMARY
-Thursday the S&P 500 rose about 0.3% to 7041, a new high.
-VIX declined about 1% to 17.94.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.313% (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, 7 gave Bear-signs and 19 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 remained +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 higher, a BULLISH sign that is more important than the daily numbers. We’ll keep an eye on the 10-day.
 
Today’s Overbought indicators were: RSI; Advance / Decline Ratio; and the fact that 9 out of the last 10 trading days have been up.   Bollinger Bands were not overbought today. If both RSI and Bollinger Bands are overbought tomorrow it would be a strong signal that the overdue down-day will be forthcoming.
 
I heard Tom Lee on CNBC say that the stock market was in better shape at this new, all-time high compared to what it looked like at the last all-time high in January. That might be true if one were looking at PE. Trailing PE is now 26.8. At the prior high the trailing PE was 29.9, about 12% higher. But New, all-time highs for the S&P 500 give us an opportunity to check the health of the stock market. There were only 79 new-highs Thursday. That suggests that the markets are too concentrated and lack breadth.
 
This signal warns of a strong possibility of a correction greater than 10%. All we can do now is watch other indicators over time to see if they confirm or refute this indication.
 
The bull-Bear spread pretty still looks good, but failing breadth at a top is a real concern. We’ll see what develops.
 
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…
 
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…
 
THURSDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)
My basket of Market Internals declined to 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.
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