Jobless Claims … Payroll Report … Durable Goods … Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis

 
Enjoy the Fireworks. Appreciate the 4^th and be safe. (As always, I don’t post when the stock market is closed.)
 
“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.
 
“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.
 
“There’s a lot of exuberance out there,” Dimon continued. “But it was in 1972, 1986, 2000, 2007. That doesn’t give me comfort.” – Jamie Dimon
 
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.” - Albert Einstein
 
JP MORGAN SIGNALS A DOT.COM LIKE WARNING (Markets Insider)
“Markets are flashing another parallel to the dot-com bubble, JPMorgan says. The bank's Jason Hunter pointed to one trend in particular in markets that looks similar to what happened to stocks in the months leading up to the dot-com crash. The signal has to do with the recent divergence in the AI trade, with hardware stocks separating from some of the biggest AI spenders in the market, Hunter wrote in a client note on Wednesday. Chip stocks have been on a tear for most of 2026….That performance differs from companies that have been among the most voracious spenders, many of which have been punished as investors air concerns about return on investment and whether AI will pay off from a monetization perspective.” Story at…
JPMorgan flags a warning quietly flashing in stocks that preceded the dot-com crash
 
JOBLESS CLAIMS (Advisor Perspectives)
“Initial jobless claims measure the number of people who file for unemployment for the first time in a given week. In the week ending June 27th, initial jobless claims were at a seasonally adjusted level of 215,000. This represents a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week's figure and was lower than the forecast of 219,000.” Commentary and charts at…
https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2026/07/02/initial-unemployment-claims-down-1k-lower-than-expected?topic=buffer-etfs
 
 PAYROLL REPORT (Yahoo Finance)
“The US economy added 57,000 jobs last month, fewer than economists had anticipated, government data shows. The unemployment rate dipped slightly to 4.2%, its lowest level in a year.” Story at…
https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/article/june-jobs-report-us-payrolls-rose-by-57000-missing-expectations-190000748.html
 
DURABLE GOODS (Crypto Briefing)
“The US manufacturing sector took a step back in May 2026, with new orders for durable goods falling $15.6 billion, or 4.5%...transportation equipment orders collapsed 14.0% in May…” Story at…
https://cryptobriefing.com/us-durable-goods-orders-fall-may-2026/
 
QUICK MARKET SUMMARY
-Thursday the S&P 500 was unchanged at 7483.
-VIX declined about 3% to 16.15.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose slightly to 4.485% (compared to about this time prior market day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS
QLD – Added 5/28/2026
NVDA – Added 12/1/2025 & 2/6/2026
“According to the 54 analysts' twelve-month price targets for NVIDIA, the average price target is $278.73. The highest price target for NVDA is $360.00, while the lowest price target for NVDA is $205.00.”- MarketBeat at… 
https://www.marketbeat.com/stocks/NASDAQ/NVDA/forecast/
XLK – Added 6/5/2026
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
At the close today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 7 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
Basic internals were good today, and that added to the improvement in the indicators. The daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators improved from +6 to +10 (10 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 reversed higher a BULLISH sign that is also important.
 
Today there was a bullish outside reversal pattern on the charts.
“A Bullish Outside Reversal is a two-day technical analysis candlestick pattern that signals a potential reversal of a downtrend, indicating that buyers (bulls) have taken control from sellers (bears). It occurs when the current session's price range completely engulfs the previous session's range, often appearing as a Bullish Engulfing pattern” – Investopedia.
 
Technology and semiconductor segments of the market continue to take it on the chin.  This is disappointing, since I bet in those segments, and worrying. Worrying because in my experience when the leaders fail, markets fail. While that is an observation, the indicators continue to improve. This is one of those instances when one is best to ignore what you think, and follow what you see.
 
For fun, let’s check one of the high fliers that the market has decided to sell – Micron Technology:
“The company provides memory products, including dynamic random access memory components and modules, CXL-based memory, LPDDR components and modules, graphics memory, high-bandwidth memory, and data center memory products; multichip packages (MCP) comprising embedded multimedia card-based, universal flash storage-based, and NAND-based MCPs; and…” so on.
 
It was down 5.4% today and has dropped about 30% in the last week or so. One would suspect that it has a high PE? One would be wrong. Yahoo finance reports its trailing 12-month PE was a whopping 22. Those are trailing numbers. With higher future earnings expected it forward PE would be even lower. For comparison, the trailing PE of the S&P 500 is 27 according to Google AI. The chart would suggest that Micron has gone parabolic.  Its earnings suggest its price is well justified. (The trailing PE for Nvidia is 30 per Yahoo Finance; high, but justified.)
 
If the markets do decide to follow the semis down, my indicators should give plenty of warning. Currently, they are not warning of trouble – they are getting more bullish. Let’s hope the semis join the market and move higher.
 
BOTTOM LINE
I am mildly bullish. I’ll feel better when the Technology and semiconductor segments begin to perform better.
 
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)
Google has replaced Verizon in the Dow 30. It will take a while for me to update the momentum chart.

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
 
THURSDAY 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 60% 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.