“The number of Americans who applied for unemployment
benefits in the first week of 2017 rose by 10,000 to 247,000, but they remain
near the lowest level in decades.” Story at…
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Thursday the S&P 500 was down about 0.2% to 2270.
-VIX rose about 2.5% to 11.54.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury dipped slightly to 2.361%.
Thursday looked like an opposite of yesterday - the day
was down, but many market indicators turned up. I’ll just note that the most
important indicators are still headed down so that I am still a short-term
bear. There is a new bear signal too: 52-week new-highs are falling sharply and that
tends to signal the trend since it is diverging from the S&P 500 as seen in
the chart below. The Green line is the 40-day moving average that smooths the
daily new-high data.
Another bear signal reappeared: The old standby
Advance-Decline Ratio is again “overbought”.
Long-term, I’m fully invested at 50% in stocks (a
conservative-retiree allocation – I don’t do short-term timing with retirement
money).
CURRENT RANKING OF 11 ETFs (Ranked Daily)*
#1 RANK for the past 47-days: Financial Select Sector
SPDR ETF (XLF).
#2 RANK: iShares Russell 2000 – Small Cap (IWM)
#3 RANK: iShares U.S. Aerospace and Defense ETF (ITA)
*For background on the ETF ranking system see NTSM Page
at…
TRADING PORTFOLIO - 2017 (Small-% of the total portfolio)
Rydex 2x Short S&P 500 (RYTPX): Established 6 Dec.
2x Short S&P 500 (SDS): Established 16 Dec.
Long Volatility ETN (VXX): Established 6 Jan 2017.
NET:
THURSDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)
-10-day moving average of the percentage of stocks
advancing (NYSE): 55.6%. (54.3% prior trading-day.) A number above 50% is
usually BULLISH for the markets short-term.
-150-day moving average of advancing stocks: 52.4%. (A
value above 50% indicates a long-term, up-trend.)
-McClellan Oscillator: Dropped from +77 to +26
(percentage calculation method adjusted to fit McClellan’s values).
-New-highs minus new-lows: +62
(It was +104 prior trading day.)
-10-day moving average of the change in spread: +1. In
other words, over the last 10-days, on average, the spread has increased by 1
each day.
Market Internals are
bouncing on the edge between Positive and Neutral. Today they were again positive on the market.
Market Internals are a decent trend-following analysis of
current market action, but should not be used alone for short term trading.
They are usually right, but they are often late. They are most useful when they diverge from
the Index. In 2014, using these
internals alone would have made a 9% return vs. 13% for the S&P 500 (in on
Positive, out on Negative – no shorting).
LONG TERM INDICATOR
Thursday, the VIX & Volume indicators were neutral.
The Price indicator was positive. The Sentiment indicator was neutral.
MY INVESTED STOCK POSITION:
TSP (RETIREMENT ACCOUNT – GOV EMPLOYEES) ALLOCATION
I increased stock allocation to 50% stocks in
the S&P 500 Index fund (C-Fund) Friday, 23 Sep 2016 in my long-term
accounts.
Remainder is 50% G-Fund. This is a conservative retiree allocation.
