“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool,
Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.
“The big money is not in the buying and selling. But in
the waiting.” - Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway
“Bubbles tend to topple under their own weight. Everybody
is in. The last short has covered. The last buyer has bought (or bought massive
amounts of weekly calls). The decline starts and the psychology shifts from greed
to complacency to worry to panic. Our working hypothesis, which might be disproven, is that
September 2, 2020 was the top and the bubble has already popped.”
- David Einhorn, Greenlight hedge fund.
My cmt: The 2 Sept high was 3581, so it looks like David
einhorn was too early.
JOBLESS CLAIMS (CNBC)
“Jobless claims rose less than expected last week as
employers weighed a wintertime spike in Covid-19 cases against expected relief
from a pending $900 billion stimulus package, the Labor Department reported
Wednesday. The number of first-time unemployment-benefits filers decelerated to
803,000 in the week ended Dec. 19.” Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/22/weekly-jobless-claims.html
PERSONAL SPENDING (MarketWatch)
“Consumer spending, the backbone of the U.S. economy,
declined in November as COVID-19 cases picked up across the country and damped
activity. Consumer spending fell 0.4% in November after a revised 0.3% gain in
the prior month, the government said Wednesday.” Story at...
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/consumer-spending-drops-0-4-in-november-11608731509
PCE PRICES (Kitco News)
“On a monthly basis, the core PCE price index was up 0.0%
in November versus the expected 0.1%, the U.S. Department of Commerce said on
Wednesday.” Story at...
CRUDE INVENTORIES (EIA)
“U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those
in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 0.6 million barrels from the
previous week. At 499.5 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about
11% above the five year average for this time of year.” Press release at...
https://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/wpsrsummary.pdf
CORONAVIRUS (NTSM)
Here’s the latest from the COVID19 Johns Hopkins website
as of 6:25pm Wednesday. US total case numbers are on the left axis; daily
numbers are on the right side of the graph with the 10-dMA of daily numbers in
Green.
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Wednesday the S&P 500 rose
about 0.1% to 3690.
-VIX dipped about 4% to 23.31.
-The yield on the 10-year
Treasury rose to 0.953%.
The markets were doing well until Trump vetoed the
Defense Spending Bill. Markets declined in
the last 15 minutes of the trading session. Tomorrow is a shortened day so it
is not clear that this spells bad news for tomorrow.
The daily sum of 20 Indicators declined from -1 to -2 (a
positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish). The 10-day smoothed sum
that smooths the daily fluctuations declined from +17 to 9. (These numbers
sometimes change after I post the blog based on data that comes in late.) Most
of these indicators are short-term and many are trend following.
The Long Term NTSM indicator
ensemble remained BUY, 22 Dec. Now, Price & VIX are bullish; Sentiment
& Volume are neutral. Since I think the market is near a top, I will wait.
The market remains overbought
with the S&P 500 15.2% above its 200-dMA. If past history follows, that
tends to cap the gains going forward and suggest that the downside risk is
greater than the upside risk.
The Bollinger Bands are still exhibiting a squeeze since
the bands are too close together. That
suggests a big move is coming. Given other signs, I have to conclude that move
will be down when it finally happens. I don’t think we’re looking at a
crash. While a big drop is possible, a
trip to the 50-dMA (down 5% or so) is more likely.
I’ll continue to keep a low %
of funds in the stock market until I see a better buying point.
MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily)
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
TODAY’S RANKING OF THE DOW 30
STOCKS (Ranked Daily)
Here’s the revised DOW 30 and
its momentum analysis. 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
WEDNESDAY MARKET INTERNALS
(NYSE DATA)
Market Internals remained NEUTRAL 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.
Using the Short-term indicator
in 2018 in SPY would have made a 5% gain instead of a 6% loss for buy-and-hold.
The methodology was Buy on a POSITIVE indication and Sell on a NEGATIVE
indication and stay out until the next POSITIVE indication. The back-test
included 13-buys and 13-sells, or a trade every 2-weeks on average.
My current stock allocation is
about 30% invested in stocks. You may wish to have a higher or lower % invested
in stocks depending on your risk tolerance. 30% is a very conservative position
that I re-evaluate daily.
The markets have not
retested the lows on recent corrections and that has left me under-invested on
the bounces. I will need to put less reliance on retests in the future.
As a retiree, 50% in the stock
market is about fully invested for me – it is a cautious and conservative
number. If I feel very confident, I might go to 60%; if a correction is deep
enough, 80% would not be out of the question.
