“Steve Koonin, the undersecretary for science under
Obama, has written a very interesting and thoughtful book on climate
[“Unsettled? What Climate Science Tells us and What it Doesn’t and Why it
Matters”]. He documents how much of what you think you know about climate just
ain’t so. Did you know that while the United States is now seeing many fewer
cold records, absolute heat records are not increasing? "Unsettled" will
definitely and rightly unsettle your climate thoughts, and all for the better.
If we are to make trillion dollar investments, we deserve to be as well
informed as possible.”
—Bjørn Lomborg, president of
Copenhagen Consensus and visiting fellow at The Hoover Institution at Stanford
University
JOBLESS CLAIMS (Fox Business)
“The number of Americans filing for first-time jobless benefits
unexpectedly rose last week. The Labor Department said Thursday that 351,000
Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits in the week ended Sept.
18, an increase from the previous week’s upwardly revised 335,000 filings.”
Story at...
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/initial-jobless-claims-september-18
MARKIT FLASH U.S. COMPOSITE PMI (Markit Economics)
“Private sector firms in the U.S. signaled a solid
expansion in output during September, albeit at the slowest pace for a year and
one that was much softer than that seen at the start of the summer. The overall
upturn was weighed on by the weakest increase in service sector business
activity in the current 14-month sequence of growth... the degree of optimism
reached a three-month high amid hopes of stronger client demand and an end to
the pandemic.” Press release at...
https://www.markiteconomics.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/3ea9d747369341f98b0e55f542fd0d27
LEADING ECONOMIC INDICATORS (Conference Board)
“The Conference Board Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for
the U.S. increased by 0.9 percent in August to 117.1 (2016 = 100), following a
0.8 percent increase in July and a 0.6 percent increase in June. ‘The U.S.
LEI rose sharply in August and remains on a rapidly rising trajectory,” said
Ataman Ozyildirim, Senior Director of Economic Research at The Conference
Board. ‘While the Delta variant—alongside rising inflation fears—could create
headwinds for labor markets and the consumer spending outlook in the near term,
the trend in the LEI is consistent with robust economic growth in the reminder
of the year.’” Press release at...
https://conference-board.org/topics/business-cycle-indicators/press/us-lei-sept-2021
OFF TOPIC: SUPREME COURT WOES (USA Today via msn.com)
“Democratic support for the Supreme Court plummeted over
the summer...in the wake of a controversial decision allowing Texas to ban
abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.” Story at...
As Paul Harvey would say, “Here’s the rest story”: “Many
in the media seem incapable of understanding even the basic facts or procedural
posture of cases,” said attorney Howard Slugh...“the Supreme Court said it
had serious concerns that the Texas abortion law was unconstitutional, but
noted that the plaintiffs had sued defendants who were not involved in the
enforcement of the law–and therefore the court had no reason to decide the
constitutionality of the law. The media responded as if the court had ruled in
favor of the Texas law, and in doing so drastically misinformed voters about
what actually occurred.” Story at...
What
the Media Got Wrong About the Supreme Court’s Texas Abortion Decision (msn.com)
My cmt: Meanwhile the Lazy Mindless Masses prefer to
light up social media rather than delve into the facts.
CORONAVIRUS (NTSM)
Here’s the latest from the COVID19 Johns Hopkins website as
of 6:00 PM Thursday. U.S. total case numbers are on the left axis; daily
numbers are on the right side of the graph in Red with the 10-dMA of daily
numbers in Green.
I added the smoothed 10-dMA of new cases (in purple) to
the chart.
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Thursday the S&P 500 rose about 1.2% to 4449.
-VIX dropped about 11% to 18.63.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury jumped up to 1.435%.
Today the S&P 500 closed 0.3% above its 50-dMA – a bullish
sign. Further, the S&P 500 had back-to-back days with 80% up-volume or
greater. That’s VERY bullish and is another confirmation that the market weakness is over. I think new highs are ahead.
The daily sum of 20 Indicators remained -3 (a positive
number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the 10-day smoothed sum that smooths
the daily fluctuations improved from -84 to -77 (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 HOLD. Volume, VIX, Price & Sentiment indicators are neutral.
I’m bullish based on today’s
further confirmation that the “bottom” was Tuesday. Now we’ll need to see what
the market looks like when it makes a new-high.
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
THURSDAY 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.
My stock-allocation in the
portfolio is now about 50% invested in stocks; this is my “normal” fully
invested allocation.
You may wish to have a higher
or lower % invested in stocks depending on your risk tolerance. 50% is a
conservative position that I consider fully invested for most retirees.
As a general rule, some suggest
that the % of portfolio invested in the stock market should be one’s age
subtracted from 100. So, a 30-year-old
person would have 70% of the portfolio in stocks, stock mutual funds and/or
stock ETFs. That’s ok, but for older
investors, I usually don’t recommend keeping less than 50% invested in stocks
(as a fully invested position) since most people need some growth in the
portfolio to keep up with inflation.
