“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool,
Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.
JOBLESS CLAIMS (Reuters)
“The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless
benefits fell last week, while layoffs dropped to their lowest level in more
than 24 years in August, suggesting the labor market was charging ahead even as
new COVID-19 infections surge... Initial claims for state unemployment benefits
dropped 14,000 to a seasonally adjusted 340,000 for the week ended Aug. 28, the
lowest level since mid-March 2020...” Story at...
https://www.reuters.com/business/us-weekly-jobless-claims-fall-layoffs-24-year-low-2021-09-02/
FACTORY ORDERS (KFGO)
“New orders for U.S.-made goods rose in July, while
business spending on equipment remained strong, signs that manufacturing was
holding up despite persistent supply constraints and spending rotating back to
services from goods. The Commerce Department said on Thursday that factory
orders increased 0.4% in July...” Story at...
https://kfgo.com/2021/09/02/u-s-factory-orders-increase-in-july-despite-supply-constraints/
SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND TO RUN OUT SOONER (CNBC)
“The Social Security trust fund most Americans rely on
for their retirement will run out of money in 12 years, one year sooner than
expected, according to an annual government report published
Tuesday....Medicare’s hospital insurance fund would be depleted in 2026.” Story
At...
My cmt: Trump didn’t address this problem; will the Biden
administration? We’ll see.
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.
Same as yesterday, the smoothed 10-dMA of new cases rose
to a new-high of over 155,000 cases today.
I don’t see the improvement reported by the media. They were saying the
new-case load is falling in hot-spot locations.
Maybe, but cases must be picking up elsewhere, because (so far) overall
US numbers continue to climb.
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Thursday the S&P 500 was up about 0.3% to 4537.
-VIX slipped about 2% to 16.41.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 1.289%.
Today, Thursday, the S&P
500 made a new all-time high today while 7.7% of issues on the NYSE made
new-52-week highs. That’s a little above average for 52-week-highs when the
Index makes a new high – that’s a good sign that the advance is reasonably
broad. If we were to have a pullback, it
suggests that the drop would be less than 10%.
Thursday, we saw a repeat of yesterday’s divergence
between utilities, cyclicals and the S&P 500 Index. Investors were buying
utilities today. In the longer term, utilities (XLU-ETF) are outperforming the
S&P 500. The cyclical industrials
(XLI-ETF) are underperforming the S&P 500. Both are bearish signs.
Otherwise, Indicators have moved into bullish territory
and I don’t have many topping indicators that are warning.
The daily sum of 20 Indicators remained +4 (a positive
number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the 10-day smoothed sum that smooths
the daily fluctuations improved from -42 to -25. (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 is bullish; Price, VIX & Sentiment
indicators are neutral.
I am cautiously bullish. A top is coming, but not THE TOP.
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 BULLISH 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 is now about
50% invested in stocks; this is my “normal” 50% 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 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.
