Best DOW Stocks ... Best ETFs … Stock Market Analysis ... Jobless Claims ... GDP

 
“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.
 
GDP (Bureau of Economic Analysis)
“Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 0.6 percent in the second quarter of 2022, following a decrease of 1.6 percent in the first quarter. The second-quarter decrease was the same as previously estimated in the “second” estimate released in August. The smaller decrease in the second quarter, compared to the first quarter, reflected an upturn in exports and an acceleration in consumer spending.” Report at...
https://www.bea.gov/data/gdp/gross-domestic-product
 
JOBLESS CLAIMS (Yahoo Finance/Reuters)
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 16,000 to a seasonally adjusted 193,000 for the week ended Sept. 24, the Labor Department said on Thursday...The jobless rate rose to 3.7% in August from 3.5% in July... the economy contracted in the first half of this year, it is not in recession, with the income side of the growth ledger expanding moderately.” Story at... 
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-weekly-jobless-claims-fall-123942093.html
 
SOMETHING BREAKING PART II – Excerpt (Heritage Capital)
“Currency markets do not move like this during “normal” times. These moves are extreme and historic. And while this is great for Americans to travel to the UK and Europe, there are much bigger problems at play without a soft landing. Volatility is here and it isn’t likely to quiet until the markets get to the other side of the bottom I see coming. Investors should always consider ROTH conversions when assets have depreciated as well as tax loss harvesting.” – Paul Schatz, President, Heritage Capital. Commentary at...
https://investfortomorrow.com/blog/something-breaking/
Paul has been predicting a low in October and he is sticking with that call.
 
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Thursday the S&P 500 fell about 2.1% to 3640.
-VIX rose about 6% to 31.84.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 3.788%.
 
PULLBACK DATA:
-Drop from Top: 22.5% as of today. 24% max (on a closing basis).
-Trading Days since Top: 185-days.
The S&P 500 is 11.9% Below its 200-dMA & 7.6% Below its 50-dMA.
Support is around 3250, the lows of September 2020.
 
VIX WATCH: VIX is now about 32. At the bottom of the Financial Crisis in 2009 the VIX was 50 or so. During that bear market VIX hit 80 at one point. This doesn’t say that this correction has a lot further to fall, but it does cause one to wonder.
 
*I won’t call the correction over until the S&P 500 makes a new-high; however, we hope to be able to call the bottom when we see it.
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
CVX
SPY – S&P 500
SSO - 2x S&P 500
I held trading positions Thursday. Markets are very oversold.  I’ll wait another day before I decide whether to hold SSO; a big down day is often followed by an up-day. We’ll see.
 
TODAY’S COMMENT:
Where did that bounce go? There could still be a bounce; Markets are oversold, but today, they gave back all of yesterday’s gain. I’m going to wait another day and see if we get a move higher. If we do, it might not last as long as the last rally. Investors are getting shell-shocked.
 
Thursday was another new-low.  Today’s move was on higher volume, so no bottom today.
 
Today was a statistically significant down-day. That just means that the price-volume move exceeded my statistical parameters. Statistics show that a statistically-significant, down-day is followed by an up-day about 60% of the time. 
 
Today, the daily sum of 20 Indicators improved from -7 to -3 (a positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the 10-day smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations declined from -79 to -80. (The trend direction is more important than the actual number for the 10-day value.) These numbers sometimes change after I post the blog based on data that comes in late. Most of these 20 indicators are short-term so they tend to bounce around a lot.
 
LONG-TERM INDICATOR: The Long Term NTSM indicator is either SELL or HOLD depending on the value of Sentiment that I will get later tonight. Remember for the longer-term, one indicator trumps them all – “Don’t fight the FED.”
 
Bottom line: I’m a skeptical Bull; I bought some stocks Wednesday and I’m back to about 40% invested in stocks.
 
BEST ETFs - MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily)
None of the ETFs I track are above their 120-dMA so the chart is no good. ETF ranking follows:
#1.IBB  #2.XLY  #3.XLU
*For additional background on the ETF ranking system see NTSM Page at…
http://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/exchange-traded-funds-etf-ranking.html
 
BEST DOW STOCKS - TODAY’S MOMENTUM 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.
My momentum chart for the Dow has blown up. DOW 30 momentum ranking follows:
#1 UNH  #2.WMT  #3.AAPL, MCD
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 remained HOLD.
 
(Market Internals are a decent trend-following analysis of current market action, but should not be used alone for short term trading. They are most useful when they diverge from the Index.) 
 
 

...My current invested position is about 40% stocks, including stock mutual funds and ETFs..
 
I trade about 15-20% of the total portfolio using the momentum-based analysis I provide here. If I can see a definitive bottom, I’ll add a lot more stocks to the portfolio using an S&P 500 ETF.