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

“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.
 
JOBLESS CLAIMS (Detroit News)
“Slightly more Americans filed for jobless claims last week but the labor market remains one of strongest parts of the U.S. economy. Applications for unemployment benefits rose to 230,000 for the week ending Dec. 3, up by 4,000 from the previous week’s 226,000...About 1.67 million people were receiving jobless aid the week that ended Nov. 26, up 62,000 from the week before.” Story at...
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2022/12/08/us-jobless-claims-unemployment-benefits/69711431007/
 
MARKET VIEWS (Heritage Capital)
“The markets are also squarely in the middle of the final bout of tax loss selling for 2022. Seasonal trends continue to be weak into next week. The stock market is supposed to put in its final low for the year next week or by the middle of the following week and then rally into January. That’s what historical trends say, but not all years conform to those norms, 2018 being a very costly exception.” -  Paul Schatz, President Heritge Capital. Commentary at...
https://investfortomorrow.com/blog/semis-banks-offer-opposing-views-home-heating-oil-update/
 
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Thursday the S&P 500 rose about 0.8% to 3964.
-VIX slipped about 2% to 22.29.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 3.486%.
 
PULLBACK DATA:
-Drop from Top: 17.4% as of today. 25.4% max (on a closing basis).
-Trading Days since Top: 235-days.
The S&P 500 is 1.9% BELOW its 200-dMA & 3.4% above its 50-dMA.
 
*I won’t call the correction over until the S&P 500 makes a new-high; however, evidence suggests the bottom was in the 3600 area and I am fully invested with a higher percentage of stocks than normal.
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
I am doing less trading now. You may do better watching the momentum charts rather than my moves.
 
XLI – Industrial ETF (XLI still looks good to me. Nearly 10% of XLI is in Boeing and Caterpillar and they are both strong performers in the DOW momentum analysis.) 
QLD – 2x Nas 100
DDM – 2x Dow 30.
XLK – Technology ETF
 
CVX – (I may hold this as a long-term position. I already owned a small position in CVX.)
 
TODAY’S COMMENT:
Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine reported that the Fidelity Blue Chip Growth Fund was down 40% as of 4 November vs the S&P 500 that was down 18%. I hope your mutual funds are doing better.  The Fidelity fund must have been heavily in the high-flying tech stocks – live by the sword; die by the sword.
 
Today, Thursday, there was a Bollinger Band Squeeze. Stockcharts notes:
“The Bollinger Band Squeeze occurs when volatility falls to low levels and the Bollinger Bands narrow. According to John Bollinger, periods of low volatility are often followed by periods of high volatility. Therefore, a volatility contraction or narrowing of the bands can foreshadow a significant advance or decline.”
https://school.stockcharts.com/doku.php?id=trading_strategies:bollinger_band_squeeze
Bollinger said that RSI should be used to determine the move direction. With RSI leaning toward lower (Bullish) levels, the Index near its lower Bollinger Band and my long-term indicator decidedly bullish, I expect the move to be higher.
 
Today, the daily sum of 20 Indicators improved from +7 to +10 (a positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the 10-day smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations declined from +138 to 127. (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 remained BUY: SENTIMENT and VOLUME are neutral; VIX, & PRICE are bullish.  (The important Buy signal from this indicator ensemble was 21 October (7 days after the low); my first buy indication was on 27 September (2% above the low) based on analysis of retests of the June low.)
 
Bottom line: I remain a Bull. As previously noted,
I think the bottom was 3577 on 12 October. There is always the possibility that the markets could retest those lows, but it seems unlikely that a retest will occur in 2022.
 
I’m now invested with about 75% of the portfolio invested in stocks. (As a retiree, 50% invested in stocks is my “normal” portfolio.) 75% stocks is uber-bullish and that’s as far as I’ll go.
 
BEST ETFs - MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily)
ETF ranking follows:

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
 
BEST DOW STOCKS - TODAY’S MOMENTUM RANKING OF THE DOW 30 STOCKS (Ranked Daily)
DOW 30 momentum ranking follows:

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)

My basket of Market Internals remained SELL. That’s a warning; I’ll look at other signs before I do any selling.
(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 75% stocks, including stock mutual funds and ETFs. I’m usually about 50% invested in stocks. I’ll cut back on stocks if we see serious bear signs.
 
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.