FED Beige Book ... Crude Inventories ... Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis ...
“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool,
Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.
“Throughout this process we have sought accountability
and believed the evidence brought to light through this case underscored the
consequences of spreading lies. Truthful reporting in the media is essential to
our democracy,” - John Poulos, CEO Dominion Voting Systems, commenting on the
nearly $800-million settlement Fox News paid to Dominion over Fox claims that
Dominion equipment helped Biden win the 2020 election.
FED BEIGE BOOK (Bloomberg)
“The US economy stalled in recent weeks, with hiring and
inflation slowing and access to credit narrowing, the Federal Reserve said in
its Beige Book survey of regional business contacts. ‘Overall economic activity
was little changed in recent weeks,’ the Fed said Wednesday in the report,
published two weeks before each meeting of the policy-setting Federal Open
Market Committee. ‘Several districts noted that banks tightened lending
standards amid increased uncertainty and concerns about liquidity.’” Story
at...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-19/us-economy-stalled-in-recent-weeks-fed-s-beige-book-says#xj4y7vzkg
CRUDE OIL INVENTORIES (EIA)
“U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those
in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 4.6 million barrels from the
previous week. At 466.0 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about
2% above the five-year average for this time of year.” Report at...
https://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/wpsrsummary.pdf
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Wednesday the S&P 500 was unchanged at 4155.
-VIX declined about 2% to 16.46.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 3.594%.
PULLBACK DATA:
-Drop from Top: 13.4% as of today. 25.4% max (on a
closing basis).
-Trading Days since Top: 324-days.
The S&P 500 is 5% ABOVE its 200-dMA and 3% 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.
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
I am not trading as much as in the past. You may wish to
use the momentum charts and/or the Monday 40-day gain charts for trading the
Dow stocks and ETFs.
XLK – Technology ETF.
XLE – Energy Sector ETF. It hasn’t been doing much
recently, but Russia is cutting production and that should help the
sector. We have a good dividend in the
meantime.
BA – Boeing has more work than they can handle and are
hiring. They should do well going forward; however, Boeing was downgraded
4/4/2023 based on fears that they will not be able to ramp up production to
meet demand. Thursday, 4/13/23, Boeing fell 5% after hours. “Boeing on Thursday
warned it will likely have to reduce deliveries of its 737 Max airplane in the
near term because of a problem with a part made by supplier Spirit AeroSystems.” From...
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/13/boeing-warns-of-reduced-737-max-production-and-deliveries-due-to-parts-issue.html
Boeing reports earnings 4/26/2023. The warnings are not
encouraging.
XLY - Consumer Discretionary ETF.
KRE – Regional Banking ETF. This is a small position for
me.
SHY – Short term bonds. 30-day yield is 4%. (Trailing
1-year yield is 1.6%.) I’ll hold this, but if the market retests the lows, I’ll
sell it and buy stocks.)
TODAY’S COMMENT:
I mentioned the Blah market yesterday where not much is
happening. You can’t get much more blah
than “unchanged” and that was the story for the S&P 500 today. For the
S&P, 4180 continues to be a point of overhead resistance. The S&P 500
hasn’t been there since 2 February. I guess we’re still waiting for earnings
and the FED. Currently, the Fed is expected to raise rates another quarter
point and then pause.
Indicators are following the price moves in the S&P 500 and are not
giving a strong signal in any direction.
Today, the daily spread of 20 Indicators (Bulls minus
Bears) improved from -5 to +2 (a positive number is bullish; negatives are
bearish); the 10-day smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations declined
from +8 to +6. (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 improved
to BUY: PRICE & VIX are positive; SENTIMENT & VOLUME are neutral. At
this point, the Buy signal just means that the market is looking positive.
(The important BUY in this indicator was on 21 October,
7-days after the bottom. For my NTSM overall signal, I suggested that a
short-term buying opportunity occurred on 27 September (based on improved
market internals on the retest), although without market follow-thru, I was
unwilling to call a buy; however, I did close shorts and increased stock
holdings. I issued a Buy-Signal on 4 October, 6-days before the final bottom,
based on stronger market action that confirmed the market internals signal. The
NTSM sell-signal was issued 20 December, 8 sessions before the high of this
recent bear market, based on the bearish “Friday Rundown” of indicators.)
Bottom line: I am a cautious Bull, watching indicators as
always.
ETF - 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
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
WEDNESDAY 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 65% stocks, including stock mutual funds and ETFs. I’m
usually about 50% invested in stocks.
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.
