Jobless Claims ... Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis ...

 
“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.
 
Happy Easter! Happy Passover!
 
JOBLESS CLAIMS (Reuters)
“The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, but annual revisions to the data showed applications were higher this year than initially thought, further evidence that the labor market was slowing...Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 18,000 to a seasonally adjusted 228,000 for the week ended April 1.” Story at...
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-weekly-jobless-claims-fall-layoffs-jump-march-2023-04-06/
 
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Thursday the S&P 500 rose about 0.4% to 4105.
-VIX fell about 4% to 18.4.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury was little changed at 3.303%.
 
PULLBACK DATA:
-Drop from Top: 14.5% as of today. 25.4% max (on a closing basis).
-Trading Days since Top: 316-days.
The S&P 500 is 4% ABOVE its 200-dMA and 1.8% 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) I am late on this one, but we’ll see. They have more work than they can handle and are hiring. They should do well going forward. Boeing reports earnings 4/26/2023. Boeing was downgraded 4/4/2023 based on fears that they will not be able to ramp up production to meet demand.
XLY - Consumer Discretionary ETF.
KRE – Regional Banking ETF. This is a small position for me.  I have no cash left.
 
SHY – Short term bonds. 30-day yield is 4.6%. (Trailing 1-year yield is 1.3%.) I’ll hold this, but if the market retests the lows, I’ll sell it and buy stocks.)
 
TODAY’S COMMENT:
Markets are closed tomorrow for Good Friday/Easter Celebrations, so here’s the Friday Rundown of indicators on Thursday.
 
The weekly rundown of indicators slipped, but remained mostly on the Bullish side (now 10-bear and 14-bull). (These indicators tend to be both long-term and short-term, so they are different than the 20 that I report on daily.) 
 
BULL SIGNS
-The 10-dMA percentage of issues advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) is above 50%.
-The 100-dMA percentage of issues advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) is above 50%.
-There was a Zweig Breadth Thrust 31 March. That’s a rare, very-bullish sign. It will stay bullish until the McClellan Oscillator turns negative.
-Slope of the 200-dMA is rising.
-MACD of S&P 500 price made a bullish crossover 21 March.
-My Money Trend indicator is rising.
-Short-term new-high/new-low data.
-McClellan Oscillator.
-The long-term, 50-dEMA, Fosback Hi-Low Logic Index is bullish.
-The Smart Money (late-day action) is bullish.
-The graph of the 100-day Count (the 100-day sum of up-days) is rising.
-The 5-10-20 Timer System is BUY; the 5-dEMA and 10-dEMA are both above the 20-dEMA.
-The 5-day EMA is above the 10-day EMA so short-term momentum is bullish.
-70% of the 15-ETFs that I track have been up over the last 10-days – bullish.
 
NEUTRAL
-There was a Follow-thru Day 3/31 that cancels prior Distribution Days.
-There have been 2 Statistically-Significant days (big moves in price-volume) in the last 15-days.
-Sentiment.
-Bollinger Bands.
-Issues advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) compared to the S&P 500.
-Smoothed Buying Pressure minus Selling Pressure is rising slightly, but it is below zero (more selling than buying) so let’s put this one in the neutral zone.
-The 52-week, New-high/new-low ratio improved by 3.5 standard deviations 27 March, but new-lows are now outpacing new-highs so this goes into the expired/neutral category.
-The short-term, 10-day EMA, Fosback Hi-Low Logic Index is neutral.
-There have been 7 up-days over the last 10 sessions –neutral.
-There have been 12 up-days over the last 20 sessions - neutral.
-RSI
-On average, the size of up-moves has been slightly smaller than the size of down-moves over the last month, but not enough to send a signal.
-There was a 90% down-volume day 9 March. Another one will push this into the Bear category.
-The Calm-before-the-Storm/Panic Indicator flashed a panic-buying signal 10 November - expired.
-VIX indicator.
-The S&P 500 is 4% above its 200-dMA. (Bear indicator is 12% above the 200-day.)
-There was a Hindenburg Omen signal 8 April 2022 – expired.
-2.8% of all issues traded on the NYSE made new, 52-week highs when the S&P 500 made a new all-time-high, 3 January 2022. (There is no bullish signal for this indicator.) This indicated that the advance was too narrow and a correction was likely to be >10%. It proved correct, but is now Expired
 
BEAR SIGNS
-The 50-dMA percentage of issues advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) is below 50%.
-The 50-dMA percentage of issues advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) has been below 50%, for 3 days in a row – bearish.
-Overbought/Oversold Index (Advance/Decline Ratio) - overbought.
-The smoothed advancing volume on the NYSE is falling.
-MACD of the percentage of issues advancing on the NYSE (breadth) made a bearish crossover 9 March.
-4 April there was a Bearish Outside Reversal Day.
-Long-term new-high/new-low data.
-Slope of the 40-dMA of New-highs is falling.
-XLI-ETF (Cyclical Industrials) is underperforming the S&P 500.
-S&P 500 is sharply underperforming Utilities (XLU-ETF).
 
On Friday, 21 February, 2 days after the top before the Coronavirus pullback, there were 10 bear-signs and 1 bull-sign. Now there are 10 bear-signs and 14-Bull. Last week, there were 6 bear-sign and 19 bull-signs.
 
Today, the daily spread of 20 Indicators (Bulls minus Bears) improved from +2 to +3 (a positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the 10-day smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations improved from +44 to +49. (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 HOLD: VOLUME is positive; SENTIMENT, VIX & PRICE are neutral.
 
(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 remain a Bull, but indicators have slipped so I’ll need to keep an eye on the markets.  
 
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
 
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 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.