Leading Economic Indicators ... Jobless Claims ... Philadelphia Fed Index ... Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis ...
“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool,
Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.
“The public embarrassment of Bud Light missing the mark
on an advertising campaign has cost the company billions in sales and market
capitalization. Guess whose brainchild it was to plaster a flamboyant
transvestite’s picture on its blue-collar beer brand? An out-of-touch, virtue
signaling leftie, Mrs. Alissa Heinerscheid. And … wait for it … wait for it … a
Harvard, Groton and Wharton grad...In a leftist word salad worthy of a Kamala
Harris speech, her stated goal with Bud was “inclusivity and shifting the
tone.” No, your job is to sell beer, usually to middle-aged white men who have
very real and very hard jobs that provide goods and services to people like
you.” – Ron Hart, libertarian op-ed humorist and author.
LEADING ECONOMIC INDICATORS
“The
Conference Board Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for the
U.S. fell by 1.2 percent in March 2023 to 108.4 (2016=100)...The U.S. LEI fell
to its lowest level since November of 2020, consistent with worsening economic
conditions ahead...The Conference Board forecasts that economic weakness will
intensify and spread more widely throughout the US economy over the coming
months, leading to a recession starting in mid-2023.” Press release at...
https://www.conference-board.org/topics/us-leading-indicators
JOBLESS CLAIMS (Fox Business)
“The number of Americans filing for unemployment
benefits rose more than expected last week, evidence the labor
market is continuing to soften in the face of higher borrowing costs.
Figures
released Thursday by
the Labor Department show initial claims for the week ended April 15 rose by
5,000 to 245,000.” Story at...
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/jobless-claims-rise-higher-expected-layoffs-continue-mount
PHILADELPHIA FED INDEX (RTT News)
“Philadelphia-area manufacturing activity unexpectedly
contracted at an accelerated rate in the month of April, according to a report
released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia on Thursday. The Philly
Fed said its diffusion index for current activity slumped to a negative 31.3 in
April...” Story at...
https://www.rttnews.com/3357443/philly-fed-index-unexpectedly-slumps-to-nearly-three-year-low-in-april.aspx
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Thursday the S&P 500 fell about 0.6% to 4130.
-VIX rose about 4% to 17.17.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury dropped to 3.538%.
PULLBACK DATA:
-Drop from Top: 13.9% as of today. 25.4% max (on a
closing basis).
-Trading Days since Top: 325-days.
The S&P 500 is 4.4% ABOVE its 200-dMA and 2.4%
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.
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:
Here’s the S&P 500 chart from the present going back
to mid-January. We can clearly see an ascending triangle. I am not a huge chart
guy, but I do look occasionally. Here’s what Investopedia has to say.
“An ascending triangle is generally considered to be a
continuation pattern, meaning that the pattern is significant if it occurs
within an uptrend or downtrend. Once the breakout from the triangle
occurs, traders tend to aggressively buy or sell the asset depending on which
direction the price broke out.” - https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/ascendingtriangle.asp#:~:text=An%20ascending%20triangle%20is%20a,for%20breakouts%20from%20triangle%20patterns.
The key here is which way will the pattern go? This
pattern is considered to be a continuation pattern; it should continue the
upward trend that has been in place since March. If the S&P 500 breaks the
lower trend line we could see some “aggressive” selling (in theory), at least
if the pattern is correct. The triangle is nearing a point where the upper and
lower trend lines are close to crossing.
A cross should see the pattern end and we’ll see a break, one way or the
other, if it hasn’t already occurred by then.
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 +6 to +7. (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: 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
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.
