Consumer Confidence ... JOLTS - Job Openings ... Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis ...
“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool,
Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.
“Congratulations, of a perverse sort, to President Biden
and his Congressional comrades. The latest budget figures show that they are
breaking peacetime, non-crisis records for spending and deficits. And there’s
no respite in sight... What’s astounding is that this Beltway blowout is
happening when the economy is growing, the Covid crisis is past, and there are
no domestic emergencies to address. This is when deficits are supposed to
decline, as they did during the economic expansions of the 1980s, 1990s and
2000s... The next time the U.S. Treasury lectures the Greeks or Italians about
their fiscal woes, the southern Europeans should laugh out loud.” - WSJ
Opinion.
“ ...in America, the rule of law still matters. And
that’s why Donald Trump has been charged with 91 felonies in four separate
cases for attempting to steal an election, falsifying business records and
mishandling classified information. We’ve seen what happens when people start
believing nothing matters. That’s why it doesn’t matter that Donald Trump was
president of the United States. It doesn’t matter that he is currently running
for the presidency. This is America. No one is above the law. That’s why it
matters that Donald Trump faces consequences for his actions.” - The Republican
(my emphasis) Accountability Project.
CONSUMER CONFIDENCE (Conference Board)
"Consumer confidence fell in August 2023, erasing back-to-back increases in June and
July," said Dana Peterson, Chief
Economist at The Conference Board. "August's disappointing headline
number reflected dips in both the current conditions and expectations indexes.
Write-in responses showed that consumers were once again preoccupied with
rising prices in general, and for groceries and gasoline in particular.” Press
release at...
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-consumer-confidence-pulled-back-in-august-301912549.html
JOLTS JOB OPENINGS (CNBC)
"Employment openings totaled 9.58 million for the month,
edging lower from the downwardly revised 9.62 million in May, the Labor
Department said in its monthly Job Openings
and Labor Turnover Survey... “This is definitely heading in the
Goldilocks direction,” said Rachel Sederberg, senior economist at labor
analytics firm Lightcast." Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/01/jolts-june-2023-job-openings-layoffs-both-declined-in-a-positive-sign-for-the-labor-market.html
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Tuesday the S&P 500 rose about 1.5% to 4498.
-VIX slipped about 4% to 14.45.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.116%.
PULLBACK DATA:
-Drop from Top: 6.2%. 25.4% max (on a closing basis).
-Trading Days since Top: 415-days.
The S&P 500 is 8.3% ABOVE its 200-dMA and 0.8%
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
and we called a buy on 4 October 2022.
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
XLK – Technology ETF (holding since the October lows).
SPY – I bought a large position in the S&P 500
Friday, 8/14, in my 401k (it has limited choices).
XLY - Consumer Discretionary ETF. (Holding since the
October lows - I bought more XLY Monday, 8/21.)
XLE – Added Tuesday, 8/22.
SSO – 2x S&P 500 ETF.
(Added 8/24. So far, so good.)
TODAY’S COMMENT:
We had been seeing improvements in breadth and
new-high/new-low data. Today there was
another 80%+ up-volume day. That makes
back-to-back, high-volume days and that’s a rare bullish sign. MACD switched to
bullish today and so did the McClellan Oscillator. With the Oscillator now
bullish, that cancels the prior Hindenburg Omen. (The Hindenburg doesn’t always
crash when we are looking at the stock market.) The S&P 500 climbed above
its 50-dMA. Indicators are telling us “pullback over!”
Tuesday was a statistically significant up-day. That just
means that the price-volume move exceeded my statistical parameters. Statistics
show that a statistically-significant, up-day is followed by a down-day about
60% of the time, so we may get a chance to add more to the stock portfolio at a
discount price.
The daily spread of 20 Indicators (Bulls minus Bears) improved
from -2 to +7 (a positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the 10-day
smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations improved from -54 to -38.
(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: PRICE is Bullish; VIX, VOLUME & SENTIMENT 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 21 December, 9 sessions before the high of this
recent bear market, based on the bearish “Friday Rundown” of indicators.)
Bottom line: I am Bullish. Indicators continue to improve.
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
TUESDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE
DATA)
My basket of Market Internals improved to BUY. (My basket of Market
Internals is 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 70% 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 as I did back in October.
