FED Minutes ... Jobless Claims ... Home Sales ... 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.
“Far
more money has been lost by investors in preparing for corrections, or
anticipating corrections, than has been lost in the corrections themselves.” -
Peter Lynch, former manager of Fidelity’s Magellan® fund.
“If you have mail-in voting, you automatically have
fraud...When you go into a voting place, like you go into one in a properly run
state, they look at you, you give voter ID, you give all sorts of
identification. I mean, it would be very hard to cheat.” – Donald Trump, during
Laura Ingraham interview.
My cmt: Sorry, Donald. In Georgia, where you claimed
200,000 votes were stolen, mail-in voter signatures were matched to
registration signatures along with address and witness checks. You lost the election fair and square. You
claimed thousands of dead people voted – election officials found about a half-dozen
cases of double voting, where relatives voted for an individual that had passed
away.
“Mike Lindell, the CEO of bedding company MyPillow and an
ally of former President Donald Trump, has to pay $5 million to a man who debunked Lindell’s false claims of
fraud in the 2020 presidential election, following a failed attempt to get out
of doing so. In 2021, Lindell hosted a contest called the “Prove Mike Wrong
Challenge,” promising $5 million to anyone who could disprove Lindell’s claims
that Chinese interference played a role in the 2020 election. Robert
Zeidman, a computer forensics expert and Trump supporter, submitted
a 15-page report proving Lindell’s assertions were false.”
MyPillow
Guy Must Pay $5 Million To Man Who Proved Him Wrong (msn.com)
My cmt: So far, even though there is a court order,
Lindell has not paid off on the contest.
FED MINUTES (CNBC)
“In discussing the policy outlook, participants judged that the
policy rate was likely at its peak for this tightening cycle,” the minutes
stated. But, “Participants generally noted that they did not expect it would be
appropriate to reduce the target range for the federal funds rate until they
had gained greater confidence that inflation was moving sustainably toward 2
percent.” Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/21/fed-minutes-january-2024.html
JOBLESS CLAIMS (US News)
“The number of Americans filing new claims for
unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week, suggesting that job growth
likely remained solid in February...Initial claims for state unemployment
benefits dropped 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 201,000 for the week ended Feb
17...” Story at...
https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2024-02-22/us-weekly-jobless-claims-unexpectedly-fall
EXISTING HOME SALES (CNBC)
“Sales of previously owned homes rose 3.1% in January to
4 million units on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, according to the
National Association of Realtors. Sales were down 1.7% year over year.” Story
at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/22/existing-home-sales-rose-3percent-in-january-2024.html
CRUDE INVENTORIES (EIA)
“U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those
in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 3.5 million barrels from the
previous week. At 443.0 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about
2% below the five year average for this time of year.” Report at...
https://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/wpsrsummary.pdf
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Thursday the S&P 500 rose about 2.1% to 5087.
-VIX dropped about 5% to 14.54.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.331%.
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
QLD- Added 2/20/2024
UWM – Added 1/22/2024.
XLK – Technology ETF (holding since the October 2022
lows).
INTC – Added 12/6/2023.
CRM – Added 1/22/2024
BA – Added 12/6/2023. I plan to hold Boeing for the time
being, although my patience is running out!
Technically, there is a lot of support around the 200
level. It closed at 201.5 on 2/22/2024.
If Boeing drops below 200 it will be time to bail out.
DWCPF - Dow Jones U.S. Completion Total Stock Market
Index. – Added 12/7/2023 when I sold the S&P 500. This is a large position
in my retirement account betting on Small Caps.
TODAY’S COMMENT:
Today was a big day and the indicators are bullish.
However, there were some signs of a top: Bollinger bands are overbought; The S&P
500 is 13.1% of its 200-dMA; All the ETFs I track are above their respective
200-dMA. (The last time that happened was back in early August of 2023. That preceded a 10% correction. Previously,
the indicator warned in June and July of 2021. That was followed by a small 5%
pullback 3 months later, so this indicator doesn’t always predict a big
downturn and the timing can be questionable.
We also note that Thursday 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. Tops almost always occur on Statistically-significant,
up-days, but not all statistically-significant, up-days occur at tops. Today
could be a short-term top, but there are only 2 top indicators that are bearish
and that is not a strong top signal. If the markets continue to make big moves
up next week, we may see some weakness in the markets.
The best move to make now is to watch indicators
carefully and be aware that a reversal is possible, but not guaranteed.
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
The “Friday Summary” ensemble was slightly more bullish: there
are 8 bear-signs and 16-Bull.
LONG-TERM INDICATOR: The Long Term NTSM indicator
remained HOLD: PRICE was positive; VOLUME, SENTIMENT & VIX are neutral.
(The Long-Term Indicator is not a good top-indicator. It
can signal BUY at a top.)
(The important major BUY in this indicator was on 21
October 2022, 7-days after the bear-market 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 remain cautiously bullish.
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. (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’m “over invested” now expecting
continuation of bullish market action.
I trade about 15-20% of the total portfolio using the
momentum-based analysis I provide here. When I see a definitive bottom, I add a
lot more stocks to the portfolio using an S&P 500 ETF as I did back in
October.
