Jobless Claims ... Retail Sales ... Philadelphia Fed Index ... Empire State Manufacturing ... Industrial Production ... 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
“A conservative group has told a Georgia judge that it
doesn't have evidence to support its claims of illegal ballot stuffing during
the 2020 general election and a runoff two months later. Texas-based True the
Vote filed complaints with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in
2021, including one in which it said it had obtained “a detailed account of
coordinated efforts to collect and deposit ballots in drop boxes across metro
Atlanta” during the November 2020 election and a January 2021 runoff.” Story
at...
Conservative
group tells judge it has no evidence to back its claims of Georgia ballot
stuffing (msn.com)
My cmt: This means that the movie, “2000 Mules” is also a
complete fake. The GBI (Georgia Bureau
of Investigation) also stated that the claims of ballot stuffing by True the
Vote and the 2000 Mules movie were not supported by the evidence provided in
the movie. The crazy thing is that during the 2020 election, Georgia matched
absentee ballot signatures to registrations and signatures on file. Even if there had been ballot stuffing, the
fake ballots would have been thrown out due to lack of registration and/or
non-matching signatures.
“About one-third of U.S. adults say they believe President
Biden was not legitimately elected president of the
United States in 2020, according a poll released this week.” - The Hill at...
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4384619-one-third-of-americans-say-biden-election-illegitimate/
My cmt: 20% of Americans are complete idiots for
believing there is a Government/Taylor Swift conspiracy to elect Joe Biden. Now
30% believe the Trump stolen election absurdity. Let’s hope the 20% crazies
fall within the 30% nut-jobs otherwise we’d have to add them together. 50% of Americans can’t be idiots, can they?
“Regarding your [WSJ] editorial “Dartmouth Sees the Value of the SAT” (Feb. 6): The original
intent of the Scholastic Aptitude Test was to pave the way for students from
lower- and middle-income households to attend upper-tier universities. Harvard
began using the SAT in the 1930s, and the test proved highly accurate in predicting
success in college. Around the turn of the 21st century, however, an antimerit
movement started...Merit, after all, is blind to race, wealth, gender, sexual
orientation and geography....Dartmouth is to be congratulated for leading us
back to the very old-fashioned concept that students who achieve much in high
school will probably do the same in college, graduate school and beyond.” - Dwight Oxley, WSJ Letter to the Editor.
JOBLESS CLAIMS (Morningstar)
“The number of Americans who applied for unemployment
benefits in early February fell to a one-month low of 212,000 indicating
layoffs remain low nationwide despite sharp job cuts at some big businesses
such as UPS.” Story at...
https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20240215278/jobless-claims-fall-to-one-month-low-of-212000-layoffs-still-small
PHILADELPHIA FED INDEX (Sharecast)
“Factory sector activity in the mid-Atlantic region
improved significantly in February, the results of a closely-followed survey
revealed. The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's manufacturing sector gauge
jumped from a reading of -10.6 in January to 5.2 for February.” Story at...
https://www.sharecast.com/news/international-economic/philly-fed-index-jumps-in-february--16209582.html
RETAIL SALES (CNBC)
“Consumer spending fell sharply in January, presenting a
potential early danger sign for the economy, the Commerce Department reported
Thursday. Advance
retail sales declined 0.8% for the month following a downwardly
revised 0.4% gain in December...” Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/15/retail-sales-january-2024-.html
NY FED MANUFACTURING (Westfair Business Journal)
“A manufacturing survey released this morning by the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York finds that business activity edged slightly
lower in New York recently... ‘On the heels of a significant contraction last
month, manufacturing activity shrank further in New York state,’ the report
said. The survey results suggested that employment levels remained essentially
unchanged. The results also showed that capital spending plans remained
somewhat soft.” Story at...
https://westfaironline.com/combined/ny-fed-finds-lower-ny-business-activity/
INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION (Floor Daily via Forexfactory)
“Industrial production edged down 0.1% in January after
recording no change in December, according to the Federal Reserve.” Story at...
https://www.forexfactory.com/news/1267347-industrial-production-declined-01-in-january
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Thursday the S&P 500 rose about 0.6% to 5030.
-VIX fell about 3% to 14.01.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.252%.
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
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.
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:
Breadth is improving: The 10-dMA of issues advancing on
the NYSE bounced up to nearly 55% today.
Longer term measures (50-dMA, 100dMA and 150-dMA) are all above 50% and
improving. These are bullish signs and
there are more...
7.6% of all issues traded on the NYSE made new, 52-week
highs when the S&P 500 made a new all-time-high today, 15 February 2024.
The 5-year average was for this stat is roughly 6.7%. The new-high data at the
new all-time high is another indication that the rally is broadening out.
We saw several more, new bull-signs
today: There were back-to-back 80% up-volume days Wednesday and Thursday. That’s
a bullish sign that cancels out the 90% down volume day on Tuesday; Like
yesterday, the daily chart looked bullish with a strong finish into the close
so we may expect some follow-thru on Friday; My Friday Summary Indicator (more
than 50-indicators) moved sharply to the bullish side Thursday. I’ll give a run-down of those indicators
tomorrow, hence the “Friday Summary” title for the indicator.
Not all the news was good today:
The S&P 500 is once again more than 12% above its 200-dMA. That’s
cautionary, but many other indicators are bullish so I won’t worry too much
about this one. Historically, the Index
has been nearly 20% above the 200-dMA, but that was a rare event.
The daily spread of 20 short-term Indicators (Bulls minus
Bears) improved from -3 to +7 (a positive number is bullish; negatives
are bearish); the 10-day smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations improved
from -4 to +1. (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. Still, the markets are getting stretched again
so I’ll follow the indicators.
LONG-TERM INDICATOR: The Long Term NTSM indicator declined
to HOLD: VOLUME is bullish; SENTIMENT, PRICE & VIX are neutral.
(One warning: 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 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 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 65% 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.
