FED Meeting ... 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.
 
FED MEETING  (CNBC)
“The Federal Reserve held steady on interest rates at the conclusion of its March meeting, and it’s sticking with its forecast for three interest rate cuts. During a news conference Fed Chair Jerome Powell noted that a strong jobs market wouldn’t deter the central bank from cutting rates.” Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/20/fed-meeting-today-live-updates-on-march-fed-rate-decision.html
 
CRUDE INVENTORIES (EIA)
“U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 2.0 million barrels from the previous week. At 445.0 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 3% below the five year average for this time of year.” Report at...
https://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/wpsrsummary.pdf
 
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Wednesday the S&P 500 rose about 0.9% to 5225.
-VIX declined about 6% to 13.04.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.277%.
 
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
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 Smaller Caps.
 
TODAY’S COMMENT:

Do you think today was all about the Fed? There’s not much doubt as Markets bounced higher after the Fed meeting and during Chairman Powell’s press conference. We noted yesterday that “The market is suggesting that tomorrow’s Fed meeting will not have significant surprises.” I think the surprises were good ones. The rally continues! There isn’t much more to say.

 
The S&P 500 remains stretched and is now 13.8% above its 200-dMA. The Bear indicator is 12% above the 200-day, but I don’t trade one signal – we care more about the ensemble. Bollinger Bands were overbought today, but RSI was not so I’ll ignore the Bollinger Band signal for now.
 
10.3% of all issues traded on the NYSE made new, 52-week highs when the S&P 500 made a new all-time-high today, 19 March 2024. The 5-year average was for this stat is about 6.7% so today’s number is very good. Low numbers indicate poor breadth and can portend corrections greater than 10%.
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Now there are 8 bear-signs and 17-Bull. Tuesday, there were 7 bear-signs and 18 bull.
 
LONG-TERM INDICATOR: The Long Term NTSM indicator remained HOLD: PRICE is positive; SENTIMENT, VOLUME & 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 am 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
My rules say I am supposed to sell an issue that falls out of the  top 3 in Percentile Rank.  XLK is in 4^th place based on Momentum. That would now mean selling XLK. I will remain patient a little longer. Still, the gain in the last 40-days (below) shows other ETFs with better gains.
 
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
I skipped my rules on Intel and it has been a disappointment. Serves me right!  Now, Salesforce (CRM) has fallen out of the top 3. It is an AI play so it is not clear that selling it is the best move.  I’ll wait a bit longer.
 
WEDNESDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)

My basket of Market Internals remained 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.