Navigate the Stock Market: November 2024

Friday, November 29, 2024

... Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis

The daily Bull/Bear, 50-Indicator spread (Bull Indicators minus Bear Indicators, red curve in the chart above) improved to +15 (15 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators).

TODAY’S COMMENT
As you might suspect, volumes were very low today due to the Holiday and shortened trading. We won’t place much weight on today’s action, but it was more of the same, up, so we can’t complain.

Today’s Bull-Bear spread of +17, a still a very bullish sign with little change from Wednesday.

The 10-dMA of the 50-Indicator Spread (purple line in the chart above) is moving higher today so the overall 50-Indicator spread signal is Bullish. (I follow the 10-dMA for trading buy-signals and as an indicator for sell signals.)

The S&P 500 made a new all-time high Friday. About 7% of issues on the NYSE made new, 52-week highs today. That demonstrates a broad advance. It’s another confirmation that markets look good and can continue higher. If a pullback were to occur now on the S&P 500 (and ‘m not predicting one) it is likely that it would be in the range of 3-5%. That would be a normal pullback to around the 50-dMA.

BOTTOM LINE
I’m bullish.

ETF - MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily) ETF 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

FRIDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)

My basket of Market Internals remained BUY. (My basket of Market Internals is a decent trend-following analysis that is most useful when it diverges 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 when markets are stretched. (75% is my max stock allocation when I am confident that markets will continue higher.)

I trade about 15-20% of the total portfolio using the momentum-based analysis I provide here. When I see bullish signs, I add a lot more stocks to the portfolio, usually by using an S&P 500 ETF as I did back in October 2022 and 2023.

Wednesday, November 27, 2024

Durable Sales ... PCE Prices / GDP ... Jobless Claims ... Crude Inventories ... Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis

Have a Happy & safe Thanksgiving.

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.

DURABLE GOODS ORDERS (rttnews)
“...durable goods orders crept up by 0.2 in October after falling by a revised 0.4 percent in September... Economists had expected durable goods orders to climb by 0.5 percent...” Story at...
https://www.rttnews.com/3493494/u-s-durable-goods-orders-rise-0-2-in-october-less-than-expected.aspx

PCE PRICES / GDP (Financial Review)
“The so-called core personal consumption expenditures price index, which strips out volatile food and energy items, increased 2.8 per cent from October last year and 0.3 per cent from a month earlier, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data. A good part of that acceleration was due to the impact of higher stock prices on the calculation... the US economy expanded at a solid pace in the third quarter, largely powered by a broad-based advance in consumer spending and steady business investment. Gross domestic product increased at a 2.8 per cent annualised pace in the third quarter." Story at...
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/us-gdp-expands-at-a-solid-2-8pc-pace-helped-by-consumer-spending-20241128-p5ku4q

JOBLESS CLAIMS (Reuters)
“The number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits fell again last week, but many laid-off workers are experiencing long bouts of joblessness, keeping the door open to another interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve in December. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 213,000 for the week ended Nov. 23...” Story at...
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-weekly-jobless-claims-decline-further-2024-11-27/

CRUDE INVENTORIES (EIA)
“U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 1.8 million barrels from the previous week. At 428.4 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 5% below the five year average for this time of year.” Report at...
https://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/wpsrsummary.pdf

“An average of 13.4 million barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil was produced in the United States during August 2024, a new record according to data from our Petroleum Supply Monthly. More crude oil was produced in the United States during August 2024 than during December 2023, when the previous monthly record of 13.3 million b/d was set.” – EIA at...
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=63824
My cmt: The 2020 dip is COVID related. Fracking started to accelerate in 2010 and that accounts for the big jump in production.

MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Wednesday the S&P 500 declined about 0.4% to 5999.
-VIX declined about 0.1% to 14.11.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined (compared to about this time, prior trading day) to 4.261%.

MY TRADING POSITIONS:
XLK – Holding since the October 2022 lows. Added more 9/20.
SSO – added 10/16.
SPY – added 9/19 & more 10/16
QLD – added 11/5.
UWM – added 11/11

CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 3 gave Bear-signs and 20 were Bullish. The rest are neutral. (It is normal to have a lot of neutral indicators since many of the indicators are top or bottom indicators that will signal only at extremes.)

The daily Bull/Bear, 50-Indicator spread (Bull Indicators minus Bear Indicators, red curve in the chart above) improved to +17 (17 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators).

TODAY’S COMMENT
Today’s Bull-Bear spread of +17, a very bullish sign.

The 10-dMA of the 50-Indicator Spread (purple line in the chart above) is moving higher today so the overall 50-Indicator spread signal is Bullish. (I follow the 10-dMA for trading buy-signals and as an indicator for sell signals.)

The S&P 500 has not returned to its upper trend line so it appears that the Index will run higher. VIX is falling and Sentiment turned bullish. That was a surprise. There are now a lot of investors betting against the market on the Guggenheim leveraged mutual funds that I track. That’s because until today, there had been 7 up-days in a row. Tuesday, there had been 8-days out of the last 10 that were up – that was one of the bear signs yesterday. Sentiment is likely to return to neutral soon.

BOTTOM LINE
I’m bullish.

ETF - MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily) ETF ranking follows:

My basket of Market Internals improved to BUY. (My basket of Market Internals is a decent trend-following analysis that is most useful when it diverges from the Index.)

Tuesday, November 26, 2024

Consumer Confidence ... Housing Starts ... Building Permits ... 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.

“The Biden-Harris administration announced a multi-billion dollar loan for electric vehicle (EV) maker Rivian Monday as the company continues to hemorrhage cash. Rivian lost $1.1 billion and saw its revenue fall nearly $500 million in the third quarter of 2024 as a slackening of consumer demand for EVs hampered the industry’s growth. Now, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has agreed to a conditional commitment to loan the automaker roughly $6.6 billion to help finance the construction of its manufacturing facility in Georgia, according to a press release from the DOE’s Loan Programs Office (LPO).” – Story at...
Lame Duck Biden Admin Cuts Massive Check For Failing EV Manufacturer
My cmt: Clearly, the DOE has too much discretion over their funding. How is it possible for them to give this much money to a failing company without congressional oversight!? That’s about $700 per taxpayer. Rivian won’t last 5-years.

HOUSING / BUILDING PERMITS (Yahoo Finance)
“Recent data from the Census Bureau reveals housing starts fell 3.1% below September’s revised estimate, landing at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,311,000 units. Building permits declined 0.6% from September, marking a 7.7% drop from October 2023.” Story at...
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/millions-homes-stay-unbuilt-builders-151520747.html

CONSUMER CONFIDENCE (Conference Board via prnewswire)
"Consumer confidence continued to improve in November and reached the top of the range that has prevailed over the past two years...November's increase was mainly driven by more positive consumer assessments of the present situation, particularly regarding the labor market. Compared to October, consumers were also substantially more optimistic about future job availability, which reached its highest level in almost three years. Meanwhile, consumers' expectations about future business conditions were unchanged and they were slightly less positive about future income." Press release at...
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-consumer-confidence-improved-again-in-november-302316573.html

MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Tuesday the S&P 500 was up about 0.6% to 6022.
-VIX declined about 3% to 14.1.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose (compared to about this time, prior trading day) to 4.295%.

MY TRADING POSITIONS:
XLK – Holding since the October 2022 lows. Added more 9/20.
SSO – added 10/16.
SPY – added 9/19 & more 10/16
QLD – added 11/5.
UWM – added 11/11

CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 4 gave Bear-signs and 19 were Bullish. The rest are neutral. (It is normal to have a lot of neutral indicators since many of the indicators are top or bottom indicators that will signal only at extremes.)

The daily Bull/Bear, 50-Indicator spread (Bull Indicators minus Bear Indicators, red curve in the chart above) improved to +15 (15 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators).

TODAY’S COMMENT
The S&P 500 made a new all-time high Tuesday. About 6% of issues on the NYSE made new, 52-week highs today. That demonstrates a fairly broad advance, especially on a day when internals were weak. It’s another confirmation that markets look good and can continue higher.

Today’s Bull-Bear spread of +15, a very bullish sign.

The 10-dMA of the 50-Indicator Spread (purple line in the chart above) reversed higher today so the overall 50-Indicator spread signal is Bullish. (I follow the 10-dMA for trading buy-signals and as an indicator for sell signals.)

BOTTOM LINE
I’m bullish.

ETF - MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily) ETF ranking follows:

My basket of Market Internals slipped to HOLD. (My basket of Market Internals is a decent trend-following analysis that is most useful when it diverges from the Index.)

Monday, November 25, 2024

National Activity Index ... Dallas Fed Manufacturing ... 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.

HIS RETIREMENT FUND IS IN LIMBO (WSJ)
“...Through a friend, he heard about a firm called Yield Wealth and the “guaranteed” 15.25% return it was offering to investors on some products. “I figured this is an amazing opportunity and I’ll be set for life,” recalls Whitacre, 60... In March, Whitacre withdrew his entire 401(k) from Fidelity - $763,094.21 - and rolled it over into an individual retirement account with Yield, which was affiliated with a firm called Next Level Holdings... Now Whitacre, like hundreds of other investors who altogether put at least $50 million into these products, wonders if he’ll ever see his money again... Among the investors who fell for this were many of the insurance agents and stockbrokers who sold Next Level or Yield... “Let’s pray we get something out of this,” says Kimberly Whitacre, “but right now we can’t even get answers.” On Nov. 21, she learned that the insurance company Regan [Paul Regan, previously barred for life from acting as a broker by the SEC] had said “guaranteed” her investment denied that it had provided such coverage, adding that “the paperwork and signatures of our officials were used fraudulently....” Most investors know that reaching for yield isn’t wise. In this case, it appears to have been catastrophic.” - Jason Zweig, WSJ. Story at...
https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/i-dont-know-where-to-turn-or-what-to-do-his-763-094-retirement-fund-is-in-limbo-f89ca638

“It’s a day that ends in y, which means that the Biden Administration has lost another court case about executive overreach. President Biden issued an order in 2021 raising the minimum pay for workers on federal contracts to $15 an hour (soon to be $17.75). This is outside Mr. Biden’s authority, according to a 2-1 ruling this month at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.” – WSJ at...
Opinion | Biden’s $17.75 Wage Rule Loses in Court
My cmt: King Biden, stopped again...and they accuse Trump of acting unconstitutionally – Trump did, but the Democrats ignore their own unconstitutional actions.

NATIONAL ACTIVITY INDEX (SeekingAlpha)
“The Chicago Fed National Activity Index ("CFNAI") dropped to -0.40 in October from -0.27 in September (revised from -0.28). Three of the four broad categories of indicators used to build the index declined from September, and all four categories made negative contributions in October.” Story at...
https://seekingalpha.com/news/4329679-chicago-fed-national-activity-index-sinks-deeper-into-the-red-in-october

DALLAS FED MANUFACTURING (fxEmpire)
“On November 25, 2024, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas released Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index report. The report indicated that Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index improved from -3 in October to -2.7 in November, compared to analyst consensus of -2.4.” Story at...
https://www.fxempire.com/news/article/dallas-fed-manufacturing-index-rises-to-2-7-sp500-settles-near-6000-1478726

MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Monday the S&P 500 was up about 0.3% to 5987.
-VIX declined about 4% to 14.6.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined (compared to about this time, prior trading day) to 4.275%.

MY TRADING POSITIONS:
XLK – Holding since the October 2022 lows. Added more 9/20.
SSO – added 10/16.
SPY – added 9/19 & more 10/16
QLD – added 11/5.
UWM – added 11/11

CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 4 gave Bear-signs and 17 were Bullish. The rest are neutral. (It is normal to have a lot of neutral indicators since many of the indicators are top or bottom indicators that will signal only at extremes.)

The daily Bull/Bear, 50-Indicator spread (Bull Indicators minus Bear Indicators, red curve in the chart above) improved to +13 (13 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators).

TODAY’S COMMENT
I updated the DOW 30 momentum analysis to include NVIDIA and Sherwin-Williams and deleted Intel and Dow Corp. I wondered if NVIDIA would be the new momentum leader, but it did not happen. Its recent weakness is holding it back. NVIDIA would have been the momentum leader in my analysis back in September and October, just not now.

I noted Friday that there seem to be a lot of indicators that are improving and we might see a big positive switch in the indicators. That happened today, and yes, it’s bullish.

Today’s Bull-Bear spread of +13.

The 10-dMA of the 50-Indicator Spread (purple line in the chart above) is still falling today so the overall 50-Indicator spread signal is Bearish; (I follow the 10-dMA for trading buy-signals and as an indicator for sell signals.), but I’ll ignore this signal for now. The 10-day data always lags.

Hindenburg Omens were canceled when the McClellan Oscillator turned positive Friday,

“Looking good, Billy Ray! Feeling good, Louis!”

BOTTOM LINE
I’m bullish.

ETF - MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily) ETF ranking follows:

DOW STOCKS - TODAY’S MOMENTUM RANKING OF THE DOW 30 STOCKS (Ranked Daily)

MONDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)

My basket of Market Internals improved to BUY. (My basket of Market Internals is a decent trend-following analysis that is most useful when it diverges from the Index.)

Friday, November 22, 2024

... 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.

UAVs OVER LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE RAISE SECURITY QUESTIONS (GPS World)
“The ‘Wall Street Journal’ has reported mysterious UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles, i.e., drones] spotted surveilling some of America’s most sensitive military sites, leaving the Pentagon struggling to respond. These unidentified UAVs have been seen flying over military installations in Virginia and Nevada throughout the past year, including the secret base of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team Six and Naval Station Norfolk, recognized as the world’s largest naval port. Former U.S. Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly told The Wall Street Journal he first became aware of mysterious UAV sightings in December 2023, when officials at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia reported seeing dozens of UAVs flying over the base at night.” Story at...
https://www.gpsworld.com/unidentified-uavs-over-langley-air-force-base-raise-security-concerns/

ARMY ARSENAL SEEKS INFO ON DRONE FLIGHTS (The War Zone)
“The U.S. Army’s Picatinny Arsenal in northern New Jersey is working with local, state, and federal partners to obtain more information about mysterious drone activity over the facility and in the surrounding area, a spokesman told us. His comments were in response to questions we asked about reports of strange drone activity near the facility that emerged on social media...” Story at...
https://www.twz.com/air/army-arsenal-seeking-info-on-mysterious-drone-flights-over-installation

CHINESE NATIONAL CONVICTED IN ESPIONAGE CASE (WAVY.com)
“Fengyun Shi [Chinese “student”] was flying the unmanned aircraft [drone] outside the 65th Street and Huntington Avenue Entrance of HII Newport News Shipbuilding when it got stuck in a tree. The SD card showed footage captured of U.S. Navy vessels or vessels intended for use by the Navy, according to court documents. This violates the Espionage Act, which prohibits a person of taking pictures of companies that manufacture classified military equipment. Shi was sentenced to six months for both counts.” Story at...
https://www.wavy.com/news/local-news/chinese-national-sentenced-for-espionage-after-flying-drone-over-nn-navy-ships/
My cmt: Looks like a clear pattern of espionage. What are the Chinese up to? Best case: Collecting information on an adversary. Worst case: Preparing for war. This is a prelude to taking Taiwan.

MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Friday the S&P 500 was up about 0.4% to 5969.
-VIX declined about 10% to 15.24.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined (compared to about this time, prior trading day) to 4.412%.

MY TRADING POSITIONS:
XLK – Holding since the October 2022 lows. Added more 9/20.
SSO – added 10/16.
SPY – added 9/19 & more 10/16
QLD – added 11/5.
UWM – added 11/11

CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 11 gave Bear-signs and 9 were Bullish. The rest are neutral. (It is normal to have a lot of neutral indicators since many of the indicators are top or bottom indicators that will signal only at extremes.)

The daily Bull/Bear, 50-Indicator spread (Bull Indicators minus Bear Indicators, red curve in the chart above) improved to -2 (2 more Bear indicators than Bull indicators).

TODAY’S COMMENT
Today’s Bull-Bear spread of -2 is NEUTRAL.

The 10-dMA of the 50-Indicator Spread (purple line in the chart above) is still falling today so the overall 50-Indicator spread signal is Bearish. (I follow the 10-dMA for trading buy-signals and as an indicator for sell signals.)

As I noted yesterday, Indicators bottomed on a daily basis on Thursday and rose again today. The spread was -6 Thursday, so it appears we have seen an end of the minor weakness we’ve seen for the last 2 weeks or so. In the recent past, the daily indicators have bottomed when the S&P 500 bottomed.

In addition, there seem to be a lot of indicators that are improving. We might see a big positive switch in the indicators, but it is hard to predict when that may ocurr. That looks bullish.

BOTTOM LINE
I’m 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)
Intel and Dow Inc. have been replaced by Sherwin-Williams and Nvidia Corp. in the Dow Industrials. It will take me a while to make changes to my programming.

My basket of Market Internals improved to HOLD. (My basket of Market Internals is a decent trend-following analysis that is most useful when it diverges from the Index.)

Thursday, November 21, 2024

Jobless Claims ... Philly Fed ... Leading Economic Index ... Home Sales ... Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis

“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.

JOBLESS CLAIMS (Yahoo Finance)
“New data from the Department of Labor showed 213,000 initial jobless claims were filed in the week ending Nov. 16, down from 219,000 the week prior and below the 220,000 economists had expected.” Story at...
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jobless-claims-fall-to-7-month-low-show-labor-market-trending-sideways-at-a-healthy-level-143631415.html

PHILLY FED BUSINESS INDEX (rttNews)
“The Philly Fed said its diffusion index for current general activity tumbled to a negative 5.5 in November from a positive 10.3 in October, with a negative reading indicating contraction. Economists had expected the index to edge down to a positive 8.0.” Story at...
https://www.rttnews.com/3492264/philly-fed-index-unexpectedly-indicates-contraction-in-november.aspx

LEADING ECONOMIC INDEX (Conference Board via prnewswire)
“The Conference Board Leading Economic Index^® (LEI) for the US declined by 0.4% in October 2024 to 99.5 (2016=100), following a 0.3% decline in September (revised up from a 0.5% decline)... "In October, manufacturing hours worked fell by the most since December 2023, while unemployment insurance claims rose and building permits declined, partly reflecting the impact of hurricanes in the Southeast US. Additionally, the negative yield spread continued to weigh on the LEI. Apart from possible temporary impacts of hurricanes, the US LEI continued to suggest challenges to economic activity ahead." Press release at...
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-conference-board-leading-economic-index-lei-for-the-us-fell-in-october-302313142.html

EXISTING HOME SALES (NAR)
“In October 2024, existing-home sales grew month-over-month in all four regions of the U.S. Year-over-year, sales rose in the Midwest, South, and West, and were unchanged in the Northeast. According to NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun, "The worst of the downturn in home sales could be over...” Report at...
https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics/housing-statistics/existing-home-sales

MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Thursday the S&P 500 was up about 0.5% to 5949.
-VIX declined about 2% to 16.87.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose (compared to about this time, prior trading day) to 4.420%.

MY TRADING POSITIONS:
XLK – Holding since the October 2022 lows. Added more 9/20.
SSO – added 10/16.
SPY – added 9/19 & more 10/16
QLD – added 11/5.
UWM – added 11/11

CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 13 gave Bear-signs and 7 were Bullish. The rest are neutral. (It is normal to have a lot of neutral indicators since many of the indicators are top or bottom indicators that will signal only at extremes.)

The daily Bull/Bear, 50-Indicator spread (Bull Indicators minus Bear Indicators, red curve in the chart above) improved to -6 (6 more Bear indicators than Bull indicators).

TODAY’S COMMENT
The 10-dMA of the 50-Indicator Spread (purple line in the chart above) is still falling today so the overall 50-Indicator spread signal is Bearish. (I follow the 10-dMA for trading buy-signals and as an indicator for sell signals.)

Today’s Bull-Bear spread of -6 is a moderately BEARISH.

Indicators have bottomed on a daily basis. The spread was -9 Wednesday, so we may have seen an end of the minor weakness we’ve seen for the last 2 weeks or so. In the recent past, the daily indicators have bottomed when the S&P 500 bottomed.

The indicators for the day are looking up and that’s bullish.

BOTTOM LINE
I’m cautiously bullish.

ETF - MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily) ETF ranking follows:

My basket of Market Internals remained SELL. (My basket of Market Internals is a decent trend-following analysis that is most useful when it diverges from the Index.)

Wednesday, November 20, 2024

Crude Inventory ... Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis

Tomorrow will be very busy. I’m not sure when, or if, there will be a Blog post on Thursday.

“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.

CRUDE INVENTORY (EIA)
“U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 0.5 million barrels from the previous week. At 430.3 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 4% 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 was unchanged at 5917.
-VIX rose about 5% to 17.16.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose (compared to about this time, prior trading day) to 4.414%.

MY TRADING POSITIONS:
XLK – Holding since the October 2022 lows. Added more 9/20.
SSO – added 10/16.
SPY – added 9/19 & more 10/16
QLD – added 11/5.
UWM – added 11/11

CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 15 gave Bear-signs and 6 were Bullish. The rest are neutral. (It is normal to have a lot of neutral indicators since many of the indicators are top or bottom indicators that will signal only at extremes.)

The daily Bull/Bear, 50-Indicator spread (Bull Indicators minus Bear Indicators, red curve in the chart above) declined to -9 (9 more Bear indicators than Bull indicators).

TODAY’S COMMENT:
Today’s Bull-Bear spread of -9 is a BEARISH indication.

The 10-dMA of the 50-Indicator Spread (purple line in the chart above) is falling today so the overall 50-Indicator spread signal is Bearish. (I follow the 10-dMA for trading buy-signals and as an indicator for sell signals.)

Looks like the more likely move for the markets now is down. The 50-dMA is 2.1% below today’s close. That’s also at the lower trendline. That is my guess where the weakness in the markets will end. I don’t know of course. Indicators don’t predict the future they just indicate the trend. And the trend may be due to voter’s remorse as every new day brings us another rediculous appointment by Trump. Negative indicators persist.

There was another Hindenburg Omen today...
Hindenburg Omen: (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hindenburgomen.asp). As we’ve noted before, the Omen sends a lot of false warnings, but there have been 3 Omens in the last 4 days. Clusters of Omens are supposed to be more reliable than a single warning.

Further, the short-term Fosback New-high/new-low Logic indicator that uses a similar analytic approach, is close to giving a sell warning too. This doesn’t mean there is a crash coming, but more weakness is suggested.

On a good note, the S&P 500 finished strongly at the end of the day - it climbed nearly a half percent in the last hour of trading. That could be the reversal that traders have been waiting for.

BOTTOM LINE
I’m neutral on the markets. I’ll hold stock positions and if declines continue, I’ll wait to see if the 50-dMA holds.

ETF - MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily) ETF ranking follows:

My basket of Market Internals remained SELL. (My basket of Market Internals is a decent trend-following analysis that is most useful when it diverges from the Index.)