Jobless Claims ... Richmond Fed ... Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis

 

RICHMOND FED (msn.com)
“The Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index drifted up to -10 in December from -14 in November, matching the consensus.
The future indexes for shipments and new orders rose further into positive territory, suggesting that many firms expected improvements over the next six months, the Richmond Fed said on Tuesday.” Story at...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/richmond-fed-manufacturing-index-improves-in-december-as-expected/ar-AA1wqVuu?apiversion=v2&noservercache=1&domshim=1&renderwebcomponents=1&wcseo=1&batchservertelemetry=1&noservertelemetry=1
 
JOBLESS CLAIMS (AP News)
“Jobless claim applications ticked down by 1,000 to 219,000 for the week of Dec. 21, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s fewer than the 223,000 analysts forecast.” Story at...
https://apnews.com/article/unemployment-benefits-jobless-claims-layoffs-labor-6262fe3a1be56945af52f8bb5ed27d97
 
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS AS OF 1PM FRIDAY
-Thursday the S&P 500 was little changed at 6038.
-VIX rose about 3% to 14.73.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury was little changed (compared to about this time, prior trading day) to 4.587%.
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
XLK – Holding since the October 2022 lows.  Added more 9/20.
 
SSO – added 12/20. (IRA acct.)
SPY – added 12/20. (IRA acct.)
QLD – added 12/20. (IRA acct.)
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 17 gave Bear-signs and 8 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 -9 (9 more Bear indicators than Bull indicators) compared to the previous reading of -15.
 
TODAY’S COMMENT
Today’s Bull-Bear spread of -9 is bearish, however, the more important indication is the improvement in the daily bull-bear spread – that improvement is Bullish. The chart shows a dramatic increase in the bull-bear spread and that is the improvement that signals the recent weakness is very likely over.
 
BOTTOM LINE
Indicators suggest the weakness is over.
 
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)
 

 
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 declined to SELL, but for now, I won’t pay attention to this indicator. (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. 50% invested in stocks is a normal position. (75% is my max stock allocation when I am confident that markets will continue higher; 30% in stocks is my Bear market position.)
 
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.