"Bipartisan' usually means that a larger-than-usual
deception is being carried out." - George Carlin
"Doesn't expecting the unexpected make the
unexpected expected?" – Bob Dylan
Michael Ramirez, political commentary at...
https://michaelpramirez.com/index.html#/
If you don’t get the above cartoon, search “Dewey Defeats Truman.”
RFK, THE MEDIA AND ME (WSJ - Excerpt)
“The mainstream media is deliberately stoking fear and outrage about vaccines in an attempt to derail Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services.... The attempts to stoke fear are based on legal work I did for a different client, which I never discussed with Mr. Kennedy. Reports recently published in the New York Times and elsewhere mischaracterize the contents of three petitions my firm filed with the Food and Drug Administration from 2020-22 on behalf of a client, Informed Consent Action Network. One of these petitions related to IPOL, which is one of the six polio-containing vaccines currently licensed by the FDA. The petition wouldn’t affect the other five vaccines. No one, least of all our client, wants anyone to have polio. The goal is simply to ensure that vaccines are subject to proper testing for safety and efficacy. The media falsely claimed the petition sought to eliminate all polio vaccines... The scope of our client’s petition was narrow. It simply asked the FDA to require a proper trial for approval of IPOL... Included in many of the stories about the petition was the case of an unvaccinated man who reportedly contracted polio in New York in 2022. Left out was that he had a strain of polio derived from a vaccine, not the wild polio virus. The last documented case of wild polio in the U.S. was in 1979.” - Aaron Siri, managing partner of Law Firm, Siri & Glimstad. Commentary at...
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/rfk-polio-pinocchio-and-me-media-distortion-legal-work-vaccine-safety-3b50062a?mod=hp_opin_pos_4
My cmt: It surprises me how the media continues to falsely report stories regarding Trump and his nominees. Do these people have any ethics?
PCE PRICES (CNBC)
“The personal consumption expenditures price index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, showed an increase of just 0.1% from October. The measure indicated a 2.4% inflation rate on an annual basis, still ahead of the Fed’s 2% goal, but lower than the 2.5% estimate from Dow Jones.” Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/20/pce-inflation-november-2024-.html
PERSONAL INCOME (Floor Daily)
“Personal income increased $71.1 billion (0.3% at a monthly rate) in November...” From...
https://www.floordaily.net/flooring-news/personal-income-rose-03-in-november-spending-up-04
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS AS OF 1PM FRIDAY
-Friday the S&P 500 rose about 1.1% to 5931.
-VIX declined about 24% to 18.36.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined (compared to about this time, prior trading day) to 4.530%.
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, 22 gave Bear-signs and 6 were Bullish. (Yesterday, there were 21 bear-signs and 6 bull-signs. I adjusted an indicator.) 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 -16 (16 more Bear
indicators than Bull indicators).
TODAY’S COMMENT
Today’s Bull-Bear spread of -16 is bearish, but the indicators turned up from -18, so that’s a good sign. This sort of validates the buy-signal yesterday. We would like to have seen a bigger improvement, but we’ll take it. The 10-dMA of the 50-Indicator Spread (purple line in the chart above) continued down today so that is a bearish signal. (I follow the 10-dMA for trading buy-signals and as an indicator for sell signals.) The 50-Indicator spread is conflicted – or at least I am in trying to interpret the improvement. There were good signs today:
-83% of the volume on the NYSE was up-volume. We also noted High-unchanged volume. As I’ve often said, many believe that this indicator suggests investor confusion at market turning points. The trend has been down for a while so this suggests a reversal higher is in the works. “High-unchanged-volume” is not one of my indicators because it is often wrong. The last time we saw this signal (13 November) the S&P 500 rose about 2% before this recent weakness started.
-Friday was a Follow-thru day.
-The S&P 500 close slightly above its 50-dMA.
-There was a nice turn higher in the “Buying-pressure minus Selling-pressure” indicator.
On the bearish side of the ledger, we still see a lot of
bearish indicators.
Friday 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.
I wrote Thursday, “I suspect that the declines are over
or nearly over.” Friday’s price action tends to support that conclusion.
As always, there are no guarantees. If declines do
continue, here are some support levels where declines may end:
100-dMA – S&P 500, 5743
October lows: S&P 500, 5700
200-dMA: about S&P 500, 5520
BOTTOM LINE
The weakness appears to be over, or close to 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
FRIDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE
DATA)
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.)
...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.
https://michaelpramirez.com/index.html#/
If you don’t get the above cartoon, search “Dewey Defeats Truman.”
“The mainstream media is deliberately stoking fear and outrage about vaccines in an attempt to derail Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services.... The attempts to stoke fear are based on legal work I did for a different client, which I never discussed with Mr. Kennedy. Reports recently published in the New York Times and elsewhere mischaracterize the contents of three petitions my firm filed with the Food and Drug Administration from 2020-22 on behalf of a client, Informed Consent Action Network. One of these petitions related to IPOL, which is one of the six polio-containing vaccines currently licensed by the FDA. The petition wouldn’t affect the other five vaccines. No one, least of all our client, wants anyone to have polio. The goal is simply to ensure that vaccines are subject to proper testing for safety and efficacy. The media falsely claimed the petition sought to eliminate all polio vaccines... The scope of our client’s petition was narrow. It simply asked the FDA to require a proper trial for approval of IPOL... Included in many of the stories about the petition was the case of an unvaccinated man who reportedly contracted polio in New York in 2022. Left out was that he had a strain of polio derived from a vaccine, not the wild polio virus. The last documented case of wild polio in the U.S. was in 1979.” - Aaron Siri, managing partner of Law Firm, Siri & Glimstad. Commentary at...
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/rfk-polio-pinocchio-and-me-media-distortion-legal-work-vaccine-safety-3b50062a?mod=hp_opin_pos_4
My cmt: It surprises me how the media continues to falsely report stories regarding Trump and his nominees. Do these people have any ethics?
“The personal consumption expenditures price index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, showed an increase of just 0.1% from October. The measure indicated a 2.4% inflation rate on an annual basis, still ahead of the Fed’s 2% goal, but lower than the 2.5% estimate from Dow Jones.” Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/20/pce-inflation-november-2024-.html
“Personal income increased $71.1 billion (0.3% at a monthly rate) in November...” From...
https://www.floordaily.net/flooring-news/personal-income-rose-03-in-november-spending-up-04
-Friday the S&P 500 rose about 1.1% to 5931.
-VIX declined about 24% to 18.36.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined (compared to about this time, prior trading day) to 4.530%.
XLK – Holding since the October 2022 lows. Added more 9/20.
SPY – added 12/20. (IRA acct.)
QLD – added 12/20 (IRA acct.)
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 22 gave Bear-signs and 6 were Bullish. (Yesterday, there were 21 bear-signs and 6 bull-signs. I adjusted an indicator.) 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.)
Today’s Bull-Bear spread of -16 is bearish, but the indicators turned up from -18, so that’s a good sign. This sort of validates the buy-signal yesterday. We would like to have seen a bigger improvement, but we’ll take it. The 10-dMA of the 50-Indicator Spread (purple line in the chart above) continued down today so that is a bearish signal. (I follow the 10-dMA for trading buy-signals and as an indicator for sell signals.) The 50-Indicator spread is conflicted – or at least I am in trying to interpret the improvement. There were good signs today:
-83% of the volume on the NYSE was up-volume. We also noted High-unchanged volume. As I’ve often said, many believe that this indicator suggests investor confusion at market turning points. The trend has been down for a while so this suggests a reversal higher is in the works. “High-unchanged-volume” is not one of my indicators because it is often wrong. The last time we saw this signal (13 November) the S&P 500 rose about 2% before this recent weakness started.
-Friday was a Follow-thru day.
-The S&P 500 close slightly above its 50-dMA.
-There was a nice turn higher in the “Buying-pressure minus Selling-pressure” indicator.
100-dMA – S&P 500, 5743
October lows: S&P 500, 5700
200-dMA: about S&P 500, 5520
The weakness appears to be over, or close to over.
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily) ETF ranking follows:
*For additional background on the ETF ranking system see NTSM Page at…
http://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/exchange-traded-funds-etf-ranking.html
For more details, see NTSM Page at…
https://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/a-system-for-trading-dow-30-stocks-my_8.html
