“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.
“Six days before the start of one of the most destructive fires in Los Angeles history, a smaller New Year’s Day blaze, in the very first hour of 2025, ignited in the same area. Now, officials are trying to determine whether the two might be connected.
On Monday afternoon, units from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which is investigating the cause of the fire, and the Los Angeles Police Department arrived at a cul-de-sac near the Skull Rock trailhead in the Palisades. They quickly closed off the area with yellow caution tape.
“We’re looking at every possibility, going down every rabbit hole, and examining video footage from residents in the area,” said Ginger Colbrun, spokeswoman for ATF in Los Angeles. Colbrun said the investigation would include looking at possible connections between the Palisades fire and the one on New Year’s Day.” Story at...
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/same-spot-is-a-small-new-years-morning-blaze-connected-to-the-los-angeles-fire-disaster-e5056038
My cmt: Why so many fires? It sure seems like there may be arsonists involved in these fires. The article theorized that the New Year’s Day fire may have been started by fireworks.
“At one point, there were more than 9,000 lookout towers in the United States, placed atop hills and mountains where individuals — also referred to as lookouts — worked alone each summer to watch for and report fires... California once had about 600 such towers, under federal, state and local control, scattered around forest and wildland ridges and high points, placed specifically for the broad field of view each site afforded.... In the 1970s and 1980s, there was a growing belief that air pollution had decreased visibility at some sites, and the creep of suburbia and population into the hills and valleys made these watchers seem less necessary... To help address California’s 2003 budget shortfall, the agency that became Cal Fire offered up the remaining state lookout staffing for a whopping saving of $750,000. By then most towers in the southern national forests and those operated locally by counties or Cal Fire were gone, repurposed or used as museum pieces...
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-11-06/california-lookouts-fire-watchers
My cmt: Early detection and rapid response (aerial and otherwise) seems to be simple to achieve. But the California politicians just blame climate change as if there is nothing that can be done to mitigate the danger. We should note that it is somewhat questionable whether Climate Change is resulting in more fires. Other areas of the world seem to be adapting...
“The consumer price index increased a seasonally adjusted 0.4% on the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.9%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday... excluding food and energy, the core CPI annual rate was 3.2%, a notch down from the month before and slightly better than the 3.3% forecast.” Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/15/cpi-inflation-december-2024-.html
“U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 2.0 million barrels from the previous week. At 412.7 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 6% below the five year average for this time of year.” Report at...
https://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/wpsrsummary.pdf
“We expect downward oil price pressures over much of the next two years, as we expect that global oil production will grow more than global oil demand. We forecast that the Brent crude oil price will average $74 per barrel (b) in 2025, 8% less than in 2024, and then continue fall another 11% to $66/b in 2026.” Forecasts at...
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/
-Wednesday the S&P 500 rose about 1.8% to 5950.
-VIX declined about 14% to 16.12.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined (compared to about this time, prior trading day) to 4.655%.
XLK – Holding since the October 2022 lows. Added more 9/20.
SPY – added 12/20. (IRA acct.)
QLD – added 12/20. (IRA acct.)
NVDA – added 1/6/2025
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 10 gave Bear-signs and 14 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 spread of +4 is Neutral to slightly bullish; however, as we’ve noted earlier, the indicator-spread jumped higher yesterday so the indicators are giving a bullish indication overall. The 10-dMA of the spread is also moving higher, another bull-sign.
I am bullish once again.
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
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 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.
