Retail Sales ... Industrial Production ... Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis ...

 
Markets are closed Monday for George Washington’s Birthday/President’s Day. No Blog Monday.
 
“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.
 
RETAIL SALES
“Consumers sharply curtailed their spending in January, indicating a potential weakening in economic growth ahead, according to a Commerce Department report Friday. Retail sales slipped 0.9% for the month...” Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/14/retail-sales-slumped-0point9percent-in-january-down-much-more-than-expected-.html
 
INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION (Forex Factory)
“Industrial production in the United States increased by 0.5% in January compared to the previous month, the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors stated in its report published on Friday.” Story at...
https://www.forexfactory.com/news/1327957-us-industrial-production-grows-05-in-january
 
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS AS OF 1PM FRIDAY
-Friday the S&P 500 little changed at 6115.
-VIX declined about 2% to 14.77.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined (compared to about this time, prior trading day) to 4.478%.
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
XLK – Holding since the October 2022 lows.  Added more 9/20/2024.
QLD – added 12/20/2024. (IRA acct.)
NVDA – added 1/6/2025.

 
The decline in Nvidia appears to be overblown. Regarding competition to Nvidia, Dan Ives (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst covering the Technology sector at Wedbush Securities) says, “The threat is minimal.” He recommended buying Nvidia. I will hold NVDA and see what develops... 
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 10 gave Bear-signs and 13 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.)

TODAY’S COMMENT
The daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators improved to a slightly Bullish to Neutral +3 (3 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators). The 10-dMA of the spread is still falling, a bearish sign.
 
Why so many indicators? I spent years looking for the perfect indicator – that would be the one indicator that is 100% reliable. It turns out there is no such thing. For years I followed a small group of indicators in 4 categories: Sentiment, Price, Volume and VIX. Later, I came up with a larger group of indicators that were short-term in nature. Surprisingly, they were often more accurate than the original group of 4. Then I started doing a Friday summary of all my indicators. That summary proved to be better at sell and buy signals than my other ensembles. I think it’s a bit like asking people for their opinion on a complex subject - the more you ask, the more likely you’ll get a correct answer.  That was the evolution of my system that is based on the 50-indicator ensemble that is now mostly automatically produced in my output and shown in the chart above. As always, it is important (and counter intuitive) to remember that the indicators do not predict the future – they give an indication of trend, and warnings when divergence forms between indicators and the market. The indicators have been good at top warnings. The ensemble called the top of the Coronavirus, 30% decline nearly to the day; the top and bottom of the 25% decline that started in October 2022 (within a few days, top and bottom) and even warned on the smaller corrections in 23 and 24, although I don’t try to do short term trading nor is my system good at small corrections.    
 
Internals were mildly bullish today as were the overall indicators. The 10-day moving average of the bull minus bear spread is still falling so we can’t feel too bullish.
 
Repeating: If the S&P 500 makes a new high we’ll get some added information about the health of markets. For now, markets appear unsettled.
 
BOTTOM LINE
I am still Neutral – 60% in stocks.
 
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 remained 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 60% 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.