NAVIGATE THE STOCK MARKET FOCUSES ON:
(1) Daily momentum analysis of the DOW 30 stocks and 15 ETFs across various market sectors.
(2) Stock Market commentary and analysis.
(3) Buy/Sell signals for major market turns.
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I MAY NOT BE ABLE TO POST THURSDAY – IT’S A BUSY DAY. “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 trouble with trade wars is that once they begin they
can quickly escalate and get out of control. All the more so when politicians
are nearing an election campaign, as Canada now is. Or when Mr. Trump behaves
as if his manhood is implicated because a foreign nation won’t take his nasty
border taxes lying down. We said from the beginning that this North American
trade war is the dumbest in history, and we were being kind.” – WSJ Editorial
Board. FED RATE (CNN) “The Federal Reserve on Wednesday kept
interest rates unchanged... Officials still expect to trim borrowing costs
twice this year, according to their latest economic projections released
Wednesday, though eight officials are predicting one or no cuts this year,
compared to only four who expected that in December... Fed policymakers also
expect the economy to be weaker this year than previously thought, according to
the projections. They also forecast inflation to be higher this year.” Story
at... https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/19/economy/fed-rate-decision-march/index.html CRUDE INVENTORIES (EIA) “U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those
in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 1.7 million barrels from the
previous week. At 437.0 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 MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS AS OF 1PM FRIDAY -Wednesday the S&P 500 rose about 1.1% to 5675. -VIX fell about 8% to 19.9. -The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.246%
(compared to about this time prior market day). MY TRADING POSITIONS: None 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.)
TODAY’S COMMENT I wrote yesterday that I hoped the market would make a
lower-low Wednesday so I could get a clearer idea of where the markets are
headed. I didn’t want to see the S&P 500 close above its recent high of
5675. Well, it didn’t, but it came as close as possible. Today, the S&P 500
closed at 5675 forming a small double-top formation. The daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators remained
Neutral, but improved to -2 (2 more Bear indicators than Bull indicators).
The 10-dMA of the spread improved again – a bullish sign. The Bull-Bear spread did change last night; the Sentiment
numbers for the Rydex/Guggenheim Bull/Bear analysis never made it to the bear
threshold. Sentiment turned sharply bullish on Tuesday at the close. The final
spread yesterday was -4. (Both final volume and Sentiment numbers are not available
until late in the evening.) The S&P 500 is back to its 25% retracement level,
slightly more than the 23.6% first Fibonacci retracement value, for those who
believe in that sort of thing. The Index closed 1.2% below its 200-dMA Wednesday. Where do markets go from here? The analysis is mixed: price
action appears bullish; indicators are mostly neutral, but the 10-dMA is
bullish; we got a weak, Buy-signal on 6 March when the S&P 500 was 5739. The
S&P 500 is at a critical double-top; as I suggested previously, I think a close
above 5675 should probably be bought. If it appears a close above 5675 is in
the cards, I would add to stock holdings, but not go all in. I might boost
stock holdings to around 40-50%. A retrace to the 5525 level is still possible. BOTTOM LINE No bottom call yet, but we may not get one this time
around. Given the indicator improvement I am Neutral on the market with a very
conservative allocation of only about 30% invested in stock holdings. 30% may
be too conservative given the recent price action and I will add to stocks as
noted above...when I get the chance (maybe Friday). 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)
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.)
...My current invested
position is about 30% stocks, including stock mutual funds and ETFs – extreme
bearish. (I’ll need to recalculate the %.) 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.
