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

 

“Top national security officials for President Donald Trump, including his defense secretary, texted war plans for upcoming military strikes in Yemen to a group chat in a secure messaging app that included the editor-in-chief for The Atlantic, the magazine reported in a story posted online Monday.” – WAVY TV, Norfolk, VA.
 
“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.
 
GDP (WSJ)
“Gross domestic product grew at a slightly faster pace in the last three months of 2024 than previously estimated, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Commerce revised up its fourth-quarter GDP growth figure to a 2.4% annualized pace, from a previous estimate of 2.3%. That followed growth of 3.1% in the third quarter.”  Story at...
https://www.wsj.com/economy/u-s-fourth-quarter-gdp-revised-higher-caaf0ca6
 
JOBLESS CLAIMS (CNN)
“Initial claims for unemployment benefits aren’t spiking — in fact, they’re mostly unchanged from last week. There were an estimated 224,000 initial claims for jobless benefits for the week ended March 22, a decline of 1,000 from the prior week’s upwardly revised tally.” Story at...
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/27/economy/us-jobless-claims-doge-federal-applications/index.html
 
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS AS OF 1PM FRIDAY
-Thursday the S&P 500 declined about 0.33% to 5693.
-VIX rose about 2% to 18.69.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.361% (compared to about this time prior market day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
SSO added 3/24/2025 SOLD 3/25/2025 (Decided to reduce risk and buy SPY instead.)
 
XLK added 3/24/2025
SPY added 3/25/2025
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 7 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

Investors can’t seem to decide what to do recently; they couldn’t make up their minds today either.
 
Rinse and repeat.
 
The daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators declined, but remained Bullish at +6 (6 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators). The 10-dMA of the spread improved again – another bullish sign.
 
Repeating: Investors are still trying to decide how much slowing will be seen in the economy – Economists have the same question but there aren’t too many answers. Are markets going to re-test the correction low or not? Unfortunately, I can make a good argument either way. On the bear side, we didn’t see a successful retest of the low. On the bull side, there have been some very strong, bullish momentum-indicators after the low. We’ll see... 
 
BOTTOM LINE
I am cautiously bullish. Indicators suggest the correction is over, but I have my doubts.
 
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 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 50% 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.