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.
(((The blog is for information only. You assume all risk of its use; we don’t warrant the accuracy of our content. You must do your own due diligence.)))
“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. US COAL PRODUCTION DOWN BY MORE THAN HALF IN 15-YEARS
(EIA) “In 2023, the United States produced 578 million short
tons (MMst) of coal, or less than half of the amount produced in 2008 when U.S.
coal production peaked, according to our most recent Annual
Coal Report. The production decline is spread almost evenly across each
type of coal and continued in 2024. Rising mining costs, increasingly stringent
environmental regulations, and competition from other sources of electric power
generation have contributed to domestic coal production declines.” Report at... https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64924 My cmt: China’s output has increased by 55% to 4.66
billion tons over the same time frame. If environmentalists wanted to slow
Global Warming, wouldn’t they boycott Chinese goods? It makes me suspect that
much of the environmental movement is a left-wing ideology designed to damage
the U.S. Government, not save the planet. "Investors should not try to ‘catch a falling
knife...This is an epic economic and market event similar to 1971 and the end
of the gold standard except with immediate negative consequences...Trump can’t
back down anytime soon...He’s too macho for that.” – Bill Gross. “I think probably [a recession is] s a likely outcome,
because markets, I mean, when you see a 2,000-point decline [in the Dow Jones
Industrial Average], it sort of feeds on itself, doesn’t it...It makes you feel
like you’re losing money in your 401(k), you’re losing money in your pension.
You’ve got to cut back.” – Jamie Dimon on Fox Business, “Mornings With Maria”
show. WHOLESALE SALES (RTT News) “Wholesale inventories in the U.S. increased in line with
economist estimates in the month of February, according to a report released by
the Commerce Department on Wednesday... Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said
wholesale sales surged by 2.4 percent in February after slumping by 0.9 percent
in January.” Story at... https://www.rttnews.com/3527733/u-s-wholesale-inventories-rise-in-line-with-estimates-in-february.aspx?type=ts CRUDE INVENTORIES (EIA) “U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those
in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 2.6 million barrels from the
previous week. At 442.3 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 TRUMP ANNOUNCES 90-DAY TARIFF PAUSE (CNBC) “President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a 90-day
pause on the full effect of his new tariffs for at least some countries. Trump
in a social media post also said that he “substantially lowered Reciprocal
Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately.” Trump
additional said he was raising the tariffs imposed on imports from China to
125% “effective immediately...” Story at... https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/09/trump-announces-90-day-tariff-pause-for-at-least-some-countries.html My cmt: China remains “the biggest problem” according to Treasury
Secretary Scott Bessent speaking at a press conference at 1:40 Wednesday. Bessent
said 90-days will allow for negotiations with a number of country and Trump
wants to be personally involved. MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS AS OF 1PM FRIDAY -Wednesday the S&P 500 jumped about 9.5% higher to 5457. -VIX fell about 19% to 33.62. -The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.328%
(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, 22 gave Bear-signs and 7 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, but remained bearish at -15 (15 more Bear indicators
than Bull indicators) - the 10-dMA of the spread continued down –
another bearish sign.The 50-indicator
ensemble is not too helpful on a major reversal like today. The key indicator today is the high-up volume
indicator.98% of volume on the NYSE was
up-volume with strong momentum at the close. From Lowry Research: "Thus,
our 69-year record shows that declines containing two or more 90% Downside Days
usually persist, on a trend basis, until investors eventually come rushing back
in to snap up what they perceive to be the bargains of the decade and, in the
process, produce a 90% Upside Day." - Identifying Bear Market Bottoms. While this
decline did not have two, 90% down-volume days, I suspect the bottom is in,
given the 90% up-volume reversal we saw today. Still, I am not inclined to chase the rally until I see a
little more confirmation. As we know, big up-days are usually followed by down
days (60% of the time); however this time, we may see FOMO (fear of missing
out) buying tomorrow. But to the point, I am suspicious that while many
countries are willing to negotiate, some of the Trump-team demands are
foolishly off-the-mark. For example, Germany’s Value Added Tax (VAT) has been
targeted by Trump.What Trump misses is
that Germany’s VAT applies to products made in Germany too, not just
imports.There is zero chance that Germany
will drop the VAT on imports. In most cases, Trump officials are talking about trade
deficits not trade barriers, such as Tariffs. As noted by the WSJ, “Trying to
eliminate trade deficits is a far more complicated and disruptive undertaking,
as the global selloff in financial markets shows.” South Korea is a good
example. South Korea has no tariff on U.S. imports, yet Trump hit them with a
25% tariff. They can come to the negotiating table, but what can they offer?
Trade deficits are not always bad. The WSJ wrote, “Many economists try to explain the need
to run trade deficits with some countries with the following analogy: Most of
us gladly maintain a trade deficit with our local supermarkets. We don’t sell
them our labor in return, but we still buy products there because we need them
and we know it is more efficient compared to us wasting our time trying to grow
all our own products.” To conclude the tariff discussion, while investors decided
that the crisis is over, that may not be the case at all. We could see more
weakness in markets. BOTTOM LINE I am neutral in a wait-and-see mode. I’ll be bullish when
there is a resolution to the crisis or technical indicators give a buy-signal. ETF - MOMENTUM ANALYSIS: TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily) ETF ranking
follows: All of the ETFs I track are below their 120-dMA the chart
is blowing up. None have positive momentum, but Utilities (XLU) are #1. DOW STOCKS - TODAY’S MOMENTUM RANKING
OF THE DOW 30 STOCKS (Ranked Daily)
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 30% 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.
