PPI ... Industrial Production ... Crude Inventories ... Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis ...

 
I’ll be posting late for the next few days. It’s a busy time.
 
“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.
 
"This is maybe the most dangerous market of my career, and that includes 1987's crash, that includes the savings and loan debacle market of the early '90s, that includes the 1999 to 2009 lost decade in the S&P 500 in the dot-com bubble. This is the most difficult market of my 45 years." -  Bill Smead, Smead Value Fund (SMVLX), May 2025.
 
PPI (CNBC)
“A measure of wholesale prices showed no change in June, providing a conflicting sign over whether tariffs threaten to boost inflation in the coming months.” Story at...
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/16/ppi-inflation-report-june-2025.html
 
INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION (RTT News)
“Partly reflecting a surge by utilities output, the Federal Reserve released a report on Wednesday showing industrial production in the U.S. increased by more than expected in the month of June. The Fed said industrial production climbed by 0.3 percent in June, while revised data showed industrial production was unchanged in May.” Story at...
https://www.rttnews.com/3554091/u-s-industrial-production-climbs-0-3-in-june-more-than-expected.aspx
 
CRUDE INVENTORIES (EIA)
“U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 3.9 million barrels from the previous week. At 422.2 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 8% below the five year average for this time of year.” Report at...
https://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/wpsrsummary.pdf
 
MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS
-Wednesday the S&P 500 rose about 0.3% to 6264.
-VIX declined about 1% to 17.16.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.471% (compared to about this time prior market day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS:
SPY – added 6/5/2025 & 6/27/2025
XLK – added 6/27/2025
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 14 gave Bear-signs and 8 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 declined to a Bearish position at -6 (6 more Bear indicators than Bull indicators). I consider +5 to -5 the neutral zone. The 10-dMA curve of the spread remained heading down – a bearish sign.
 
While the 10-dMA of spread is now falling, the S&P 500 chart as not broken down too badly. It doesn’t look good, but it’s not a disaster either.
 
Wednesday, there was extremely high, unchanged-volume. I know, you’re tired of reading my standard note:
As I’ve often said, many believe that this indicator suggests investor confusion at market turning points. Are markets turning back down? That could always happen and the indicators are trending down now. Still, “High-unchanged-volume” is not one of my indicators because it is often wrong.
 
The 10-dMA of issues advancing on the NYSE has dropped below 50%, i.e., more than half of the issues on the NYSE have fallen over the last 2 weeks. That’s the first shoe to drop on breadth. Also, there were only 48 issues that made new 52-week highs on the NYSE Wednesday. That’s a low number, too. We need to see a lot more when/if the S&P 500 makes a new high.   
 
The S&P 500 has broken its lower trendline on successive days, but not by much. Today was an up-day. Let’s see if the Index can break higher tomorrow. I’m trying to avoid being whipsawed, so I’ll wait a little before I make a move with the trading portfolio although there are probably enough bad signs now to reduce stock holdings some.  
 
BOTTOM LINE
I am neutral, but leaning bearish. Further deterioration may cause me to reduce stock holdings back to around 50% depending on indicators.
 
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
 
WEDNESDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)

My basket of Market Internals declined to SELL. (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 55% stocks, including stock mutual funds and ETFs. 50% invested in stocks is a normal, conservative position for a retiree. (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.