“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.
“As Professor Jeremy Siegel, of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania wrote for WisdomTree yesterday: “The market got exactly what it needed last week: confirmation that the economy is slowing—not collapsing—and that the Federal Reserve has the green light to start cutting rates.”
Siegel, who is senior economist at WisdomTree, said he expects a 0.25bps cut to the base rate at the FOMC’s September meeting and two further one-click cuts for the remaining two meetings in 2025. ‘Even an upside surprise in next week’s PPI or CPI—running near a 3% year-over-year pace—should not derail that path, because the policy debate has shifted decisively toward labor-market weakness rather than transient price noise,’ Siegel added.” Story at...
Sorry Jerome, weakening economic data is ‘exactly what markets needed’, says Wharton professor
The Wall Street Journal in July reported on the book and the letter bearing Trump’s name, which contained typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman. The letter concluded: “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.” The signature was a squiggly “Donald” below the waist, mimicking pubic hair.
Story and Images from WSJ at...
My cmt: The WSJ is a conservative newspaper. They supported Donald Trump. They are not making this stuff up, nor are they likely to be fooled by Democrat, “Fake News.”
This long post came across my Facebook page from a Democrat friend:
“...I want to share this piece in solidarity:
The 45/47th President, his power hungry cronies taking positions of authority in his Cabinet and administration, ... are a real and active threat to me... Some people are saying that we should ... "work together" with him ... This is my response:”
What followed was a list of issues, but many were the grossest lies. For example:
...”-I will not "work together" to lower taxes on the 1% and increase taxes on the middle class and poor.”
My cmt: Let’s look at this claim. During Trump’s first administration he increased the standard deduction from $6,500 for a married couple to $12,000. This reduces taxable income and would save about $1,100 for a married couple making $100,000, for example, two teachers. Since they are paying a marginal tax rate of 22%, this would be a 5% reduction in their taxes. In addition, Trump reduced the tax rate for middle class and below by 2%. Thus the 2017 Trump tax cuts reduced taxes by 7% on the middle class and even more for lower income persons. (The numbers are similar for single filers.) Trump reduced taxes by only 1% for the top 1% of earners, typically those make $750,000 or more.
"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it.” - Henry Ford.
"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."- George Carlin.
“The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy.” -
“Wholesale prices surprisingly fell slightly in August, providing breathing room for the Federal Reserve to approve an interest rate cut at its meeting this month, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report Wednesday. The producer price index, which measures input costs across a broad array of goods and services, dropped 0.1% for the month...” Story At...
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/10/ppi-inflation-august-2025-.html
“U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 3.9 million barrels from the previous week. At 424.6 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 3% below the five year average for this time of year.” Report at...
https://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/wpsrsummary.pdf
-Wednesday the S&P 500 rose about 0.3% to 6532.
-VIX rose about 2% to 15.35.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.045% (compared to about this time prior market day).
SPY – Added 8/26/2025
XLK – Added 8/26/2025
Today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 7 gave Bear-signs and 14 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.)
The daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators improved from +6 to +7 (7 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators) and is now giving a mildly Bullish indication. I consider +5 to -5 the neutral zone. The 10-dMA curve of the spread is still headed down – a bearish sign.
I am cautiously bullish.
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
For more details, see NTSM Page at…
https://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/a-system-for-trading-dow-30-stocks-my_8.html
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.
