Jobless Claims … Productivity … Factory Orders … Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis

 
“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.”
 
JOBLESS CLAMS (ABC News)
“Applications for jobless aid for the week ending Jan. 24 fell by 1,000 to 209,000 from the previous week’s number which was revised upward by 10,000…” Story at…
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/us-applications-jobless-benefits-proxy-layoffs-tick-209000-129667752
 
PRODUCTIVITY (Yahoo Finance)
“U.S. worker productivity grew at its fastest pace in two years in the third quarter…Nonfarm productivity, which ‌measures hourly output per worker, increased at an unrevised 4.9% annualized rate…” Story at…
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-third-quarter-productivity-growth-135529345.html
 
FACTORY ORDERS (Yahoo Finance)
“Factory orders increased 2.7% after an upwardly revised 1.2% decline in October, the Commerce Department's ‌Census Bureau said on Thursday.” Story at… 
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-factory-orders-rebound-november-153446529.html
 
-Thursday the S&P 500 declined about 0.1% to 6969.
-VIX rose about 16.88.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.233% (compared to about this time prior market day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS
XLK – Added 11/26/2025 & 12/1/2025
SPY – Added 12/1/2025.
NVDA – Added a small position 12/1/2025.
SSO – Added 1/7/2026; Increased the position 1/21/2026. SOLD 1/28/2026 & 1/29/2026
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
At the close today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 6 gave Bear-signs and 15 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 from +5 to +9 (9 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators), a BULLISH indication.  (I revised yesterday’s spread down from 6 to 5 due to data that came in late.) I consider +5 to -5 the neutral zone. The 10-dMA curve of the spread (purple on the chart above) that smooths daily fluctuations continued down, a BEARISH sign.
 
Not much new to say:
-We still have the bearish rising wedge on the chart.  I’ve shown it in red. The top of the rising wedge on the above chart is around 7,000. We need to see the S&P 500 break above that level to feel better about markets. That will be an important test.
 
-It is still up to price action.  Can the S&P 500 break above the bearish ascending wedge? If not I’ll be worried.
 
BOTTOM LINE
I’m bullish and fully invested, but I did sell all of my SSO. (I had forgotten some in another account.) This reduces stock portfolio to 70%, still a high number for a retiree. I didn’t like the indicators, although they improved in the last 15 minutes of trading.
 
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 remained HOLD. (My basket of Market Internals is a decent trend-following analysis that is most useful when it diverges from the Index.) 
 
 
 
 

My invested position is about 70% stocks, including stock mutual funds and ETFs. 50% invested in stocks is a normal, conservative position for a retiree. (80% 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 although I don’t trade as much as I used to. 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.