Wednesday, February 18, 2026

FOMC Minutes … Housing Starts … Durable 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.”
 
2026 STOCK MARKET CRASH (Motley Fool)
“-In November, the Federal Reserve's Financial Stability Report warned that the S&P 500's valuation was near the upper end of its historical range.
-Elevated valuations are particularly worrisome because recent studies suggest President Trump's tariffs will be a headwind to economic growth.
-The S&P 500 finished January with a forward PE multiple above 22, an expensive valuation that has historically preceded bear markets…
…Should you sell your entire portfolio? Absolutely not…However, you should be cautious when putting money into the market.” Story at…
 
FOMC MINUTES (CNBC)
“Divided Federal Reserve officials at their January meeting indicated that further interest rate cuts should be paused for now and could resume later in the year only if inflation cooperates… ‘Some participants commented that it would likely be appropriate to hold the policy rate steady for some time as the Committee carefully assesses incoming data, and a number of these participants judged that additional policy easing may not be warranted until there was clear indication that the progress of disinflation was firmly back on track,’ the minutes said.” Story at…
 
HOUSING STARTS (MarketWatch)
“New housing construction rebounded in the final two months of last year, a sign there could be gradual improvement in the beaten-down sector in 2026. Construction of new U.S. homes rose 6.2% in December to an annual pace of 1.40 million units, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. That’s the highest level since July.” Story at…
 
DURABLE ORDERS (Advisor Perspectives)
“New orders for manufactured durable goods fell -1.4% to $319.63 million in December, beating the projected -1.8% decline. Compared to a year ago, new orders are up 10.3%.”
Durable Goods year-over-year
Analysis and additional charts at…
 
-Wednesday the S&P 500 rose about 0.6% to 6881
-VIX declined about 3% to 19.62.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.087% (compared to about this time prior market day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS
XLK – SOLD 2/11/2026
SPY – Added 12/1/2025.
NVDA – Added 12/1/2025 & 2/6/2026
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
At the close today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 11 gave Bear-signs and 10 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 image displays a technical chart with price indicators, showing a bullish (upward) trend in the S&P 500 stock index, with a moving average of 10 days (dMA) plotted. AI-generated content may be incorrect.
 
TODAY’S COMMENT
The daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators improved from -4 to -1 (1 more Bear indicator than Bull indicators), a NEUTRAL indication. 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.
 
At its lowest point of this recent weakness, the S&P 500 was only down 2.6% below its all-time high. The Index is now just barely 1% above that low of nearly 2 weeks ago. That’s an anemic recovery. Since the bearish rising wedge is still evident in the S&P 500 chart, I can’t feel too optimistic. I’d feel better if we just had a correction so we could clean out the weak hands and put the weakness behind us. For now, the concern remains.
 
Levels of support are the 100-dMA and the 200-dMA: The S&P 500 is 0.4% above the 100-dMA and 5.1% above the 200-dMA.
 
The S&P 500 is only 1.9% below its all-time high,
 
Since I don’t anticipate a big decline, I do not plan to reduce stock holdings further unless indicators collapse.
 
BOTTOM LINE
I am Bearish for the short term, but markets don’t listen to me.
 
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…
 
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…
 
WEDNESDAY 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 55% 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.
 
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