Thursday, February 12, 2026

Jobless Claims … Existing Home Sales … 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.”
 
HINDENBURG OMENS – “I’m baaack” (McClellan Financial Publications)
“The NYSE's daily A-D Line just made a new all-time high on Feb. 4, 2026, which is a statement that liquidity is plentiful.  But just a day later, we have gotten the 3rd Hindenburg Omen within 6 trading days.  This is a message that for all of that supposedly plentiful liquidity, the market has some serious problems…The basic idea for the Hindenburg Omen signal is that during a normal uptrend, there should be more stocks making New Highs than making New Lows.  That is the normal condition.  If you get a condition where the uptrend is still underway, but the numbers of New Lows start perking up, then that is a sign of trouble. “ – Tom McClellan.
hindenburg omen signals over 6 month lookback
Analysis and charts at…
 
JOBLESS CLAIMS (Yahoo Finance)
“The number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits decreased by less than expected ‌last week, likely as disruptions from winter storms lingered. Initial claims ‌for state unemployment benefits dropped 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 227,000 for the ​week ended February 7…”
 
EXISTING HOME SALES (NAR)
“Existing-home sales decreased by 8.4% in January, according to the National Association of REALTORS® Existing-Home Sales Report. The report provides the real estate ecosystem—including agents, homebuyers and sellers—with data on the level of home sales, price, and inventory.
Month-over-month and year-over-year sales fell in all regions.
"The decrease in sales is disappointing. The below-normal temperatures and above-normal precipitation this January make it harder than usual to assess the underlying driver of the decrease and determine if this month’s numbers are an aberration,” said NAR Chief Economist Dr. Lawrence Yun.” Report from… 
 
-Thursday the S&P 500 declined about 1.6% to 6833.
-VIX rose about 18% to 20.82.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.104% (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, 17 gave Bear-signs and 6 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
 
Hate to see that ugly, down-in-the-morning and down-into-the-close chart.
 
The daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators declined from +6 to -11 (11 more Bear indicators than Bull indicators), a BEARISH 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.
 
Tom McClellan pointed out a subtlety that suggests another interpretation of the Hindenburg Omen. In the past, I have canceled the Hindenburg signal once the McClellan Oscillator turned positive and left the signal neutral unless there was another Omen.  Tom states that the signal lasts for 30-days whenever the McOsc is negative.  As a result, the Hindenburg can vary between bullish and bearish signals during the 30-days. Since the McClellan Oscillator is now negative, the Omen warning is back and once again giving a bearish signal.
 
VIX is rising quickly and the VIX indicator has turned negative.  This is one of the more reliable indicators.
 
The talking heads keep talking about “rotation” suggesting investors are rotating into other stocks rather than following the high flyers.  I don’t know.  It seems to me that when the leaders fail, it suggests that markets will follow suit.
 
The S&P 500 is 0.9% below the 50-dMA - “Danger Will Robinson.”
 
Levels of support are the 50-dMA and the 200-dMA: The S&P 500 is 0.3% above the 50-dMA and 5.1% above the 200-dMA.
 
While the market doesn’t feel good now, the S&P 500 is only 2.1% below its all-time high. Further, Breadth was good at the all-time high suggesting that if there is a correction, it is likely to be a retreat of less than 10% (from the high) based on past history.
 
Since I don’t anticipate a big decline, I do not plan to reduce stock holdings further unless indicators collapse.
 
BOTTOM LINE
Given the indicators, it is hard to be anything other than Bearish for the short term.
 
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…
 
THURSDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)


My basket of Market Internals declined to 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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