Tuesday, March 31, 2026

Chicago PMI … Consumer Confidence … 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.”
 
RECESSIONS (MarketWatch)
“A lot of folks are likening the investments in AI to the dot-com investments of the late 90s-early 2000s.
The point I [Dr. Tyler Goodspeed, the chief economist of ExxonMobil and former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers] make is that actually, the triggers for recession tend to be much more prosaic. If indeed traffic through the Strait of Hormuz were to come to a halt for a protracted period of time, you are talking about 20% of the world’s petroleum that passes through that Strait. If that Strait were to remain closed to traffic for several weeks or longer, historically, that would have been a recession trigger.
There are some other things that we can see looking around the world today that remind us of past recessions. There’s a bill making its way through Congress — I don’t think it will pass — but it would impose a 10% cap on credit card interest rates. What credit card providers would tell you is that if that were the case, then there are a lot of accounts that would be closed, and a lot of credit that would not be extended. If you look back over the past 80 years, the imposition of credit controls was an accomplice to the murder of economic expansions in 1948, 1970 and 1980. So those are some of the culprits that I think history suggests we should be looking out for, rather than the more conventional narrative of boom-bust cycles.” Story at…
 
CHICAGO PMI (Investing.com)
“The latest Chicago Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) data has revealed a deceleration in the growth of the manufacturing sector within the Chicago region. The index, which serves as a key indicator of the economic health of the manufacturing industry, recorded an actual reading of 52.8. This figure, while still indicating expansion, falls short of both the anticipated forecast and the previous month’s performance.” Story at…
 
CONSUMER CONFIDENCE (Conference Board via pr newswire)
"Consumer confidence ticked up again in March, as a modest improvement in consumers' views of current conditions outweighed a slight downshift in expectations for the future," said Dana M Peterson, Chief Economist, The Conference Board. "Three of five components of the Index firmed in March, and overall confidence improved modestly for a second month. Nonetheless, the Index has been on a general downward trend since 2021." Press release at…
 
TRUMP SAYS U.S. WILL LEAVE IRAN SOON (CNBC)
“President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he expected that United States military forces will leave Iran in “two or three weeks…We leave because there’s no reason for us to do this,” Trump told reporters at the White House.” Story at
 
QUICK MARKET SUMMARY
-Tuesday the S&P 500 rose about 2.9% to 6528.
-VIX declined about 18% to 25.21.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.319% (compared to about this time prior market day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS
SPY – Added 12/1/2025.
NVDA – Added 12/1/2025 & 2/6/2026
“Despite all the bearish noise, Goldman Sachs isn’t backing down on Nvidia (NVDA) stock yet. After another stellar GTC showing, the bank reiterated its $250 price target and maintained a buy rating, underscoring confidence in the AI giant’s tremendous upside from current levels.” Story at…  
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
At the close today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 22 gave Bear-signs and 7 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
S&P 500 drop from the Top: 6.4% (Max drop=9.1%)
S&P 500 % above 200-dMA: -1.7%
Trading Days since top: 54. (Avg top to bottom for corrections less than 10% = 32 days, but the 10% correction in Sept of 2023 lasted 64-days top to bottom.)
 
The daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators improved from -17 to -15 (15 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 lower – a BEARISH indication. That’s disappointing!
 
As we noted Monday:
-Only 6-days have been up in the last month.  That level of bearish action is bullish.
-Both Bollinger Bands and RSI were oversold Monday.
 
Those are both strong oversold signals suggesting a bounce. Today we got one; boy did we ever.
 
The question is simple. Was today’s bounce a technical bounce from oversold conditions or was it a reaction to “unconfirmed” reports of a possible end to the Iran war. (Unconfirmed during market hours.) The answer is simple too – “Both.”
 
Has the weakness ended as dip-buyers stampeded into the market? The news at 6PM from Trump (see above Trump story) suggests the war is ending soon. Markets will probably continue to celebrate over the next several weeks, but tomorrow may be weaker than expected.
 
Tuesday was a statistically significant up-day. That just means that the price-volume move exceeded my statistical parameters. Statistics show that a statistically-significant, up-day is followed by a down-day about 60% of the time.
 
Futures are mixed as I am writing this.
 
BOTTOM LINE
Looks like we did see a “Turning Tuesday.” I may add to stocks soon, but perhaps not tomorrow.
 
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…
 
TUESDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)
My basket of Market Internals remained SELL. (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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