Wednesday, March 11, 2026

CPI … 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.”
 
JP MORGAN NOTE TO CLIENTS (The Street)
“JPMorgan expects the current episode of market stress to last days or weeks, not months. That framing matters because it shapes how investors should respond. Rather than positioning defensively for a prolonged downturn, the bank is telling clients to watch for oversold conditions and stretched positioning to clear. Once that happens, JPMorgan sees the selloff flipping into a buying opportunity.” Story at…
 
BEAR MARKET WARNING (Motley Fool)
“The February nonfarm payroll report came in way below expectations. The economy lost 92,000 jobs… That brings the total number of jobs created over the last 12 months to just 156,000. To put that into context, the economy was frequently creating that many jobs in a single month… Nonfarm payroll growth has been negative in five of the previous nine months. Since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began releasing this report back in 1939, this "5 in 9" stretch has happened only 13 times. When it happens, it tends to correlate highly with periods of economic stress, recession, and bear-market corrections of at least 20%...” Story at…  
 
CPI (CNBC)
“The consumer price index increased a seasonally adjusted 0.3% for the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.4%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Wednesday. Both numbers matched the Dow Jones consensus forecast.
Stripping out volatile food and energy prices, the core CPI posted a 0.2% monthly reading and 2.5% annual rate…” Story at…
 
QUICK MARKET SUMMARY
-Wednesday the S&P 500 declined about 0.1% to 6776.
-VIX declined about 3% to 24.23.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.228% (compared to about this time prior market day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS
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, 19 gave Bear-signs and 4 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 -16 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 down – a BEARISH indication.
 
The chart below is a simple indicator that gives us an idea of the health of the market. It counts the percentage of 15 ETF’s that are up over a 10-day period. Those ETFs were selected to represent a cross section of the market and they are the same ones that I track for momentum. When the % of ETFs advancing over 10-days falls below 45%, as it has in the chart below, it is a bearish indication.
 
 
It’s just another worrisome indication that the market is not healthy. That plus the bearish indications in other indicators continue to prevent me from adding to the stock portfolio. On the other hand, I haven’t gone to a bearish positioning in my portfolio because there are still some indicators that suggest markets are not headed into a bear-market. It could still happen, but I am not seeing the signs now.
 
As we have noted before, there were signs at the top that suggested declines would be less than 10%.
 
BOTTOM LINE
No change here: I am bearish on the markets in the short-term; but I remain fully invested at 55% in stocks. The remainder of my portfolio is about 25% bonds and 20% cash. 
 
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 improved 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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