Monday, March 16, 2026

Gerrymandering Virginia … NY Fed Manufacturing … 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.”
 
SPANBERGER TELLS RURAL VIRGINIA TO DROP DEAD (Washington Examiner via Real Clear Politics)
“Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger has pursued a maximalist partisan agenda since being sworn into office. She is making housing, healthcare, and energy all more expensive. But nothing she has done so far is as insulting as the language her party attached to its ballot referendum to disenfranchise millions of rural Republican voters this April.
Six years ago, Virginia voters overwhelmingly passed a Constitutional Amendment creating a bipartisan Virginia Redistricting Commission. That commission drew a congressional map that was objectively fair. In 2024, when Vice President Kamala Harris won 52% of the vote to President Donald Trump’s 46%, the resulting congressional delegation was 55% Democratic (six seats) and 45% Republican (five seats).
 
Now Spanberger and her Democratic Party majorities in the Virginia House and Senate intend to change the commonwealth’s congressional map radically in a distinctly unrepresentative manner. By cramming as many rural Republican voters as possible into one western congressional district, and extending the reach of overwhelmingly Democratic suburban Washington, D.C. voters far into rural Virginia, Democrats have changed a fair and representative 6-5 congressional map into a lopsided and undemocratic 10-1 Democratic advantage…
 
…To add insult to injury, Spanberger and her Democratic allies have written the language that appears on the ballot in the most dishonest and partisan way possible. Instead of admitting that they want to throw out bipartisan maps and use partisan ones, the description on the ballot asks, “Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?” Story at a link from Real Clear Politics. This link will get access to the complete article…
My cmt: I despise most politicians because they are so dishonest – Republicans, and more often, especially Democrats. I know the Republicans are gerrymandering Texas; so what? Gerrymandering has been a way of life for most politicians, but this happening in Thomas Jefferson’s Commonwealth of Virginia - Disgraceful.
 
NY FED MANUFACTURING (WSJ via msn)
“Factory activity in New York state contracted in March as delivery times lengthened and supply availability worsened slightly. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Monday that its statewide manufacturing index of business conditions weakened unexpectedly in March to minus 0.2 from 7.1 in February.” Story at…
 
QUICK MARKET SUMMARY
-Monday the S&P 500 rose about 1% to 6632.
-VIX declined about 14% to 23.51.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.226% (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
S&P 500 drop from the Top: 4%
S&P 500 % above 200-dMA: 1.4%
Trading Days since top: 43. (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 declined from -14 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.
 
I suspect this correction is not over. We noticed reduced volume on Friday’s decline, but only a small improvement in internals.  This can sometimes signal a “correction over” since small declines give small signals.  My guess is, probably not. There’s just too much negative news now for the market weakness to be over.
 
6540 on the S&P 500 is a real possibility if the war in Iran drags on and oil prices remain high.
 
As we have noted before, there were signs at the top that suggested declines would be less than 10%. Since part of the decline is due to events in the middle east, that prediction may be wrong.
 
Repeating: The index is not far from its 200-dMA and we should watch market action around the 200-day. It is an important support level and I may want to raise some more cash if the 200-dMA doesn’t hold. I tend to be more conservative now as a retiree, and “return-of-investment” is more important the “return-on-investment.”
 
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…
MONDAY 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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