Thursday, March 12, 2026

Jobless Claims … 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.”
 
JOBLESS CLAIMS (Yahoo Finance)
“The number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits fell last week, suggesting labor market conditions remained stable even after the economy shed jobs in February, but the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran poses a downside risk…Initial claims for state unemployment benefits slipped 1,000 to a seasonally ​adjusted 213,000 for the week ended March 7.” Story at…
 
QUICK MARKET SUMMARY
-Thursday the S&P 500 declined about 1.5% to 6673.
-VIX rose about 12% to 27.19.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.261% (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, 20 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: 4.4%
S&P 500 % Above 200-dMA: 1.1%
 
The daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators declined from -15 to -16 (16 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 Bollinger Band indicator was oversold today.
“Bollinger Bands are a popular technical analysis tool consisting of a 20-period simple moving average (center line) and two outer bands representing volatility (+/-2 standard deviations).” Fidelity Investments.
 
I use Bollinger Bands with RSI. Since RSI is not oversold, I will ignore the Bollinger Band indicator. I don’t act on one indicator, further, markets can remain oversold for long periods.
 
The S&P 500 is only about 1% above its 200-dMA.  The 200-day presents a good test. We want to see the 200-day hold.  If the S&P 500 falls below the 200-day on consecutive days, it would be bad news.
 
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.
 
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…
 
THURSDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)
My basket of Market Internals declined to 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.
 
Posted by at