Thursday, March 19, 2026

Jobless Claims … Philly Fed … New 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.”
 
Ryan Detrick, Chief Market Strategist at Carson Group
My cmt: The FED is more worried about inflation than jobs.
"…higher energy prices will push up overall inflation." – Fed Chair, Jerome Powell.
 
PHILLY FED (RTT NEWS)
“Manufacturing activity in the Philadelphia region continued to expand in the month of March, according to a report released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia on Thursday. The Philly Fed said its diffusion index for current general activity rose to 18.1 in March from 16.3 in February, with a positive reading indicating growth.” Story at…
 
JOBLESS CLAIMS (AP News)
“The number of Americans filing for jobless aid for the week ending March 14 fell by 8,000 from the previous week to 205,000…” Story at…
 
NEW HOME SALES (CNBC)
Sales of newly built homes in January dropped 17.6% month over month…Sales were also 11.3% lower than in January 2025…” Story at…
 
QUICK MARKET SUMMARY
-Thursday the S&P 500 fell about 0.3% to 6606.
-VIX declined about 4% to 24.06.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.251% (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, 18 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
S&P 500 drop from the Top: 5.3%
S&P 500 % above 200-dMA: -0.2%
Trading Days since top: 46. (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 -14 to -12 (12 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 turned up – a BULLISH indication.
 
The S&P 500 closed below its 200-dMA.  We had hoped that would be avoided since it is an important level of support.  Now, we want to see if the Index will remain below the 200-day for two consecutive days before we get too concerned. Sometimes traders will buy after weak hands get washed out by a drop below support. I’ll wait until Friday to see what happens in the markets.
 
RSI remains oversold and Bollinger Bands are within a whisker of oversold.  I use these indicators together and they are very close to issuing a buy-signal. As always, I don’t use any indicator or pair of indicators in isolation. 
 
The S&P 500 made a lower low Thursday, but volumes increased suggesting more selling - so no bottom yet. The news in the middle east is unsettled; I suspect there won’t be a low until the news improves. That said, investors will front-run the news. Bottoms frequently occur when conditions seem the worst.
 
We should continue to watch market action around the 200-day
 
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 remained NEUTRAL. (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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