Tuesday, March 17, 2026

… 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.”
 
“The head of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is expected to tell Congress on Tuesday that the agency needs to increase its borrowing capacity or face ‘the end of the Postal Service ​as we know it now.’” - Postmaster General David Steiner
My cmt: Sorry to tell you Dave, the postal service as we know it ended several years ago. I mailed seven bills on January 2. They were all “lost.” It’s not the first time. Now I pay electronically thru the bank.
 
Had a good laugh over this link:
Very funny. As if Trump could look any more stupid. Donald makes Forrest Gump look like a Rhodes Scholar.
 
NATIONAL DEBT WARNING (Fortune)
“The U.S. national debt is hurtling toward $39 trillion, but a Washington fiscal watchdog says the more alarming milestone isn’t a dollar figure—it’s a ratio. And it arrives in just five years…by fiscal year 2031, the average interest rate paid on the federal debt will exceed the country’s rate of economic growth. In the dry shorthand of economists, “R will exceed G.” In plain terms, that means that the cost of borrowing will be growing faster than the economy’s ability to pay for it.​”
My cmt: But don’t worry, our Politicians will give us more benefits and give us tax returns in worthless dollars as interest rates and inflation race ever higher. But don’t worry.
Obama was the last politician to even mention the national debt and he only mentioned it rather than actually doing anything other than cutting taxes. Yes, Obama cut taxes by extending the Trump cuts rather than letting them expire. How does that work? The U.S. is swimming in debt, but we can afford to cut revenues? And then there’s Trump. He never saw a tax he didn’t want to cut or eliminate. I think I’ve mentioned before that I despise politicians.
 
QUICK MARKET SUMMARY
-Tuesday the S&P 500 rose about 0.3% to 6716.
-VIX declined about 5% to 22.37.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.202% (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, 16 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: 3.8%
S&P 500 % above 200-dMA: 1.6%
Trading Days since top: 44. (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 -15 to -9 (9 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 reversed higher – a BULLISH indication.
 
The 10-dMA of the 50-indicator spread improved today.  That can signal a low for the market, but not always. We’ll have to see if it continues higher.
 
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…
 
TUESDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)
My basket of Market Internals improved to 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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