Monday, March 23, 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.”
 
IRAN BELIEVES IT IS WINNING THE WAR (WSJ)
“This hubris is dangerous because they are not smart enough to understand that President Trump will never let them win. They don’t understand how far he’s willing to go,” said Jason Greenblatt, who served as the White House special envoy for the Middle East in the first Trump administration…
…Demands voiced by Iranian leaders in recent days as conditions for ending the war include massive reparations from the U.S. and its allies and the expulsion of American military forces from the region. They have also called for transforming the Strait of Hormuz—an international waterway where free navigation is guaranteed under international law—into an Iranian toll booth controlling one-third of the world’s shipborne crude oil…
…Round-the-clock intelligence and surveillance flights that are now available because of U.S. air superiority, combined with rapid targeting of Iranian weapons systems, could make all the difference, said retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula, dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
“It’s not something that is going to happen overnight, but over time the Strait of Hormuz will be open back to the levels of shipping that we saw before this conflict broke out. It is a reasonable estimate that it will be a matter of weeks,” he said. “The Iranians are not going to end up with control over the strait, we are.” Story at…
 
DANGEROUS [STOCK MARKET] MISCALCULATION – CITADEL SECURITIES (Markets Insider)
"Investors have been accustomed to fading geopolitical shocks in recent years and have been relatively sanguine about the impact of this current war…predicated on the assumption that President Trump can end the war at any time and walk away. In my view, this is a miscalculation," he [Nohshad Shah, head of EMEA fixed income sales at Citadel Securities] wrote. Shah compared the current Iran conflict to last year's wide-ranging tariffs, adding that the war is different than other events that have spooked markets because it involves buy-in from multiple parties. Trump had the choice to remove the tariffs he imposed on many US trade partners at any time. But in the case of the Iran war, multiple other nations would have to agree.
Local Iranian media reported that Trump did not have any conversations with their country's leaders, contrary to his statements on Truth Social. This serves as a reminder of Shah's point, that Trump cannot simply walk away from the conflict and expect its global economic impact to cease.” Story at…
My cmt: Posted before Trump claimed negotiations to end the conflict were underway.
 
NATIONAL ACTIVITY INDEX (Advisor Perspectives )
“The Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) fell to -0.11 in February from +0.20 in January. Two of the four broad categories of indicators used to construct the index decreased from January, and three categories made negative contributions.”
Analysis and charts at…
 
QUICK MARKET SUMMARY
-Monday the S&P 500 rose about 1.2% to 6581.
-VIX declined about 2% to 26.15. (Seems like the options players aren’t convinced the correction is over.)  
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.34% (compared to about this time prior market day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS
SPY – Added 12/1/2025.
NVDA – Added 12/1/2025 & 2/6/2026
“Despite all the bearish noise, Goldman Sachs isn’t backing down on Nvidia (NVDA) stock yet.  After another stellar GTC showing, the bank reiterated its $250 price target and maintained a buy rating, underscoring confidence in the AI giant’s tremendous upside from current levels.” Story at…  
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
At the close today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 17 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: 5.7%
S&P 500 % above 200-dMA: -0.7%
Trading Days since top: 48. (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 -12 to -10 (10 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 higher – a BULLISH indication. The continued improvement of the 10-dMA is a good sign.
 
On Friday, I reposted this old note from Jeffrey Saut concerning a previous decline:
“…last week I began suggesting that we could be in one of these “selling stampedes” that tend to last 17 – 25 sessions, with only 1.5- to three-day pauses/throwback rallies, before they exhaust themselves on the downside…I also said that it was too soon to tell yet if this is such a stampede, but “Never on a Friday.” The reference was that once the markets get into one of these weekly downside skeins, they rarely bottom on a Friday. Nope, they typically give participants over the weekend to brood about their losses and then they show up the next Monday in “sell mode” leading to Turning Tuesday.”
 
Turning Tuesday? I think we had Trump Monday. Regarding negotiations with Iran…who knows? That’s the key for the markets. Is Trump going to settle or continue the fight? It’s an unknown that I can’t predict, so why guess. We’ll watch and see if there is a confirmed, technical, buy-signal this week.
 
BOTTOM LINE
No change here: Until proven otherwise, 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 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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