Wednesday, March 25, 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.”
 
 
TRAVELERS GET SCREWED BECAUSE DEMOCRATS WANT TO LIMIT ICE BY DEFUNDING TSA? MAKES NO SENSE, UNLESS YOU ARE A POLITICIAN
“It’s laughable that Democrats are now demanding more reforms to an agency they still refuse to fund,” a White House official via email on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity. “This latest stunt from the Democrats proves they are not interested in a serious conversation and they don’t care they their shutdown is hurting Americans… Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said frustration was building on Wednesday.
“We literally offered what they asked for three days ago and then suddenly it’s like, oh no, now we got new stuff. This has been the story of the entire time,” Lankford said. “This has been the constant journey — one more thing, one more thing, one more thing.” From CNBC at…
My cmt: The photo above is a lie. Democrats are not the party in charge. They may be after the mid-terms, but not now.  Blackmailing Republicans by shutting down portions of Government is criminal. It’s the second time they’ve pulled this shut-down, blackmail stunt – remember they shutdown Government for 43-days last year over budget disputes? Perhaps the electorate will punish them? We’ll see. On the other hand, we can’t be too confident with MAGA Republicans running the country.
 
The MAGA’s have gutted the FBI and DOJ in a witch hunt over Trump’s false stolen-election claims…what an “F”-ing mess.
  
FED COMMENT 
"There's an unfortunate aspect of this shock to energy prices that we're likely to see an impact driving up inflation at a time when we still haven't quite cleared the previous shock that was driving up inflation… For it to be realistic that rates would come down further this year we've got to see progress on inflation…We've got to have some comfort that we are on a path back to 2% inflation." - Austan Goolsbee, President, Chicago Federal Reserve Bank.
 
QUICK MARKET SUMMARY
-Wednesday the S&P 500 rose about 0.5% to 6592.
-VIX declined about 6% to 25.33.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.332% (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, 16 gave Bear-signs and 8 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: 5.5%
S&P 500 % above 200-dMA: -0.6%
Trading Days since top: 50. (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 -8 (8 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.
 
The 10-day is more important than the daily numbers. I’ll consider putting some funds back into the market if the Index breaks above its 200-dMA for consecutive days or if there is real progress in opening the strait of Hormuz.
 
No confirmed, technical, buy-signal yet.
 
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…
 
WEDNESDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)
My basket of Market Internals remained 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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