Friday, March 6, 2026

Payroll Report … Retail Sales / Unemployment Rate … Fed Beige Book … 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.”
 
FED BEIGE BOOK (WSJ)
The Federal Reserve’s latest Beige Book report indicates a steady economy with persistent inflation, a stable labor market, and policy uncertainty.” Story at…
 
PAYROLL REPORT / UNEMPLOYMENT RATE (CNBC)
“The U.S. economy lost jobs in February, a month marred by severe winter weather and a strike at a major health-care provider… Nonfarm payrolls fell by 92,000 for the month, compared with the estimate for 50,000…February marked the third time in the past five months that payrolls declined…the unemployment rate edged higher to 4.4%” Story at…
 
RETAIL SALES (AP News)
“American consumers pulled back their spending to start 2026, extending the malaise in retail sales that began late last year.
Retail sales fell 0.2% in January, following a flat reading in December…Excluding business at gas stations and auto dealers, retail sales rose 0.3% in January…” Story at…
 
-Friday the S&P 500 declined about 1.3% to 6740.
-VIX rose about 24% to 29.49.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury was unchanged at 4.138% (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, 21 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
The daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators remained -17 (17 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. Danger Will Robinson.
 
The markets fell below another level of support today (6800).
 
We picked up another bull indicator today (Bollinger Bands) so now we have a total of four. The Bollinger Band indicator is oversold, but RSI is not, so I’ll ignore this indicator. I use Bollinger Bands and RSI together. Even if RSI was confirming Bollinger Bands, I wouldn’t be buying on two indicators. We need to see volumes falling as the market falls since that would suggest selling may be winding down. One sign we sometimes see at bottoms is a big move down that triggers my Panic Indicator. It is based on a statistical analysis of market moves. So far, we haven’t seen any bottom signs other than Bollinger Bands. They can signal well before a bottom.
 
There were signs at the top back in January that a correction, if it occurred, would be 10% or less. Earnings have been good and that supports the “small-correction” thesis, but there are no guarantees.
 
As of Friday, the S&P 500 is only 3.4% below its all-time high. No panic yet although there isn’t much room for optimism.
 
The 200-dMA of the S&P 500 is 6582, about 2.5% below today’s close.  Another level of support is 6539, the 20 November low. My guess is that the S&P 500 will drop to its 200-dMA around the 6550-6570 level. It could certainly go lower and a retest of the November low wouldn’t be a surprise. The April 2025 low is around 5000; let’s hope we don’t go there.
 
Some of the weakness is now due to the news (war). Thus, we could have a sudden reversal higher if there is good news. Conversely, if hostilities go on much longer or there is bad news in the progress of those hostilities, markets could easily drop below the 200-dMA.  It seems like a correction of only 5.9% (3.4% so far +2.5% down to the 200-day) is too small given the unknowns and the rapid rise in oil prices we have seen so far.
 
BOTTOM LINE
No change here: I am bearish on the markets in the short-term; I am not expecting a crash, but it’s a worry. Let’s check Monday. It may be time to get more conservative in the portfolio.
 
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…
 
FRIDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)
My basket of Market Internals remained 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.
 
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