Thursday, April 9, 2026

Fed Minutes … Personal Income & Spending … PCE Prices … Jobless Claims … 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.”
 
“Never, never, never, believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The Statesman who yields to war fever . . . is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.” - Winston Churchill.
 
STRAIT OF HORMUZ STAYS SHUT (Axios – 7pm Thursday)
“President Trump on Thursday demanded Iran stop charging tolls for tankers to cross the Strait of Hormuz, as Iran's supreme leader promised the country would control the crucial waterway.
Why it matters: The already shaky ceasefire between the two countries is getting more strained by the day, even as they prepare for peace talks in Islamabad on Saturday.” Story at…
 
IRAN ATTACKS SAUDI PIPELINE (CNBC)
“Saudi Arabia’s critical pipeline to the Red Sea suffered a recent attack from Iran, cutting throughput by 700,000 barrels per day. The attack hit a pumping station on the East-West pipeline, according to a state-news agency report. This pipeline brings crude oil from processing facilities near the Persian Gulf to an export terminal on the Red Sea called Yanbu.” Story at…
 
FED MINUTES (Axios)
“Some Federal Reserve officials wanted to keep interest rate increases on the table, given the stubborn inflation that was set to be amplified by the Iran war, according to minutes from the central bank's March 17-18 policy meeting, released Wednesday…"Many participants judged that, in time, it would likely become appropriate to lower the target range for the federal funds rate if inflation were to decline in line with their expectations," the minutes show.” Story at…
 
PERSONAL INCOME / SPENDING / PCE PRICES (Yahoo Finance)
“Personal incomes in the United States fell by $18.2 billion in February as inflation maintained a seasonally adjusted rate of 3%, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Thursday.
The decrease in personal income is about a 0.1% drop in spending power… February's 3% [PCE] index excludes volatile food and energy. The all-items inflation rate for the month was 2.8%.
My cmt: 2.8% PCE inflation data was posted before the Iran attacks. It remains above the Fed 2% target.
 
JOBLESS CLAIMS (AP News)
“The number of Americans applying for jobless aid for the week ending April 4 jumped by 16,000 to 219,000 from the previous week’s 203,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s more than the 210,000 new filings analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet were expecting but within the range of the past several years.” Story at…
 
QUICK MARKET SUMMARY
-Thursday the S&P 500 rose about 0.6% to 6825.
-VIX fell about 7% to 19.49.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.287% (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, 3 gave Bear-signs and 19 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: 2.2% (Max drop=9.1%)
S&P 500 % above 200-dMA: 2.5%
Trading Days since top: 60. (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 +16 (16 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators), a BULLISH 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 sign that is more important than the daily numbers.
 
The bull-Bear spread pretty much says it all. It is giving a very bullish signal. Investors have decided that the Iran conflict poses no threat to the economy.
 
I am fully invested for a retired guy and I see no reason to take on more risk. In general, most investors have decided the war poses little risk and we see that in the bullish indicators. I don’t know; the news stories above could lead to a ground war with Iran. Iran has been emboldened by their control of the world’s oi supply via the Strait of Hormuz. 

 

I've been saying it for a while; the bottom is in. 
 
BOTTOM LINE
I may add a small % to the stock portfolio soon, but I won’t be making any big moves.
 
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 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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