Thursday, April 30, 2026

Inflation … Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis

 
I am too busy today, so here’s an abbreviated post…
…Friday’s post will be late – either Saturday or Sunday.
 
INFLATION (CNBC)
“Consumers faced escalating prices in March as the Iran war sent oil soaring and created a new level of challenges for the Federal Reserve, according to a batch of reports Thursday that showed economic growth slower than expected and a generational low in layoffs.
The core personal consumption expenditures price index, which excludes food and energy, accelerated a seasonally adjusted 0.3% for the month, pushing the 12-month inflation rate to 3.2%...” Story at…
 
QUICK MARKET SUMMARY
-Thursday the S&P 500 rose about 1% to 7209.
-VIX fell about 10% to 16.89.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.388% (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, 6 gave Bear-signs and 16 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 improved from -1 to +10 (10 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 remained down, a BEARISH sign that is more important than the daily numbers.
 
Thursday was a statistically significant up-day. That just means that the price-volume move exceeded my statistical parameters. Statistics show that a statistically-significant, up-day is followed by a down-day about 60% of the time.  Tops almost always occur on Statistically-significant, up-days, but not all statistically-significant, up-days occur at tops. Today could be a short-term top, but there was only 1 top indicator (RSI) that was bearish - not enough to send a strong top-signal.
 
The S&P 500 made a new high today (Thursday). 143 issues on the NYSE made a new-high today; that is below the 5-year average, but still reasonably high. That’s one measure that shows breadth is ok so we don’t need to worry about a correction >10% anytime soon
 
Divergence between the indicators and the S&P 500 in the above chart remains, but the 10-day spread is narrowing suggesting we may get a bullish reversal soon.
 
It’s still possible that the markets will retrace about half of their gains. That would imply a 5-7% drop from the recent high, but if the 20-day spread of indicator reverses higher, it would suggest that further losses are unlikely.
 
BOTTOM LINE
I remain cautiously bullish.

Posted by at