Wednesday, April 8, 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.”
 
“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.
 
WAR NEWS (MS Now)
“Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran,” Trump said in his social media post Tuesday night…That 10-point plan, the one Trump called “a workable basis on which to negotiate” on Tuesday night? On Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called it “fundamentally unserious, unacceptable and completely discarded,” claiming the president literally threw it in the garbage.” Story at…
 
QUICK MARKET SUMMARY
-Wednesday the S&P 500 rose about 2.5% to 6783.
-VIX fell about 18% to 21.04.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.293% (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 18 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: 2.8% (Max drop=9.1%)
S&P 500 % above 200-dMA: 1.9%
Trading Days since top: 59. (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 +4 to +15 (15 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.
 
There were a host of new bullish indicators today. A few are:
-Sentiment was bearish yesterday as retail investors bet against the markets. Too much bearishness is bullish.
-There was a big bullish jump in the indicators.
-The S&P 500 closed above its 200-dMA and finished slightly above its 50-dMA.
-My 50-dMA breadth-indicator has been bearish; today it finally turned bullish.
 
I have been saying for several days that the bottom was in.  There won’t be many arguing about that after today.
 
Tomorrow should be a down day based on the big move higher today. I’ll add some to the stock portfolio if I have the time. Tomorrow will be a busy day so I expect to post the blog late.
 
Stocks could still retest the low depending on the news. My guess is that there will not be a retest, but who knows? As the “War News” story above indicates, we don’t really know what’s going on.
 
BOTTOM LINE
I will add a small % to the stock portfolio, barring unforeseen issues.
 
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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