Jobless Claims … KC Fed Manufacturing … 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.
 
“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.
 
“There’s a lot of exuberance out there,” Dimon continued. “But it was in 1972, 1986, 2000, 2007. That doesn’t give me comfort.” – Jamie Dimon
 
JOBLESS CLAIMS (AP News)
“The number of people filing for U.S. unemployment benefits fell last week, remaining at historic lows as layoffs are rare and most Americans enjoy job security. Jobless claims slipped to 203,000 last week from a revised 207,000 the week before…” Story at…
https://apnews.com/article/unemployment-benefits-jobless-claims-layoffs-labor-5980ffc63486db19d4beb2443eb70c16
 
KC FED MANUFACTURING (KC Fed)
“Tenth District manufacturing activity increased steadily, while expectations for future activity remained expansionary. The month-over-month price indexes for finished products and raw materials ticked up, while year-over-year price growth fell slightly.” Story at…
https://www.kansascityfed.org/surveys/manufacturing-survey/tenth-district-manufacturing-activity-increased-further-in-august-2026/
 
QUICK MARKET SUMMARY
-Thursday the S&P 500 rose about 0.7% to 7731.
-VIX slipped about 5% to 14.51.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.676% (compared to about this time prior market day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS
QLD – Added 5/28/2026
NVDA – Added 12/1/2025, 2/6/2026 & 8/3/2026
XLK – Added 6/5/2026
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
At the close today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 13 gave Bear-signs and 9 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 -9 to -4 (4 more Bear indicators than Bull indicators), a NEUTRAL 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 sign.
 
The below “10-dMA of %-ETFs Up” chart is a simple indicator. I track 15 ETFs for momentum daily as shown in the ETF Momentum chart below. They are a rough cross section of the stock market. I note whether the ETFs were up or down on the day and then whether they have been up or down over the last 10-days. >55% is bullish; <45% is bearish.
 
The red line on the chart is the 10-dMA of the percentage of ETFs that were up over the 2-week period. The S&P 500 is the daily value (black line).
As one would expect, the ETFs tend to track the S&P 500 closely, but often with a lag due to the 10-day average. Now the ETFs are falling while the S&P 500 is powering higher. I suspect we have the lag effect now, but this indicator is giving a bearish sign since only 49% of the ETFs have been positive over the last 2-weeks. If that trend continues it will be cause for alarm.
 
For now, I am not too worried; if breadth improves in the overall market, other indicators should improve quickly. This one should improve as ETFs catch up.
 

BOTTOM LINE
I’m neutral until we see indicators improve.
 
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…
http://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/exchange-traded-funds-etf-ranking.html
 
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…
https://navigatethestockmarket.blogspot.com/p/a-system-for-trading-dow-30-stocks-my_8.html
 
THURSDAY 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 60% 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.