FED Minutes … 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.
 
DAN IVES TOP PICKS (MarketWatch)
“In a brief post on X, Ives identified his top tech plays into 2027: Nvidia Microsoft Palantir Technologies Apple and CrowdStrike “In our view, investors [are] underestimating the scale and scope of this $4 trillion spending wave [for the] next few years,” he wrote.” Story at…
Longtime tech bull Dan Ives says these are his top tech plays going into 2027
 
JP MORGAN IS BULLISH (The Street)
“JPMorgan strategists are telling clients the recent selloff looks overdone. They are pointing to specific data to back up a call for stocks to rebound into year-end.” Story at… 
JPMorgan just put a different spin on the stock market selloff
 
FED MINUTES (CNBC)
“Federal Reserve officials expect they will raise interest rates again before the end of the year to head off inflation … But the meeting summary provided no indication of when specifically that policymakers expected to raise benchmark rates – only that persistently higher prices and a stable labor market likely would lead to a second hike this year.” Story at… 
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/07/fed-officials-see-another-hike-coming-but-no-sign-as-to-when-minutes-show.html
 
QUICK MARKET SUMMARY
-Wednesday the S&P 500 declined about 0.2% to 7802.
-VIX rose about 0.5% to 15.08.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined slightly to 5.297% (compared to about this time prior market day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS
QLD – SOLD 10/7/2026 (Small gain here. 2%, but it’s better than a loss.)
NVDA – Added 12/1/2025, 2/6/2026 & 8/3/2026. Reduced position 10/7/2021
XLK – Added 6/5/2026.
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
At the close today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 14 gave Bear-signs and 8 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 declined from zero to -6 (6 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 higher a BULLISH sign.
 
Breadth continues to be poor. More than half of the issues on the NYSE have been down over every time frame we consider – 10, 20 ,50, 100 and 150-days. The McClellan Oscillator reversed to the bearish side today, another sign of bad breadth. The narrow market sets up the possibility of a correction, but doesn’t guarantee it. The weak breadth at the all-time high does suggest that if we do have a correction, it is likely to be greater than 10%. As usual, we need more information.
 
A down day doesn’t tell us much. We need to see another new-high on the Index and hope that internals will improve. That would be a good sign especially if breadth measures suggest a broadening rally.
 
We continue to watch indicators.
 
BOTTOM LINE
I’m Neutral until we see improvement in indicators; weak indicators may send us to bear mode.
 
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
 
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.