Monday, October 5, 2026

ISM Non-Manufacturing … Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis

 
My banjo playing from Dramtreeo’s 1st CD on YouTube …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3Pm1hQZspg

And From the Folk USA site, 
here’s a tune from Dramtreeo’s “Waterside” CD, a top 5 selection by the World Folk Music Association back in the 80’s…



“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.
 
A BIG MOMENT FOR FEDERALISM (WSJ)
“The Supreme Court kicks off a new term Monday with a case ostensibly about climate change but with much bigger stakes. The real issue in Suncor Energy v. Boulder County is whether states and localities can turn federalism on its head to dictate policy for the rest of the country.
Boulder and more than 30 other state and local governments have sued oil and gas producers for alleged damage caused by their global CO2 emissions. Boulder wants compensation for wildfires, the costs for mitigating pest infestations, reduced farm output and lower employee productivity, among other things.”
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/suncor-energy-v-boulder-county-supreme-court-climate-case-federalism-201279e6
My cmt: This strikes me as insanity on steroids. Yes, global warming has increased the Earth’s temperature by 1 degree centigrade over the last 100-years; but we are all responsible not just a few Corporations. Where would Colorado be without oil and gas? No cars; no trains; no air travel; no plastics; no industry; farms that can’t keep up with population growth; heating with wood; travel by horse – the old west. The benefits of oil and gas far outweigh the costs. Further, steps are underway:
- “From 1990 to 2022, greenhouse gas emissions per dollar of goods and services produced by the U.S. economy (the gross domestic product or GDP) declined by 55 percent.” - EPA
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20U.S.%20greenhouse%20gas,above%201990%20levels%20in%202007
- “United States energy-related carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions have fallen by roughly 18% to 20% since 2005.” – From Statista at
https://www.statista.com/statistics/183943/us-carbon-dioxide-emissions-from-1999/?srsltid=AU7gw4UtAUoXfMM4HuQnbiRvpj9yenPy8hOz3uDnOkcPavJGHY8pwrdj#google_vignette
…and the impacts of Global Warming so far…
“We look historically. What we’ve observed so far: There are no long-term trends in hurricanes or more generally tropical cyclones, as they’re called technically. And I think many people find that as a surprise. Over the last, roughly almost a century, we see no detectable trends in hurricanes. We do see for about the last 70 years some intensification of precipitation over the land. And we see that in the US rainfall has gotten more intense, but not necessarily more plentiful, in the Northeast, the upper Midwest, and the Northwest.
In terms of record-high temperatures in the US, they’re no more common today than they were 100 years ago. Yes, sea level rise globally has been accelerating for the last several decades, but it was also doing the same thing in the 1930s when, in fact, human influences were much smaller. So a lot of what we’re seeing can be put down to natural variability, or at least we need to show that it’s not natural variability. And that’s pretty hard without long-term and precise records.
 
Going forward, we predict the temperature will go up. And there are predictions, but it’s pretty difficult with a lot of uncertainty, about faster sea level rise, 10 percent more hurricanes, for example, some intensification of floods and droughts, but we haven’t seen it yet. And the temperature has already gone up by a degree. So it remains to be seen… when you look at what happened in Glasgow where basically China and India and a couple of the other developing countries said, “We need energy and we’ve got the wolf at the door. We got to worry about that. And maybe a couple of generations from now we’ll worry about our emissions.” And that’s not an unreasonable attitude for them to take. We in the US, EU will have a different attitude, but unfortunately, the US is only 13 percent of global emissions. And even if we went to zero, it would be wiped out by the growth in the rest of the world within a decade.” - Steven Koonin, PhD.
https://www.aei.org/economics/what-do-we-know-about-climate-change-my-long-read-qa-with-steven-koonin/
 
THE MARKET HAS BECOME VERY NARROW (WSJ)
“There’s a new story in stock markets: If you aren’t touched by AI, good luck.
Artificial intelligence is sucking in capital and squeezing the rest of the market, where stocks face higher interest rates and oil prices without a sexy technology story to sell. The new pattern took hold in September, when Treasury yields skyrocketed—and it’s creating stress in other debt markets too…
…under the surface, September’s stock-price moves show how narrow the market has become. Almost 80% of stocks in the S&P were down, the average stock was off 5% and only two out of 11 sectors were up, led by tech.” Story at…
https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/ai-is-squeezing-out-the-rest-of-the-stock-market-60928dd3
 
SELL AI, ACCORDING TO GUNDLACH (MoneyWise)
“Even if AI doesn’t “kill us,” Jeffrey Gundlach thinks it’ll “kill” your portfolio.​
The founder and CEO of DoubleLine Capital — who famously predicted the housing bubble of 2007 — is now forecasting a major fall for AI-related stocks. Although there are many reasons why Gundlach sees the AI boom collapsing, he focused on the recent narrative shift spurred by former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon’s viral X post.” Story at…
I just want out: Billionaire investor Jeffrey Gundlach, who called the housing bust in 2007, says you should have almost nothing in AI stocks
 
ISM NON-MANUFACTURING (ISM via PR Newswire)
“Economic activity in the services sector continued to expand in September, say the nation's purchasing and supply executives in the latest ISM® Services PMI® Report. The Services PMI® registered 54.9 percent, the 27th consecutive month in expansion territory… "In September, the Services PMI® registered 54.9 percent, a decrease of 0.5 percentage point compared to August's figure of 55.4 percent.” Press release at… 
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/services-pmi-at-54-9-september-2026-ism-services-pmi-report-302898421.html
 
QUICK MARKET SUMMARY
-Monday the S&P 500 rose about 0.7% to 7774.
-VIX rose about 1% to 15.52.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 5.307% (compared to about this time prior market day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS
QLD – Added 5/28/2026. (Finally have a gain here. 2%, but it’s better than a loss. -10/5/26)
NVDA – Added 12/1/2025, 2/6/2026 & 8/3/2026
XLK – Added 6/5/2026. (11% gain. - 10/5/26)
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
At the close today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 14 gave Bear-signs and 10 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 -10 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 higher a BULLISH sign.
 
I’ve shown big increases in the daily bull-bear indicator spread chart with a blue vertical line.  Those points have been good buying opportunities. The most recent example was Friday and it was confirmed today.
 
As the S&P 500 approaches a new, all-time high, we get a chance to view the health of the market. As noted in the above article excerpt, THE MARKET HAS BECOME VERY NARROW, narrow breadth is a concern. We measure breadth looking at how many issues on the NYSE have advanced over varying time frames and new-high/new-low data. Neither look strong now, although to get an accurate reading we need to see how breadth is faring when the S&P 500 makes an all-time high. In Feb 2025, breadth was low prior to new, all-time highs, as it is now. It didn’t improve at the top and that preceded a 19% correction. Unless we see some rapid improvement in breadth, we may be facing a similar scenario this time.
 
The S&P 500 is only 0.3% below a new, all-time high.
 
BOTTOM LINE
I’m bullish, but we’ll need to check internals at a new, all-time high for the S&P 500. I expect one soon.
 
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
 
MONDAY 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 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.