Payroll Report … Unemployment … Factory Orders … 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.
 
CRUDE THRU THE STRAIT RECOVERS (NSJ)
“Is the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important chokepoints, returning to normal? Crude oil exports through the strait have returned to prewar levels, according to CNBC-cited data. Seven-day averages, as of last Monday, were 13.5 million barrels per day through the strait, roughly matching the prewar crude baseline. More notably, total crude exports from the Middle East region, including the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, reached 19.5 million bpd—above the prewar baseline of roughly 17 million bpd. But the headline numbers obscure an important metric: while crude has recovered, refined fuels have not. So global consumers are likely to still feel economic pain, even as oil begins moving from the Persian Gulf again in meaningful quantities…
…Refined-product flows through Hormuz remain suppressed. Prewar flow was about 3.6 million bpd.
The current seven-day average? Just 677,000 bpd. That’s about 81 percent below prewar levels.” Story At…
Iran just got handed a defeat in Hormuz: Crude exports are back to prewar levels even after Tehran repeatedly declared it closed
 
FAR LEFT DESTROYING DEMOCRAT PARTY (Mediaite)
“Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville launched into a blistering tirade against the far left, blaming progressive politics for inflicting damage on Democratic Party and declaring it has “not been right about anything, ever!... where would the Democratic Party be now, if there was never anything as idiotic as the identity, or for a lack of a better word, woke movement? How much damage did that cause us? That was insisted on by the far left!”
The longtime strategist then pointed to immigration policy under former President Joe Biden: “How much damage did the early Biden border policy, a nonpolicy, cost Democrats that was insisted on by the left-wing.” … “In the entire history of the Western world, in the whole history, the far left has not been right about anything, ever!” Carville declared.” Story at…
James Carville goes on verbal rampage against far left: 'Not been right about anything ever!'
My cmt: Don’t worry Dems. Trump and his sycophants have done a good job of destroying the Republican party.
 
TRUMP REGRETS SUPREME COURT NOMINATIONS (USA Today)
“President Donald Trump said he regrets nominating each of the three Supreme Court justices he tapped during his first term, criticizing Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett for ruling against the Trump administration after he picked them for the bench…"Yeah. Yeah, What can I do?" Trump said when asked whether he regrets nominating them. "I put them in. They voted against me too often. I was very—I gave them the position of a lifetime, and they vote against me often." – Story at…
Trump says he regrets nominating Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett to SCOTUS
My cmt: As we have known for some time, Trump has never read, nor does he care about, the Constitution.
 
PAYROLL REPORT / UNEMPLOYMENT (CNBC)
“Nonfarm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 29,000 for the month while the unemployment rate increased to 4.2%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for job growth of 84,000 and an unemployment rate of 4.1%.” Story at…
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/02/jobs-report-september-2026.html
 
FACTORY ORDERS (Reuters / News Observer)
“New orders for US factory goods barely rose in August as strong demand for electrical equipment, appliances and components was offset by weakness in commercial aircraft orders. Factory orders edged up 0.1%...” Story At…
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article317469768.html
 
QUICK MARKET SUMMARY
-Friday the S&P 500 rose about 0.7% to 7723.
-VIX declined about 7% to 15.31.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 5.273% (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, 18 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 improved from -18 to -10 (10 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 reversed higher a BULLISH sign.
 
Bad news is good news. Jobs came in light. A Fed hike seems less likely; bond yields fell; stocks rose. The Fed Watch indicator from CME Group had a 37% likelihood of a Fed hike at the 28 October meeting a few days ago. Now it has fallen to 23%.
 
The spread between New-Highs and new-lows made a large bullish move today. New-lows still outpace new-highs, but there were a lot fewer new-lows. That can be a good sign of a bottom, but it is not one of my bottom indicators. (I know; that makes no sense.)
 
As previously noted, the following condition remains: only 7 days have been up in the last month and that is an oversold signal. The 5-day, Ultra-Short-term, Fosback Hi/Lo Logic Indicator continues to signal “Buy,” another probable bottom signal. 
 
Bottom may not be the right term. The S&P 500 bounced up from its 50-dMA and that is a routine occurrence. Maybe we’ll finally put some distance between the Index and the 50-dMA.
 
All this talk about “bottoms” CNBC sellers, and “weakness”… the S&P 500 closed 1% below its all-time high, Friday. Obviously, I know nothing!
 
BOTTOM LINE
I’m cautiously bullish.
 
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
 
FRIDAY 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.