Retail Sales ... Jobless Claims ... Empire State Manufacturing... Philadelphia FED Index ... Industrial Production … Coronavirus (Covid-19) … Stock Market Analysis … ETF Trading … Dow 30 Ranking

“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.

 

“The big money is not in the buying and selling. But in the waiting.” - Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway

 

“In my decades of investing experience, I have not seen such mindless and uninformed speculation as I have witnessed recently. Indeed, in nominal dollar terms...it is far in excess of the dot.com boom.” – Doug Cass.

 

RETAIL SALES (APnews)

“Newly vaccinated and armed with $1,400 stimulus checks, Americans went on a spending spree last month, buying new clothes and going out to eat again. Retail sales surged a seasonally adjusted 9.8%...

https://apnews.com/article/retail-sales-economy-2f20ee18d72ed056412fde0fe94f9fae

 

JOBLESS CLAIMS (Yahoo.com)

“New weekly jobless claims plunged to a pandemic-era low after last week's unexpected jump, with the labor market's choppy recovery closely following the trajectory of new COVID-19 infections...Initial jobless claims, week ended April 10: 576,000 vs. 700,000 expected and a revised 769,000 during the prior week...” Story at... 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/weekly-jobless-claims-week-ended-april-10-2021-pandemic-175704861-180657616-183107044.html

 

EMPIRE STATE MANUFACTURING (Seeking Alpha)

“Empire State Manufacturing Index surges in April. April Empire State Manufacturing Index: +26.30 vs. +17.0 consensus and +17.4 prior.” Data from...

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3682099-empire-state-manufacturing-index-surges-in-april

 

PHILADELPHIA FED INDEX (fxStreet)

“The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia reported on Thursday that the headline Manufacturing Activity Index of the Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey improved to 50.2 in April from 44.5 in March.” Data from...

https://www.fxstreet.com/news/us-philadelphia-fed-manufacturing-index-improves-to-502-in-april-vs-42-expected-202104151259

 

INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION (San Diego Union-Tribune)

“American industry rebounded last month as the United States recovered from an unusually frigid February. Industrial production — including output at factories, mines and utilities — rose 1.4% in March...” Story at...

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/nation/story/2021-04-15/u-s-industrial-production-rises-1-4-as-weather-warms

 

CORONAVIRUS (NTSM)

Here’s the latest from the COVID19 Johns Hopkins website as of 8:15pm Thursday. US total case numbers are on the left axis; daily numbers are on the right side of the graph with the 10-dMA of daily numbers in Green.

MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS

-Thursday the S&P 500 rose about 1.1% to 4172.

-VIX slipped about 3% to 16.49.

-The yield on the 10-year Treasury dipped to 1.575%.

 

Today was a statistically significant up-day. That just means that the price-volume move exceeded my statistical parameters. Statistics show that a statistically-significant, up-day is followed by a down-day about 60% of the time.  Statistically-significant, up-days almost always coincide with tops, but not all statistically-significant, up-days occur at tops. Today could be a top - there are 4 top indicators giving a warning - but it is not quite enough to issue a top signal.

 

Top Indicators that are currently warning: (1) The Index is too far above its 200-dMA; (2) RSI is overbought; (3) the Index is too far ahead of breadth; (4) and the Index is too far ahead of Money Trend.

 

If Bollinger bands were overbought, I’d say we were at a top. As it is, maybe, maybe not. Late day action is still bullish, so it appears that the Pros haven’t given up on the rally yet.

 

Again, today, we had very high, unchanged-volume.  In theory this in an indication that investors are confused and it can signal a reversal, in this case down. I’ve tried to develop an indicator based on this without much success.  Sometimes it’s true; sometimes not. It was about this high at the top on 12 Feb that preceded a small pullback of 4%, but it has been higher since then with no dip.

 

The market remains relatively broad; 9.7% of all issues traded on the NYSE made new, 52-week highs when the S&P 500 made a new all-time high on 15 April 13 Apr. This value is above average, and suggests that a correction, if we have one, would be less than a 10% drop.

 

The daily sum of 20 Indicators improved from +2 to +3 (a positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the 10-day smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations rose from +66 to +67 (These numbers sometimes change after I post the blog based on data that comes in late.) Most of these indicators are short-term and many are trend following.

 

The Long Term NTSM indicator ensemble remained BUY. Price, VIX & Volume are bullish; Sentiment is neutral.

 

I remain cautiously Bullish, but I did reduce my %-invested in stocks to 50% on Monday and I took profits in Intel (INTC) Wednesday (of course it was up today). That cut my %-invested to about 45%. (INTC has been weak recently even though its momentum is still comparably good.) We are getting close to a pullback of some kind – today could have been a top...or not. Signals are not quite there yet, but the market doesn’t always wait for my signals.

 

MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:

TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily)

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

 

TODAY’S RANKING OF THE DOW 30 STOCKS (Ranked Daily)

Here’s the revised DOW 30 and its momentum analysis. 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)

Market Internals remained NEUTRAL on the market.

 

Market Internals are a decent trend-following analysis of current market action, but should not be used alone for short term trading. They are usually right, but they are often late.  They are most useful when they diverge from the Index. 

 

Using the Short-term indicator in 2018 in SPY would have made a 5% gain instead of a 6% loss for buy-and-hold. The methodology was Buy on a POSITIVE indication and Sell on a NEGATIVE indication and stay out until the next POSITIVE indication. The back-test included 13-buys and 13-sells, or a trade every 2-weeks on average.  

As of 12 April, my stock-allocation is about 45% invested in stocks. You may wish to have a higher or lower % invested in stocks depending on your risk tolerance. 50% is a conservative position that I consider fully invested for most retirees.

 

As a retiree, 50% in the stock market is about fully invested for me – it is a cautious and conservative number. If I feel very confident, I might go to 60%; if a correction is deep enough, and I can call a bottom, 80% would not be out of the question.

 

The markets have not retested the lows on recent corrections and that left me under-invested on the bounces. I will need to put less reliance on retests in the future.

FED Beige Book ... EIA Crude Inventories … Coronavirus (Covid-19) … Stock Market Analysis … ETF Trading … Dow 30 Ranking

FED BEIGE BOOK (Reuters)

“The U.S. economy picked up speed going into the spring on the back of growing confidence among consumers, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell said it is on track for stronger growth and hiring in the coming months... Powell and other Fed officials, however, say the brighter economic forecasts and brief period of higher inflation will not affect monetary policy, and the central bank will keep its support in place until the crisis is over.” Story at...

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-fed/wrapup-1-us-economy-gaining-momentum-as-consumers-ditch-the-winter-blues-fed-says-idUSL1N2M72KA

 

EIA CRUDE INVENTORIES (EIA)

“U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 5.9 million barrels from the previous week. At 492.4 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 1% above the five-year average for this time of year.” Press release at...

https://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/wpsrsummary.pdf

 

CORONAVIRUS (NTSM)

Here’s the latest from the COVID19 Johns Hopkins website as of 5:00pm Wednesday. US total case numbers are on the left axis; daily numbers are on the right side of the graph with the 10-dMA of daily numbers in Green.

MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS

-Wednesday the S&P 500 dropped about 0.4% to 4125.

-VIX rose about 3% to 17.07.

-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.632%.

 

Again, today, we saw very high, unchanged-volume on the NYSE.  In theory this in an indication that investors are confused and it can signal a reversal, in this case down. I’ve tried to develop an indicator based on this without much success.  Sometimes it’s true; sometimes not. It was about this high at the top on 12 Feb that preceded a small pullback of 4%, but it has been higher since then with no dip.

 

Top indicators are the same as yesterday and remain stretched. They are close to issuing a top-warning. Top Indicators that are currently warning: (1) The Index is too far above its 200-dMA; (2) RSI is overbought; (3) the Index is too far ahead of breadth; (4) and the Index is too far ahead of Money Trend.

 

The market remains relatively broad; 7.2% of all issues traded on the NYSE made new, 52-week highs when the S&P 500 made a new all-time high on 13 Apr. This value is above average, and suggests that a correction, if we have one, would be less than a 10% drop.

 

The daily sum of 20 Indicators declined from +4 to +2 (a positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the 10-day smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations remained +66 (These numbers sometimes change after I post the blog based on data that comes in late.) Most of these indicators are short-term and many are trend following.

 

The Long Term NTSM indicator ensemble remained BUY. Price, VIX & Volume are bullish; Sentiment is neutral.

 

I remain cautiously Bullish, but I did reduce my %-invested in stocks to 50% on Monday and I took profits in Intel (INTC) today. That cut my %-invested to about 45%. (INTC has been weak recently even though its momentum is still comparably good.) I think we are getting close to a pullback of some kind.

 

MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:

TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily)

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

 

TODAY’S RANKING OF THE DOW 30 STOCKS (Ranked Daily)

Here’s the revised DOW 30 and its momentum analysis. 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)

Market Internals remained NEUTRAL on the market.

 

Market Internals are a decent trend-following analysis of current market action, but should not be used alone for short term trading. They are usually right, but they are often late.  They are most useful when they diverge from the Index.  

 

Using the Short-term indicator in 2018 in SPY would have made a 5% gain instead of a 6% loss for buy-and-hold. The methodology was Buy on a POSITIVE indication and Sell on a NEGATIVE indication and stay out until the next POSITIVE indication. The back-test included 13-buys and 13-sells, or a trade every 2-weeks on average.  

As of 12 April, my stock-allocation is about 45% invested in stocks. You may wish to have a higher or lower % invested in stocks depending on your risk tolerance. 50% is a conservative position that I consider fully invested for most retirees.

 

As a retiree, 50% in the stock market is about fully invested for me – it is a cautious and conservative number. If I feel very confident, I might go to 60%; if a correction is deep enough, and I can call a bottom, 80% would not be out of the question.

 

The markets have not retested the lows on recent corrections and that left me under-invested on the bounces. I will need to put less reliance on retests in the future.

 

Small Business Optimism ... Consumer Price Index (CPI) … Fake News over Georgia Voting Law ... Coronavirus (Covid-19) … Stock Market Analysis … ETF Trading … Dow 30 Ranking

“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.

 

“The big money is not in the buying and selling. But in the waiting.” - Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway

 

“In my decades of investing experience, I have not seen such mindless and uninformed speculation as I have witnessed recently. Indeed, in nominal dollar terms...it is far in excess of the dot.com boom.” – Doug Cass.

 

SMALL BUSINESS OPTIMISM (Morningstar)

“Optimism among small-business owners in the U.S. continued to rise in March on the back of the passage of the American Rescue Plan and the easing of Covid-19 restrictions in many states. The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index came in at 98.2 in March, up 2.4 points from the previous month...” Story at...

https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/202104133425/optimism-among-us-small-businesses-increases-further-in-march-nfib

 

CPI (CNBC)

“Consumer prices shot higher in March, given a boost by a strong economic recovery and year-economy, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. The consumer price index rose 0.6% from the previous month but 2.6% from the same period a year ago.”  Story at... 

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/13/us-consumer-price-index-march-2021.html

 

FAKE NEWS OUTRAGE OVER GEORGIA VOTING LAW COSTING JOBS (MSN.com)

“...After Georgia's General Assembly passed SB 202 and Governor Brian Kemp signed the bill, a powerful misinformation machine quickly kicked into gear...

...Senator Chuck Schumer was one of the first out of the gate, stating the General Assembly "recently passed a bill to eliminate early voting on Sunday"—a claim which was patently false. The law actually doubles the required days of early voting.

...President Biden himself weighed in, calling Georgia's new election law "Jim Crow on steroids." His basis for the claim? Biden said that the new Georgia law limits early voting hours—another obvious falsehood. The new law actually increases both early voting hours and the number of weekend voting days. These false claims were so blatant that even The Washington Post gave Biden four Pinocchios, while Politifact fact-checked Schumer's lie...

...Georgia Senate Bill 62, which calls for ballots in the state of Georgia to have a watermark, seal and other security elements to include the precinct number. These are simply best practices for voting that any ordinary Georgian should support. The bill even received numerous Democratic votes...

... You don't have to agree with Georgia's common-sense election integrity laws to see the threat that these lies pose to democracy.”- John Albers, Senator, Georgia General Assembly, 56th district. Story at...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-fake-news-outrage-over-georgias-voting-law-is-costing-jobs%e2%80%94starting-with-mine-opinion/ar-BB1fA1df?ocid=DELLDHP17&li=BBnb7Kz

 

CORONAVIRUS (NTSM)

Here’s the latest from the COVID19 Johns Hopkins website as of 6:30pm Tuesday. US total case numbers are on the left axis; daily numbers are on the right side of the graph with the 10-dMA of daily numbers in Green.

 

MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS

-Tuesday the S&P 500 rose about 0.3% to 4142.

-VIX dipped about 1% to 16.71.

-The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 1.617%.

 

Investors are buying Utilities (XLE-ETF) at a faster pace than the S&P 500.  This is not a good sign and suggests a correction may be coming. Top indicators are close to issuing a top-warning: The Index is too far above its 200-dMA; RSI is overbought; the Index is too far ahead of breadth; and the Index is too far ahead of Money Trend.

 

Today, we had very high, unchanged-volume.  In theory this in an indication that investors are confused and it can signal a reversal, in this case down. I’ve tried to develop an indicator based on this without much success.  Sometimes it’s true; sometimes not. It was about this high at the top on 12 Feb that preceded a small pullback of 4%, but it has been higher since then with no dip.

 

The market remains relatively broad; 7.2% of all issues traded on the NYSE made new, 52-week highs when the S&P 500 made a new all-time today, 13 Apr. This value is above average, and suggests that a correction, if we have one, would be less than a 10% drop.

 

The daily sum of 20 Indicators declined from +7 to +4 (a positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the 10-day smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations improved from +59 to +66 (These numbers sometimes change after I post the blog based on data that comes in late.) Most of these indicators are short-term and many are trend following.

 

The Long Term NTSM indicator ensemble remained BUY. Price & Volume are bullish; VIX & Sentiment are neutral.

 

I remain cautiously Bullish, but I did reduce my %-invested in stocks to 50% on Monday. I think we are getting close to a pullback of some kind.

 

MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:

TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily)

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

 

TODAY’S RANKING OF THE DOW 30 STOCKS (Ranked Daily)

Here’s the revised DOW 30 and its momentum analysis. 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

 

TUESDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)

Market Internals remained NEUTRAL on the market.

 

Market Internals are a decent trend-following analysis of current market action, but should not be used alone for short term trading. They are usually right, but they are often late.  They are most useful when they diverge from the Index. 

 

Using the Short-term indicator in 2018 in SPY would have made a 5% gain instead of a 6% loss for buy-and-hold. The methodology was Buy on a POSITIVE indication and Sell on a NEGATIVE indication and stay out until the next POSITIVE indication. The back-test included 13-buys and 13-sells, or a trade every 2-weeks on average.  

As of 12 April, my stock-allocation is about 50% invested in stocks. You may wish to have a higher or lower % invested in stocks depending on your risk tolerance. 50% is a conservative position that I consider fully invested for most retirees.

 

As a retiree, 50% in the stock market is about fully invested for me – it is a cautious and conservative number. If I feel very confident, I might go to 60%; if a correction is deep enough, and I can call a bottom, 80% would not be out of the question.

 

The markets have not retested the lows on recent corrections and that left me under-invested on the bounces. I will need to put less reliance on retests in the future.

 

Biden to Pack Supreme Court? … Coronavirus (Covid-19) … Stock Market Analysis … ETF Trading … Dow 30 Ranking

“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.

 

“The big money is not in the buying and selling. But in the waiting.” - Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway

 

“In my decades of investing experience, I have not seen such mindless and uninformed speculation as I have witnessed recently. Indeed, in nominal dollar terms...it is far in excess of the dot.com boom.” – Doug Cass.

 

BIDDEN ORDERS STUDY OF SUPREME COURT CHANGES (WSJ)

“President Biden ordered a commission to study Supreme Court changes such as adding seats, an idea pushed by progressives in his party that faces strong opposition from congressional Republicans... Advocates for expanding the court say that the conservative majority is out of sync with both public views and mainstream legal thinking and that increasing the number of justices would correct that.”  Story at... 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-to-sign-executive-order-creating-commission-on-supreme-court-changes-11617983199

 

HOW FDR TRIED TO PACK THE COURT (History.com)

“Over the course of the Depression, Roosevelt was pushing through legislation and, beginning in May 1935, the Supreme Court began to strike down a number of the New Deal laws. “Over the next 13 months, the court struck down more pieces of legislation than at any other time in U.S. history,” Woolner says. Roosevelt’s first New Deal program—in particular, its centerpiece, the National Recovery Administration, along with parts of the Agricultural Adjustment Act—had been struck down by unanimous and near-unanimous votes.

 

This frustrated Roosevelt and got him thinking about adding justices to the court, says Peter Charles Hoffer, history professor at the University of Georgia and author of The Supreme Court: An Essential History. When he won the election of 1936 in a landslide, Roosevelt decided to float the plan. It met instant opposition.

 

While it was never voted on in Congress, the Supreme Court justices went public in their opposition to it. And a majority of the public never supported the bill, either, says Barbara A. Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center....“It was never realistic that this plan would pass,” Perry says. “Roosevelt badly miscalculated reverence for the Court and its independence from an overreaching president.” From...

https://www.history.com/news/franklin-roosevelt-tried-packing-supreme-court

 

CORONAVIRUS (NTSM)

Here’s the latest from the COVID19 Johns Hopkins website as of 5:30pm Monday. US total case numbers are on the left axis; daily numbers are on the right side of the graph with the 10-dMA of daily numbers in Green.

MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS

-Monday the S&P 500 was down about a point to 4128.

-VIX rose about 1% to 16.91.

-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.669%.

 

The daily sum of 20 Indicators declined from +8 to +7 (a positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the 10-day smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations improved from +51 to +59 (These numbers sometimes change after I post the blog based on data that comes in late.) Most of these indicators are short-term and many are trend following.

 

The Long Term NTSM indicator ensemble remained BUY. Price, VIX & Volume are bullish; Sentiment is neutral.

 

I remain Bullish, but I reduced the % invested in stocks to 50% on Monday. I am not calling for a top, but I saw enough issues last week to take a little off the table. 

 

MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:

TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily)

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

 

TODAY’S RANKING OF THE DOW 30 STOCKS (Ranked Daily)

Here’s the revised DOW 30 and its momentum analysis. 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

 

INTEL (Seeking Alpha)

“During today's GTC event, Nvidia (NVDA +2.7%) announces its first data center CPU, which the company says will deliver 10x the performance of today's fastest servers on the most complex and high-performance workloads. Availability is expected at the beginning of 2023. Intel (INTC -4.0%) and AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) shares are lower after the news.” Story at...

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3681070-nvidia-launches-first-data-center-cpu-and-next-gen-bluefield-dpu

My cmt: It will be several years before Nvidia starts making CPUs and, as reported on CNBC, the CPU market they plan to enter is a small part of Intel’s business.

 

 

MONDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)

Market Internals slipped to NEUTRAL on the market.

 

Market Internals are a decent trend-following analysis of current market action, but should not be used alone for short term trading. They are usually right, but they are often late.  They are most useful when they diverge from the Index. 

 

Using the Short-term indicator in 2018 in SPY would have made a 5% gain instead of a 6% loss for buy-and-hold. The methodology was Buy on a POSITIVE indication and Sell on a NEGATIVE indication and stay out until the next POSITIVE indication. The back-test included 13-buys and 13-sells, or a trade every 2-weeks on average.  

 

As of 12 April, my stock-allocation is about 50% invested in stocks. You may wish to have a higher or lower % invested in stocks depending on your risk tolerance. 50% is a conservative position that I consider fully invested for most retirees.

 

As a retiree, 50% in the stock market is about fully invested for me – it is a cautious and conservative number. If I feel very confident, I might go to 60%; if a correction is deep enough, and I can call a bottom, 80% would not be out of the question.

 

The markets have not retested the lows on recent corrections and that left me under-invested on the bounces. I will need to put less reliance on retests in the future.

PPI (Producer Price Index) … Coronavirus (Covid-19) … Stock Market Analysis … ETF Trading … Dow 30 Ranking

“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.

 

“The big money is not in the buying and selling. But in the waiting.” - Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway

 

“In my decades of investing experience, I have not seen such mindless and uninformed speculation as I have witnessed recently. Indeed, in nominal dollar terms...it is far in excess of the dot.com boom.” – Doug Cass.

PPI (FoxBusiness)

“Producer prices rose in March by the fastest annual pace in 9 ½ years as the reopening of the U.S. economy forged ahead with more Americans receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. The Labor Department said Friday that its producer price index for final demand rose 4.2% year over year, quickening from last month’s 2.8% increase.” Story at...

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/producer-prices-surge-by-most-since-september-2011

 

TECH BACK IN VOGUE (Heritage Capital)

“Stocks and the financial markets continue to behave well. While we remain in the world of epic greed and euphoria it is still balanced off by a solid market foundation and upward momentum. Eventually one will fade which will lead to an outsized move in one direction. My strong sense is that it will be the latter and a 10%+ correction will ensue down the road.” – Paul Schatz, President, Heritage Capital. Commentary at...

https://investfortomorrow.com/blog/tech-back-in-vogue-as-earnings-season-set-to-begin/

 

CORONAVIRUS (NTSM)

Here’s the latest from the COVID19 Johns Hopkins website as of 5:15pm Friday. US total case numbers are on the left axis; daily numbers are on the right side of the graph with the 10-dMA of daily numbers in Green.

MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS

-Friday the S&P 500 rose about 0.8% to 4129.

-VIX dipped about 1% to 16.69.

-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.660%.

 

Here’s Friday’s run-down of some important indicators. These tend to be both long-term and short-term, so they are somewhat different than the 20 that I report on daily.

 

BULL SIGNS

-The 10-dMA of issues advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) is above 50%

-The 50-dMA % of issues advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) is above 50%.

-The 100-dMA of the % of issues advancing on the NYSE (Breadth) is above 50%.

-The smoothed advancing volume on the NYSE is rising.

-MACD of the percentage of issues advancing on the NYSE (breadth) made a bullish crossover 5 Apr.

-MACD of S&P 500 price made a bullish crossover 26 Mar. (It had been bearish for a few days.)

-My Money Trend indicator.

-McClellan Oscillator is bullish.

-Short-term new-high/new-low data is rising.

-The Smart Money (late-day action) is now headed up. This indicator is based on the Smart Money Indicator (a variant of the indicator developed by Don Hayes).

-The size of up-moves has been larger than the size of down-moves over the last month.

-VIX is falling sharply - bullish.

-The 5-10-20 Timer System is BUY; the 5-dEMA and 10-dEMA are both above the 20-dEMA. 

-The S&P 500 is outperforming Utilities ETF (XLU).

-63% of the 15-ETFs that I track have been up over the last 10-days.

 

NEUTRAL

-There have been 2 Statistically-Significant days in the last 15-days. This signal can be Bearish or Bullish. Now it’s neutral.

-Distribution warnings. There was a follow-thru day 26 March and that cancels all prior Distribution Days.

-Non-crash Sentiment indicator remains neutral, but it is too bullish and that means it is leaning bearish.

-Breadth on the NYSE compared to the S&P 500 index is neutral, but it is very close to giving a bear signal.

-The Fosback High-Low Logic Index is neutral.

-The market has broadened out; 8.1% of all issues traded on the NYSE made new, 52-week highs when the S&P 500 made a new all-time-high 9 Apr. (there is no bullish signal for this indicator.) Currently, the value is above average, but this number has been falling.

-Long-term new-high/new-low data is flat.

-We’ve seen 7 up-days over the last 10-days. Neutral, but close to bearish.

-There have been 12 up-days over the last 20 days. Neutral

-Statistically, the S&P 500 gave a panic-signal, 27 January. The signal has expired.

-8 Mar, the 52-week, New-high/new-low ratio improved by 3.5 standard deviations very bullish, but the signal has expired.

 

BEAR SIGNS

-The S&P 500 is 15.4% above its 200-dMA (Sell point is 12%.); when Sentiment is considered, the signal is also bearish.

-Overbought/Oversold Index (Advance/Decline Ratio) is overbought.

-Bollinger Bands overbought.

-RSI.

-Slope of the 40-dMA of New-highs is falling.

-Cyclical Industrials (XLI-ETF) are under-performing the S&P 500.

 

On Friday, 21 February, 2 days after the top of the Coronavirus pullback, there were 10 bear-signs and 1 bull-sign. Now there are 6 bear-signs and 10 bull-signs. Last week, there were 8 bear-signs and 15 bull-signs.

 

The Bull-signs outnumbered the Bear-signs, but all is not well.  Among those Bear signs are 3 Top-indicators that are giving a sell-signal: (1) RSI, (2) Bollinger Bands and (3) the stretched % above the 200-dMA. The Index is at its upper trend line and I am surprised at how fast the S&P got there. 

 

The daily sum of 20 Indicators declined from +10 to +8 (a positive number is bullish; negatives are bearish); the 10-day smoothed sum that smooths the daily fluctuations improved from +36 to +51 (These numbers sometimes change after I post the blog based on data that comes in late.) Most of these indicators are short-term and many are trend following.

 

The Long Term NTSM indicator ensemble remained BUY. Price, VIX & Volume are bullish; Sentiment is neutral.

 

I remain Bullish, but I am going to reduce the % invested in stocks to 50% on Monday, depending on market action. We are seeing enough issues to take a little off the table. 

 

MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:

TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily)

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

 

TODAY’S RANKING OF THE DOW 30 STOCKS (Ranked Daily)

Here’s the revised DOW 30 and its momentum analysis. 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)

Market Internals remained BULLISH on the market.

 

Market Internals are a decent trend-following analysis of current market action, but should not be used alone for short term trading. They are usually right, but they are often late.  They are most useful when they diverge from the Index. 

 

Using the Short-term indicator in 2018 in SPY would have made a 5% gain instead of a 6% loss for buy-and-hold. The methodology was Buy on a POSITIVE indication and Sell on a NEGATIVE indication and stay out until the next POSITIVE indication. The back-test included 13-buys and 13-sells, or a trade every 2-weeks on average.  

As of 9 March, my stock-allocation is about 60% invested in stocks. I plan to reduce the % to 50% Monday, depending on market action. You may wish to have a higher or lower % invested in stocks depending on your risk tolerance. 50% is a conservative position that I consider fully invested for most retirees.

 

As a retiree, 50% in the stock market is about fully invested for me – it is a cautious and conservative number. If I feel very confident, I might go to 60%; if a correction is deep enough, and I can call a bottom, 80% would not be out of the question.

 

The markets have not retested the lows on recent corrections and that left me under-invested on the bounces. I will need to put less reliance on retests in the future.