1. Moving The Markets
The S&P 500 ended nearly flat on Thursday as investors anxiously await Friday’s jobs report, though some gains in Internet shares helped lift the Nasdaq to positive territory late in the day. The anticipated (April) jobs report, which is expected to show that U.S. employment rose at its fastest pace in five months could give investors confidence that economic momentum will continue on through the next quarter.
Perhaps more convincing that the U.S. economy is trucking along is the fact that U.S. consumer spending recorded its largest gain in more than 4-1/2 years in March and factory activity accelerated last month. Remember that consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity. When adjusted for inflation, it increased 0.7% in March after advancing 0.4% in February.
Shares of DirecTV Inc (DTV) experienced a surprising pop today of 4.1% after the Wall Street Journal reported that AT&T Inc (T) had approached the company about a possible acquisition. Other gainers on the day included TripAdvisor Inc (TRIP) which added 3.4%, while Amazon.com (AMZN) rose 1.2%.
Overseas, many of the major markets were closed for May Day holidays. However, Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index jumped by 1.3% on the day, while the U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index rose by 0.4%.
Our 10 ETFs in the Spotlight went sideways; no new highs were made today but 9 of them are remaining in the green YTD.
2. ETFs in the Spotlight
In case you missed the announcement and description of this section, you can read it here again.
It features 10 broadly diversified ETFs from my HighVolume list as posted every Monday. Furthermore, they are screened for the lowest MaxDD% number meaning they have been showing better resistance to temporary sell offs than all others over the past year.
In other words, none of them ever triggered their 7.5% sell stop level during this time period, which included a variety of severe market pullbacks but no move into outright bear market territory.
Here are the 10 candidates:
All of them are in “buy” mode, meaning their prices are above their respective long term trend lines by the percentage indicated (%M/A).
Year to date, here’s how the above candidates have fared so far:
To be clear, the first table above shows the position of the various ETFs in relation to their respective long term trend lines (%M/A), while the second one tracks their trailing sell stops in the “Off High” column. The “Action” column will signal a “Sell” once the -7.5% point is taken out in the “Off High” column.
3. Domestic Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs)
Our Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs) were mixed and ended as follows:
Domestic TTI: +2.49% (last close +2.41%)
International TTI: +3.92% (last close +3.59%)
Disclosure: I am obliged to inform you that I, as well as advisory clients of mine, own some of these listed ETFs. Furthermore, they do not represent a specific investment recommendation for you, they merely show which ETFs from the universe I track are falling within the guidelines specified.
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