I have only listened to the first 5-10 minutes of this, but Jim Ropel gives his view of 2025 in light of all the personnel that Trump is appointing. Expects a good year of 8-15% with around 4 tests of the 50dma along the way. He says this is the most stock market friendly appointees he has every seen.
‘I’ve Never Seen Conditions This Bullish In My Life’: Hedge Fund Manager Jim Roppel | IBD - YouTube
12/10/24 - second rough day for the market. Yesterday was on higher volume and lifted the distribution day count to 2 for the Naz and 3 for the S&P. Today’s lower volume did add to the count, but a downside reversal on the Naz cannot make investors happy. The pain was much larger for the recent momentum stocks.
Major indexes remain above their 21dma and it is not yet time to “sell everything”.
Semiconductor stocks lagged again. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) fell 2.5% and closed just above its 200-day moving average. Nvidia (NVDA) suffered a bearish outside day and closed more than 2% below its 50-day line, falling 2.7% in light turnover. Group peer Broadcom (AVGO) slumped 4% in higher volume and also closed below its 50-day line with earnings due Thursday after the close.
IBD:
The real challenge for investors now is navigating an environment where extended stocks are the rule, not the exception. If you’ve taken some gains in some big winners and put fresh money to work, how are the new buys doing? Have they made meaningful progress? Or are they treading water or even below your entry?
If a new buy doesn’t go as planned, don’t be afraid to keep losses small. And if repeated new buys aren’t making headway, listen to the market’s message and take your foot off the accelerator.
12/11/24 - The markets seemed to have a change of character today thanks to the CPI meeting expectations and thus alleviating worries around rate cuts this month. The Naz was up 1.8% as big caps led the way
After another two-day “correction” that whacked some hot stocks, investors might have been getting worried, but all that was over today as the Naz hit a new high, finally clearing the 20,000 market. SPY and Naz are above their 21dma and small caps (IWM) found support right on the 21dma yesterday.
The short sell-off gives us the chance to see which stocks showed strength and which saw weak investors flee. A lot of stocks found support at the 21dma.
The Nasdaq is now 6.5% above its 50-day moving average, somewhat extended. The index can certainly become more extended, often peaking in 2024 when it’s 8%-9% above the 50-day. Still, the odds of a pullback would then rise significantly, with a higher risk that any such pullback would be significant. Sentiment remains high, with more than 60% of investment newsletter writers bullish for a fifth straight week.
Edit:
Since 1950, there have been eight times the S&P 500 gains 20% or more two years in a row. In six of those eight times, the third year saw positive gains, with an overall average and median return of 12% and 13%, respectively.
12/12/24
Market still tossing us around a bit. The yield on the 10-year has been up 4 days in a row and small caps hate that, so large caps will too.
The Dow Jones industrials and S&P 500 both dropped 0.5%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite lost 0.7%. The Russell 2000 index sold off 1.4% (and fell below 21dma). Volume rose on the Nasdaq, and was lower on the New York Stock Exchange from Wednesday’s session. That created a new distribution day for the Nasdaq, taking its count to three, which matches the S&P 500’s distribution.
IBD called this a mild distribution day for the Naz, partially because it was an inside day. Don’t want to see a number of distribution days get clustered together as that is more of a headwind.
The equal weight indexes are underperforming, thus indicating mega caps are outperforming. This could partially be because retail investors are buying index funds, which in turn have to buy more of the MAG-7 because of their weighting in the indexes.
New strong short term top warning/in from the MI indicators I follow. Also, bearish extreme developing on the daily PPO on the Russell 2000, better time to put in a 5-day TNA trade if feeling spicy:
| Short Term | Top Warning | 5 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Momentum, ST | PPO Daily | Bear | 12/13/24 | |
| Breadth, short term | SP600 PAMA20 | Bear | 12/13 | |
| Breadth, short term | PAMA5D %OFF 21dh | Bear | 12/13/24 | |
| Top, short term | PAMA Divergence Highs | Bear | 12/6/24 | |
| Top | PAA Count | Bear | 10/24/24 | |
| Top, breadth, ST | Trigger Security | |||
| Top | Recent Simple Top | Bear | 12/4/24 |
12/13/24 (Friday)
Market in pretty good shape, maybe a little frothy. Naz is leader now, SPY good, IWM, MDY stinking and sinking as ten-year rates go up.
China reported poor economic numbers Sunday night, but said they would support stocks and bonds, you know, until they can’t.
Fed reports Wed, I don’t expect big surprises, just that economy is strong so might not need to cut as much in 2025.
Webby’s technical charts confirm Naz is leader and SPY is good and IWM and MDY are bad. RSP equal weight also in pain. Webby RSI indicators do not show overbought Naz or SPY.
Investors worried and selling before Fed announcement 2PM Wed?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.6% in Tuesday’s stock market trading, its ninth straight decline, closing just below its 50-day line. The S&P 500 index gave up 0.4%, still holding the 21-day line. The Nasdaq composite slipped 0.3% after jumping to a record high Monday. The small-cap Russell 2000 slumped 1.2%, approaching the 50-day line. The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP) fell 0.8%, now clearly below the 50-day line.
Both indexes suffered mild distribution days, raising the count to three on the Nasdaq and four on the S&P 500. It’s not a count that raises a major red flag, but distribution days are worth monitoring because when they start to cluster, it almost always causes problems for a stock market uptrend.
Fed announces rate action Wed 2PM. As it stands now, futures traders at CME FedWatch only expect two rate cuts next year.
While that is the bet, the Fed might say the economy is pretty strong so no need to cut as fast as the market expects.
Well, that’s going to leave a mark.
Market and hot stocks really puked it up. Futures are slightly up, but no reason that will hold. Powell did indeed say it might take longer to make more cuts, but the market’s reaction was much worse than I expected. Now everyone may start seeing the negative side of the coin. For instance, when they were seeing the economic growth Trump might bring, now maybe they will see the inflation that growth might bring. All those counter arguments have been out there, but have been blindly ignored.
We may be in for an overreaction. Note too, that we have been having 2-3 day corrections, so look for that. Look for stocks and indexes to move above 50dma and stay above as a sign of strength. No need to catch a falling knife. .
IBD reduces exposure to 60-80%. Big distribution day today, giving Naz 4 and S&P 500.
Oh, remember how they have been saying “we haven’t even had a 10% correction this year”. Jinx.
12/19/24 It seems like the markets did not get worse since the finished slightly positive (S&P, Naz), but their early move up failed and resulted in a downside reversal that ended near to bottom of today’s trading range.
The ten-year treasury has been governor or market strength. When it goes down, the markets go up, particularly small caps. When it gets near 4.5%, markets get weak and when it goes above, markets get bad. We are now above 4.5%…
PCE comes out Friday morning and could impact the market either way. Seems like the Fed speak was basically saying 2 cuts in 2025 and probably later than you thought. The market needs to adjust to that new timeframe and it should not take too long to do that. Maybe just yesterday was enough and now we move along sideways for a bit.
This is the season for strong markets, but did the Fed play the Grinch this year?
We don’t want to trade on predictions and speculation, just the day-to-day action. Right now the action says be cautious.
Oh, remember when Warren Buffet started raising billions in cash and people laughed because he was missing the big rally? Maybe his Spidey sense was tingling.
They brought up the 1999 analog again in Friday’s video. Webby was wondering if the dip we just experienced was going to be similar to Jan 2000. I also see a dip in Dec 1999, maybe we are there. Either way, it was just a blip.
They also set MarketSurge calendar back to 11/15/91, 8/312020, 10/1389 and 5/17/2017 so show similar plunges to the 50dma and what happened next. Some bounce and kept going up, some meandered about for a while and some went do. Good exercise if you charts allow it. (Nasdaq charts)
12/20/24 (Friday)
Quite the exiting week. Powell freaks out the markets and S&P goes below 50 and Naz goes below 21dma, but not really too close to the 50dma. Equal weights feel more pain.
Friday, the PCE came out and the markets opened down, but reversed up, partially on PCE, but also on Goolsbee counterbalancing Powell’s words. Later, it seemed like Congress found a way to avoid a shutdown. Webby says it made sense and was even wise to take some off the table on Wednesday as it was not possible to know how bad it would get, but once we had the day-3 upside reversal on Friday, you had to start buying something.
Cramer noted that the S&P oscillator went below negative 8, which is extremely oversold so he was issuing some buy alerts to the club on Thursday. The PCE came out Friday and was good news, so with the market so oversold, it was not a surprise to see it jump and the shorts to get squeezed.
The Naz finished above the 21dma with the strongest daily volume in a long time. SPY closed above the 50dma. We now want to see their lows living above the trendlines to show us more strength.
The 10-year Treasury yield jumped 12.5 basis points to 4.52% even with Friday’s modest decline. The two-week gain of 37 basis points — the most in over two years — is a headwind for the market
With one more quarter to go, FactSet reported, as of Dec. 13, analysts project an overall 9.5% earnings gain for S&P 500 companies in 2024. Analysts see Nvidia (NVDA), Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet and Meta Platforms (META) delivering combined earnings growth of 33% for 2024.
Nasdaq chart for Xmas last year. At the end of 2023, there was a 3-legs down pattern that bottomed at the end of October (and a Follow Through Day). This year we had the resolution of election uncertainty.
The vertical red line is Xmas day with market closed.
Just something to look at when thinking about the near-term market from here.
12/27/24 (Friday)
I posted details in the Webby TA thread, but after the post-Powell drop and subsequent upside reversal, the expectations were a continuation higher. When that failed to happen on Thursday, he and Swing Trader bailed and avoided the Friday drop.
12/30/24 - another bad day for the market. Markets down hard in the morning, but finished off the lows. Volume was higher, so each added a distribution day to take it to 6. This caused IBD to lower exposure to 60-80%. Santa is giving coal this year.
12/31/24: Markets continue to deteriorate, Nasdaq now has 7 distribution days and S&P has 6. Making it worse, we have had 5 in the last 10 days, and clusters of distribution days are a bad sign. This caused IBD to lower recommended exposure to 40-60% from 60-80% the day before and 80-100% at day before that.
Many top stocks are testing their 10-week lines, but if an increasing number of leading growth stocks start to break support at their 10-week lines, it would be another signal to raise more cash.
The first few days of a new year often see tax-related selling. That could spur technical damage for the Nasdaq and various leaders that are already under pressure.
For 2024, the S&P 500 jumped 23.3% after 2023’s 24.2% advance, capping a two-year gain of 53.2%, the best since 1997-98. The Nasdaq leaped 28.6% in 2024. The Dow Jones advanced 12.9% in the past year.
1/2/25 - market continues to decline.
Recommended exposure 40-60%. 7 distribution days on Naz 6 on S&P. It is a good time to build watchlists and examine the charts with high relative strength, as these are the most likely winners when the market gets hot again.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.4% for its fourth consecutive loss, while the S&P 500 lost 0.2%. For the S&P, it was the fifth straight drop and third straight session below its 50-day moving average. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite declined less than 0.2%, making it five straight down days. The small-cap Russell 2000 index outperformed with a 0.1% gain, although it had been up as much as 1.4%. (another ugly reversal for the small caps)
The Nasdaq just held its 50-day line, but is riding a five-day losing streak. And it’s the best-looking index by far. If the Nasdaq decisively breaks the 50-day it could be a breaking point for an ailing market rally
Smallcaps were the worst (save real estate), but may have bottomed this week. Breadth is TERRIBLE, but Naz and S&P generally flatter than down like smallcaps.
Small caps at a bit of a reflection point.
Daily chart with a zone of support and resistance, as well as a short symmetrical triangle. RSI and PPO also at attitude adjustment points.
Weekly chart at bottom of a channel. Wkly RSI turning up at 50.
Short term is suggestive of move back up, awaiting confirmation. Long term likely to be markedly influenced by inflation +/- tariff influence.
Lakedog
Lake, thanks, I agree and was planning on re-starting some positions. The RS has been heading up a bit on the daily.
1/3/25: Friday.
As bad as Thursday was, Friday was the opposite. Exposure was raised back up to 60-80%. There are still 7 distribution days for Naz and 6 for S&P, so by no means are we “all clear”.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.8% but action on the other indexes was more noteworthy. The S&P 500 rose 1.3% and closed almost exactly at the 50-day moving average. The Nasdaq composite rebounded from that important level, rising an impressive 1.8% (but with lower volume). NVDA lead with a 4.5% gain and a close above the 50dma and 21dma, probably a buy signal for many in light of the strong market. Russell up 1.7%, but still below 50dma. Naz is the strongest and closed above 21dma. We need the Naz to have daily lows stay above the 21dma and we need the S&P to get above the 50dma then have lows stay above.
Santa Claus rally was Ho, Ho, Humm.
Friday marked the end of the Santa Claus Rally period, which is defined as the last five trading days of the year and the first two days of the new year. The S&P lost 0.5%, the Dow 0.4% and the Nasdaq 0.7% during that period this time around.
Historically, that can mean a slump or even a bear market this year, according to the Stock Trader’s Almanac. But it’s worth noting that the Nasdaq fell the previous three Santa Rally periods and still had superb gains in 2023 and 2024.
1/6/25 - Morning update
IBD:
Dow Jones futures rose Monday morning, along with S&P 500 futures and especially Nasdaq futures, on a report that President-elect Donald Trump is mulling tariff hikes only on critical imports.
QQQ up 1%. “Heat” stocks like CRDO, HOOD, RDDT, ALAB, AFRM, PAYO, PSTG, ROOT, SOUN, RBRK. I suppose if you have a “heat” stock that does nothing today, it might be a bad sign for that stock.
I think Webby would call this a confirmation of yesterday’s strength. We would look for a close near the top of the range, while a downside reversal will be bad news. Jensen Huang speaks at CES after the close, that could be a catalyst for a third good day.
1999 Analog or Precedent.
The fall of 1999 and a strong and steady move up to January. Jan got choppy and it was easy to think it might be over. However, the Naz went up another 25% through early March, then it tanked. It was a choppy run, but profitable. Just something to be aware of. Also, be prepared to completely toss this idea of an analog if there is a drastic divergence.
