Mid-week market update: About two weeks ago, I wrote a post indicating that market had focused on the positives of a Trump presidency (see The Trump Presidency: A glass half-full?). Now it seems that market psychology is subtly shifting to a glass half-empty view. It is very revealing when the new nominees for the key...
It was nine years ago today, Humble Student of the Markets was born. My first post at the time was entitled What exactly are hedge funds hedging? I went on to show that hedge fund returns were correlated with equity returns. That makes conceptual sense, because hedge funds are in the business of taking risk and...
The stars seem to be aligning for a revival in gold prices. Prices saw a nice bounce today as equities weakened. The trends in other asset classes, such as stocks, bonds, and the US Dollar, look very stretched in the short-term and poised to reverse. From an inter-market analyst viewpoint, gold also seems to be...
Preface: Explaining our market timing models We maintain several market timing models, each with differing time horizons. The "Ultimate Market Timing Model" is a long-term market timing model based on the research outlined in our post, Building the ultimate market timing model. This model tends to generate only a handful of signals each decade. The...
Mid-week market update: Traders who rely on technical signals use two main kinds of trading systems. They either rely on trends or counter-trend signals. Trending systems capitalizes on spotting a bandwagon and jumping on it before the crowd to ride it to profit. By contrast, counter-trends systems depend on finding market extremes and positioning for...
Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group recently tweeted the following political calendar in Europe. After the surprising Trump win, the market is closely watching for electoral surprises. Next up is the Italian referendum on December 4, 2016, in which PM Matteo Renzi has asked for revisions to the constitution in order to break the endless...
Preface: Explaining our market timing models We maintain several market timing models, each with differing time horizons. The "Ultimate Market Timing Model" is a long-term market timing model based on the research outlined in our post, Building the ultimate market timing model. This model tends to generate only a handful of signals each decade. The...
I have been seeing analysis from various quarters raising concerns about the sustainability of the post-election stock market advance because of the poor breadth of the market. The chart below shows the NYSE A-D Line overlaid on top of the SP 500. As you can see from the chart, the NYSE A-D Line has been...
In many ways, Donald Trump is an economic enigma. Candidate Trump has in the past advocated wildly contradictory positions on the campaign trail. Sometime the market is left not knowing what to think. One little discussed topic but important topic is Trump's relationship with the Federal Reserve. What kind of Fed would he like to...
Preface: Explaining our market timing models We maintain several market timing models, each with differing time horizons. The "Ultimate Market Timing Model" is a long-term market timing model based on the research outlined in our post, Building the ultimate market timing model. This model tends to generate only a handful of signals each decade. The...
Mid-week market update: Today's market action should be a lesson to me to change model rankings based on overnight futures prices, which trades in a thin and volatile market (see What now?). To set the record straight, the Trend Model did not move to a neutral, or risk-off reading based on today's market action. The...
As I write these words, there is pandemonium in the markets. ES futures are down about 4%. My 16 year-old (Canadian) daughter received an offer of marriage over the internet from an American. I recognize that a lot of people view a Trump presidency with horror, but it's time to assess the investment implications of...
I got a few questions about an apparent contradiction in my last post (see Don't be fooled, Election 2016 isn't the Brexit referendum). I had highlighted a Mark Hulbert article indicating that former Value Line researcher director Sam Eisenstadt had a SPX target of 2270 to 2310 by April 2017. At about the same time,...
Preface: Explaining our market timing models We maintain several market timing models, each with differing time horizons. The "Ultimate Market Timing Model" is a long-term market timing model based on the research outlined in our post, Building the ultimate market timing model. This model tends to generate only a handful of signals each decade. The...
Mid-week market update: The stock market sold off today on no apparent fundamental or economic news. The most likely cause was the latest ABC/Washington Post tracking poll that showed that Trump had overtaken Clinton. The race had been tightening for several days, but this seemed to be the last straw for the markets, which threw...
