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
Trend Asset Allocation Model is an asset allocation model that applies trend-following principles based on the inputs of global stock and commodity prices. This model has a shorter time horizon and tends to turn over about 4-6 times a year. The performance and full details of a model portfolio based on the out-of-sample signals of the Trend Model can be found
here.
My inner trader uses a
trading model, which is a blend of price momentum (is the Trend Model becoming more bullish, or bearish?) and overbought/oversold extremes (don’t buy if the trend is overbought, and vice versa). Subscribers receive real-time alerts of model changes, and a hypothetical trading record of the email alerts is updated weekly
here. The hypothetical trading record of the trading model of the real-time alerts that began in March 2016 is shown below.
The latest signals of each model are as follows:
- Ultimate market timing model: Buy equities (Last changed from “sell” on 28-Jul-2023)
- Trend Model signal: Neutral (Last changed from “bullish” on 26-Jul-2024)
- Trading model: Bullish (Last changed from “neutral” on 25-Jul-2024)
Update schedule: I generally update model readings on my site on weekends. I am also on X/Twitter at @humblestudent. Subscribers receive real-time alerts of trading model changes, and a hypothetical trading record of those email alerts is shown here.
Subscribers can access the latest signal in real time here.
Farrell’s Rule 2 in action
The recent action in the financial markets appears to be a case of Bob Farrell’s Rule 2 in action: “Excess moves in one direction will lead to an excess move in the opposite direction”.
U.S. equity investors saw a sudden and violent rotation from growth to value stocks and from large caps to small caps. But that’s not the entire story.
The risk unwind is also evident in the currency markets. The Japanese Yen strengthened against the USD, which is a sign of a carry trade unwind. The bottom panel shows the long Mexican Peso/short Japanese Yen carry trade of buying a high yielding currency while shorting the low yielding currency, which also reversed itself. What’s remarkable is the correlation the currency markets have shown to U.S. equity prices (top panel) and the equity factor of long NASDAQ and short small caps (bottom panel).
The sudden nature and magnitude of these market moves is a sign of the crowding and leverage in hedge fund positioning. When it unwinds, volatility rises and VaR, or risk model Value at Risk, falls, which forces traders to reduce their positions.
What happens next?
The currency market unwind
The accompanying chart shows the 10-year JGB yield, the spread between 10-year Treasuries and JGBs, and the Yen exchange rate. Yen weakness for much of 2024 has been mainly attributable to the relative dovishness of the BoJ and relative hawkishness of the Federal Reserve.
Fast forward to July, Yen weakness has pushed up Japanese inflation and it’s putting pressure on the BoJ to raise rates when it meets next week. In the U.S., the market is expecting the first Fed rate cut to occur at the September FOMC meeting. Moreover, market pricing of a half-point cut in September is 12.7%, though that is not the consensus.
The best sign of the shift in market consensus in rate cuts is the
Bloomberg OpEd by former New York Fed President Bill Dudley: “I’ve long been in the ‘higher for longer’ camp…The facts have changed, so I’ve changed my mind. The Fed should cut, preferably at next week’s policy-making meeting.”
The signals from the BoJ and the Fed in the coming week could prove pivotal to the outlook of the risk unwind.
Stocks are oversold
Over in the U.S. stock market, two of the five components of my Bottom Spotting Model are oversold and flashed buy signals. The VIX Index spiked above its upper Bollinger Band, and the term structure of the VIX has inverted, indicating fear. Historically, the market has bounced whenever two or more components triggered buy signals.
These conditions should be setting up for a near-term price bounce into August, though the magnitude and the leadership of the bounce is less certain.
Buy small caps for the bounce
Here’s an educated guess. S&P 500 price gains were about half driven by EPS gains and half by P/E expansion. By contrast, the small-cap recovery in the S&P 600 was driven almost entirely by a rising P/E ratio.
On the other hand, the large-cap S&P 500 trades at a significant premium to small- and mid-cap stocks. The unwind could be explained by a valuation reset.
So we return to Bob Farrell’s Rule 2 in action: “Excess moves in one direction will lead to an excess move in the opposite direction”.
I reiterate my analysis from earlier in the week on small cap momentum (see
Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids have you killed today?). I went back to 1994 and studied the strong rally in the small-cap S&P 600. There were only 11 non-overlapping instances when its 5-day return exceeded 10% and found a strong and long-lasting price momentum effect. After pulling back for about a week, the S&P 600 went on to record strong median returns going out 60 trading days, or three months.
Small-cap stocks are breaking out, both on an absolute basis (top two panels) and a relative basis (bottom two panels).
By contrast, the large-cap S&P 500 is testing support at its 50 dma and gap support at 5400. Secondary support can be found at 5300.
Semiconductor stocks, which were the market leaders, have decisively violated absolute and relative support.
The NASDAQ 100, which is just starting to weaken, isn’t oversold yet (black line).
The relative weakness in growth stocks is evident by the rotation from growth to value across all market cap bands and internationally.
Key risk
In conclusion, my base-case scenario calls for a short-term relief equity rally into August, led by small caps and value stocks.
The key risk to this forecast is a further disorderly unwind in risk. Sentiment hasn’t fully reset. The Fear & Greed Index is only in neutral and showing no signs of fear.
The CBOE put/call sentiment is still a little frothy, which is a sign to be cautious.
The Citi Panic/Euphoria Model is still firmly euphoric.
Subscribers received an alert last Thursday that my inner trader had initiated a long position in small cap stocks. The usual disclaimers apply to my trading positions.
If we assume that there is still further to go in the unwind of the Magnificent 7 (according to Farrell’s Rule 2) then I thought it would be worthwhile looking at the ETF representing the MAG 7 called MAGS.
The way I read it we are currently sitting at the bottom of weak support at approx. 43.9 (i.e. a fall of approx. 12% from the peak)
However a strong band of support is between 37.8 and 40.2 which is in the order of a further 12% fall before it stops. Therefore we may only be about half way through the decline of the MAG7 if there is a further decline according to Farrell’s Rule 2.
I agree, but we may get a bounce first before the full decline. No guarantees one way or the other.
Right to be prudent and not all in toward one direction. It is not clear where we stand today. By looking at money flow it’s been two weeks since that inflation number and one week since the OpEx and Goole/Tesla earnings. Looks like most of the unwinding is done. No one knows what’s next. The underlying mechanism for Ferrell’s rule #2 and a couple of others is trend following/momentum chasing plus leverage and the inevitable unwinding. Many hedgies employ this approach mechanically. But everything goes faster these days. By the time you discovered something the game has changed. This is one aspect of Soros’ approach very few people bother to study. It is what he calls “Ducks lining up.” When everything is lining up visibly there it is about the end of the trend. So what Soros instead practices is a few steps ahead and establishing positions. If you are wrong you need to get out ASAP. If you are right you make big money. Risk control is paramount.
Hi Cam, do you expect Japanese equities to underperform in the medium term given your China bearishness and the BoJ moves?
Japanese equities had been performing fairly well in JPY terms, just not in USD terms. Their outlook depends on BOJ policy and the relative currency competitiveness of Japan against China. I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other on that question.
I am using the June 27 debate day as a rebase for my ETFs now. The outcome of the Presidential election is overriding all else along with the weakness of China post their 5 year economic summit has hurt resources.
Small caps are benefiting from regional banks soaring with Trump deregulation and merging freedom gives the small cap index a big boost. His domestic business boosting helps too since small companies are more domestic.
Now Biden is out. Would you consider these two days for rebasing: CPI day July 11 and Google/Tesla report day July 23?
I’ll stick with debate day since the campaign went tilt that day and is still reeling.