What China decoupling looks like

When Trump began his trade war with China, the Street's narrative was "decoupling". It took a few years, but it's finally happened. As China's economic outlook and market deteriorated, it did not drag down the economies of Europe and North America.   To be sure, the news out of China is grim. A series of...

No breadth thrust, but a slow grind-up

Mid-week market update: I recently highlighted the possible development of a rare momentum-based Zweig Breadth Thrust buy signal (see The Zweig Breadth Thrust watch). The window for the ZBT buy signal closes tomorrow (Thursday). While the S&P 500 has been advancing slowly, we are unlikely to see the buy signal barring some gargantuan melt-up tomorrow....

What’s a safe withdrawal rate?

I was recently asked my opinion on what a safe withdrawal rate for a deferred-tax pension plan managed with the Trend Asset Allocation Model.  As a reminder, the Trend Model has shown equity-like returns with balanced fund-like risk. The latest update of the model shows another strong month, with a one-month return of 2.5% compared...

The Zweig Breadth Thrust watch

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...

A rate hike roadmap

Now that a QE taper announcement is more or less baked-in for this year, the next question is when the Fed will raise rates. The July FOMC minutes highlighted the point that the criteria for a taper decision is entirely different from that for a rate hike.   Several participants emphasized that an announcement of...