A dovish or hawkish rate hike?

Mid-week market update: I am writing my mid-week market update one day early. FOMC announcement days can be volatile and it's virtually impossible to make many comments about the technical condition of the market as directional reversals are common the next day. Mark Hulbert suggested to wait 30 minutes after the FOMC announcement, and then...

A Fed preview: What happens in 2018?

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...

Peak smart beta?

A recent comment by Michael Mauboussin of Credit Suisse that nailed the dilemma of active managers, namely that using traditional approaches to alpha generation is akin to mining lower and lower grade ore: Exhibit 1 shows that the standard deviation of excess returns has trended lower for U.S. large capitalization mutual funds over the past five...