60/40 in an era of American Unexceptionalism

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...

Known unknowns, and unknown unknowns

Ahead of the Second Gulf War, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously referred to “known knowns”, “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns” when responding to a question about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.   Fast forward to 2025, investors have to contend with a series of known unknowns and unknown unknowns as they consider their investment...

Torturing the data until it talks

Mid-week market update: Market internals are showing signs of a wash-out. Readings are normalizing after an extreme oversold condition against a backdrop of extreme fear. Stock prices should advance from here.   However, the S&P 500 just experienced a "death cross", where the 50 dma falls below the 200 dma. Notwithstanding today's negative surprises from...

Estimating downside risk

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 game theory analysis of the trade war

Bloomberg’s U.S. chief economist Anna Wong published a chart outlining the impact of Trump’s tariff pivot. Trump raised tariffs on China and cut the “reciprocal tariff rate” to 10% for all others, except USMCA members Canada and Mexico, for 90 days. The resulting weighted tariff rate is not substantially different from the “Liberation Day” rates...