China rides to the rescue?

The headlines from last week sounded dire. It began when China’s May economic activity report was disappointing, with industrial production, retail sales, and fixed-asset investment missing market expectations.      Then the Federal Reserve took an unexpected hawkish turn. The statement from the FOMC meeting acknowledged that downside risks from the pandemic were receding as vaccination...

The market’s instant FOMC report card

Mid-week market update: It's always difficult to make any kind of coherent market comment on FOMC meeting days. The market reaction can be wild and price moves can reverse themselves in the coming days.   Nevertheless, experienced investors understand that it's not the announcement that matters, but the tone announcement compared to market expectations. Bloomberg...

What I meant to say was…

After a number of discussions with readers, there appears to have been some misunderstanding over my recent post (see The bond market tempts FAIT). I did not mean to imply that the advance in bond prices is an intermediate-term move, only a tactical counter-trend rally. The decline in Treasury yields can be attributable to: The...

A new S&P 500 high, but…

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...

The bond market tempts FAIT

Remember when I called for a bond market rally (see What a bond market rally could mean for your investments). The 10-year Treasury yield broke support last week and shrugged off a hot CPI print. Is the bond market tempting FAIT, or the Fed's Flexible Average Inflation Targeting framework?     Here are some of...