Happy New Year! Investors were happy to see the tumultuous 2020 come to a close. The past year has been one with little precedent. A pandemic brought the global economy to a screeching halt. The stock market crashed, and it was followed by an unprecedented level of fiscal and monetary response from authorities around the...
In late 2017, the stock market melted up in a FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) stampede as enthusiasm about the Trump tax cuts gripped investor psychology. The market corrected in early 2018 and rose steadily into October, though the advance could not be characterized as a melt-up. In late 2019, the market staged a similar...
Mid-week market update: As the S&P 500 pushed to another fresh high, more cracks were appearing in the market internals, indicating that it may be time for the rally to take a pause. Negative divergences, such as the 5-day RSI and a trend of falling NYSE new 52-week highs, are warning signs for the near-term...
Investors are increasingly convinced that the cyclical and Great Rotation trade is very real and long-lasting (see Everything you need to know about the Great Rotation but were afraid to ask). That should be bullish for the S&P 500, right? Well, sort of. Despite the cyclical and reflationary tailwinds for stocks, the S&P...
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. ...
I hope that I haven't offended the market gods. Just after my bullish call for a cyclical recovery (see Everything you need to know about the Great Rotation but were afraid to ask), a number of contrary data points have appeared to cast doubt on the reflation thesis. The markets were jolted by the...
The market lurched upwards on Vaccine Monday on the Pfizer-BioNTech news that it had found promising results in its vaccine trial. In a "Great Rotation", investors piled into value stocks and abandoned former growth darlings. The Daily Shot published this chart from Goldman Sachs estimating how a successful vaccine rollout could impact sectors. But that's not...
Two weeks ago, I rhetorically asked if investors should be buying into the cyclical recovery theme (see Buy the cyclical and reflation trade?). Global green shoots of recovery were appearing, but I identified the "uncertainty of additional fiscal stimulus" as a key risk to the cyclical rebound thesis. Now that Biden appears to be winning...
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 global economy seems to be setting up for a strong recovery. We are seeing a combination of easy monetary policy, slimmed-down supply chains, and a rebound in consumer confidence. The cyclical and reflation trade is becoming the consensus view. However, there may still be time to board that train. Futures positioning in...
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has set a Tuesday deadline for an agreement for a coronavirus stimulus package before the election. Recent data begs the question of whether more stimulus is even needed. Last Friday's retail sales print was astonishingly strong and beat market expectations. While retail sales statistics are notoriously noisy, September retail sales...
With the US election just over two weeks away, it's time to look past the election and focus on how the economy and markets are likely to behave. Barry Ritholz correctly advised investors in a recent post to check their political beliefs at the door when analyzing markets. Stock prices have done slightly better under...
The world is changing, but it changed even before Trump's COVID-19 news. In the past few weeks, a couple of key macro trends have reversed themselves. The US Dollar, which large speculators had accumulated a crowded short position, stopped falling and began to turn up. In addition, inflation expectations, as measured by the...
There is growing evidence that the stock market is undergoing a rotation from large cap technology to cyclical and reflation stocks. Exhibit A is the market action of the tech heavy NASDAQ 100, which violated a key rising channel and also violated its 50 day moving average (dma). By contrast, the broader S&P 500 is...
Labor Day is the traditional kickoff of presidential election campaigns. Before that, only die-hard political pundits and devotees pay attention to the election. It is with that in mind we revisit the economic criteria for Trump’s political fortunes that I outlined just after his inauguration (see Forget politics! Here are the 5 key macro indicators...
This is war! A global war against the pandemic. Analysis from the IMF showed that government debt levels have spiked to levels not seen since World War II. How will the world win the peace in a post pandemic era, and what does that mean for investors? A hopeful view Morgan Housel...
Now that stock prices have recovered from their March lows to all-time highs, it's time to admit that I was wrong about my excess cautiousness. I present a new framework for analyzing the stock market. While the new framework is useful for explaining why the major US market indices have reached fresh highs, it does...
While the adage that the stock market isn't the economy and vice versa is true. one of the puzzles facing investors is why the US equity market testing its all-time highs even as the economy suffered its worst setback since the Great Depression. This market seems like a Potemkin Village, which shows an external façade of...
The coronavirus has imposed both a supply shock and a demand shock to the global economy. The supply shock was in the form of disruption to supply chains as factories were shuttered. The supply shock has largely been corrected. The demand shock was in the form of a loss of demand as lockdown and stay-at-home...
Regular readers will know that I have been cautious about the equity markets over the past few months. Good investors cannot be overly dogmatic, and in that spirit, I contemplate what the bull case may be, From a strictly technical perspective, price momentum has been strong. The Wilshire 5000 is on the verge of flash...
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