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. ...
Last weekend, I conducted an unscientific and low sample Twitter poll on the market perception of the Georgia special Senate elections. The results were surprising. Respondents were bullish on both a Republican and Democratic sweep. As the results of the Georgia Senate race became clear, the analyst writing under the pseudonym Jesse Livermore...
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 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...
One of the investment puzzles of 2020 is the stock market's behavior. In the face of the worst global economic downturn since the Great Depression, why haven't stock prices fallen further? Investors saw a brief panic in February and March, and the S&P 500 has recovered and even made an all-time high in early September....
It has been over a week since Jerome Powell's virtual Jackson Hole speech in which he laid out the Fed's revised its updates to its Statement on Longer-Run Goals and Monetary Policy Strategy after a long and extensive internal review. There were two changes. one was a shift towards an "average inflation targeting" regime, where the...
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...
Q2 earnings season is nearly done. So far 89% of the market has reported. FactSet reported the EPS beat rate fell to 83% from 84% the previous week. The sales beat rate was fell to 64% from 69% the previous week. Both the EPS and sales beat rates are ahead of their 5-year averages. The bottom-up...
Mid-week market update: The July Employment Report has the potential to be a game changer in how the market perceives the recovery. Estimates of job gains are all over the place, and the median stands at 1.5 million. High frequency economic data has been weakening, and I am inclined to taken the "under"...
Q2 earnings season is now past the halfway mark. So far 63% of the market has reported. FactSet reported the EPS beat rate rose to 84% from 81% the previous week. The sales beat rate was fell to 69% from 71% the previous week. Both the EPS and sales beat rates are ahead of their 5-year...
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...
Q2 earnings season is now in full swing. So far 26% of the market has reported. FactSet reported the EPS beat rate rose to 81% from 73%, last week which was well above the 5-year average. The sales beat rate was fell to 71% from 78% last week, but it remains ahead of the 5-year...
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...
We are starting our coverage of the Q2 earnings season. Let's begin with the big picture. FactSet reported that, with 9% of the companies reported, the EPS beat rate was 73%, which was slightly above the 5-year average. The sales beat rate was 78%, which was well above the 5-year average of 60%. The bottom-up...
Earnings season has kicked off with reports from the major banks. The market reaction has been mixed so far. From a big picture perspective, history shows that whenever the relative performance of banking stocks have breached a major support level, such events have usually signaled periods of financial stress and bear markets. This...
On this 4th of July Independence Day weekend, let's try a change of pace and indulge in some technical analysis of a different sort. The behavioral finance basis for technical analysis is the wisdom of the crowds. Francis Galton observed a competition at a local fair in 1906 where about 800 people tried to guess...
Last week, I discussed the professional career risk challenges in this market (see What professional career risk looks like). During these unusual periods of severe bifurcation between valuation and macro risk and price momentum, the investment professional is forced to make a decision based on what he believes the dominant investment regime will be in...
Joe Biden has officially clinched the Democratic nomination for president, and his odds of winning the Presidency in November have been steadily rising, and he is now at 54% on PredictIt. For the uninitiated, the contract pays off at $1.00 if a candidate wins, so buying the Biden contract at $0.54 implies a 54% of...
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...
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