Inside The Stock Market ...trends, cross-currents, and outlook
Tax Rates And The Good Old Days
Top marginal tax rate of 6%...applied only to income in excess of $500,000? It was a reality in 1913!
“Just Make It Go Away”
Jim Bianco observed in September that Europe was still in a “pre-Lehman” mentality regarding its debt crisis, in which investors and policymakers “were worried more about the equity and propriety of where taxpayer money was going than about fixing the problem.”
Market Worrying You? Just Sleep On It!
A rather surprising discovery when comparing intraday versus overnight market price action, and perhaps a “Smart Money” buy signal revealed as well?
Buy Energy Stocks
Why is right now a great time to buy Energy stocks?
A Graphically-Oriented Overview Of Q3 Earnings Developments
So far so good, as sales and earnings numbers reported have been better than expected. Eric Weigel explores newly emerging trends from a number of angles and makes some cautious inferences.
Global Dividend Screen
Methodology for the new screen and the Dividend Sustainability Rank are discussed in detail. Dividend strategies continue to gain popularity, as equity investors grapple for yield.
Ain’t Nobody Happy
Despite the big October rebound, Doug Ramsey examines various market players and finds that dissatisfaction with recent market moves may proliferate among all but a select few.
An Economic Buy Signal
Does a simple twist on the ISM Index produce an excellent stock market indicator?
Rates Too High For A Housing Rebound?
Are mortgage rates still too high for a rebound when looking at real mortgage rates?
Worse Than It Looks… And Not Over
Most costly market decoy in the last six weeks has been unusual (relative) strength of the Dow and S&P 500 indexes. Resilience in blue chips is characteristic of the early and middle phases of a bear market, but recent blue chip performance has been so stellar (again, in a relative sense) that most investors curled up comfortably in the “correction” camp…while small caps, cyclicals and virtually all foreign markets were screaming “BEAR!”
Leuthold Stock Quality Rankings—Tracking Quality And Risk Cycles
A new High Quality Cycle has clearly emerged and is going strong. Note that the previous High Quality Cycle started at the end of 2007 and lasted more than a year.
Another Swoon Coming
Several U.S. indexes and world stock markets have already lost 20% or more from recent peaks, satisfying the parameter for a bear market.
Golden Milestone
The yellow metal itself celebrated 40 years of “independence” by pulling ahead of the S&P 500 on a cumulative, total return basis since the gold window was closed.
Recession Or No Recession? That ISN’T The Question
Doug Ramsey provides an analysis of non-recession related bear markets. Historically, non-recession related markets are shorter in duration than recession induced bear markets, but the decline is essentially the same magnitude.
China Investing: Segment Valuation May Converge
Interesting development coming out of China recently that is getting little attention. The Chinese government is planning to allow ETFs with Hong Kong listed companies as underlying securities to be traded on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Exchanges.
Volatility—A Beast Worth Befriending Or An Enemy To Shield Away?
Better understanding the behavior of equity market volatility is a prerequisite for making improved decisions either as a way to profit directly from the changing nature of volatility, or as a way to hedge equity market exposure.
The Bull Market’s Technical “Book Ends”
The 30-point collapse in the S&P 500 on Tuesday, August 2nd completed a bearish H&S pattern that has been several months in the making.
Sector Rotation In Emerging Markets
The Leuthold Group has always been a big proponent of sector rotation strategies. In this month’s “Inside The Stock Market” section, Jun Zhu examines sector rotation in emerging markets and presents a series of ETFs that facilitate this strategy.
Asia Thematic Investing: Update On Healthy Tigers Index
Chinese Pharmaceuticals have been sold off considerably in recent months, but look very attractive on a valuation basis. There are fundamental problems, but in light of China’s objective of universal health care coverage there is significant upside. See “Healthy Tigers” update in “Inside The Stock Market”.
Major Trend Index (MTI) Goes Negative: Get Defensive
Major Trend Index fell to Negative at beginning of August. Assumption is that we are now in the beginning of a cyclical bear market that may produce a 20%-25% loss within the next six months or so.