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The weekly covers of The Economist do a pretty good job of capturing the zeitgeist of global financial affairs, but there’s so much packed into every issue (and enough to do around our shop) that sometimes all we see are the covers. But we have to admit we’re disappointed in The Economist for the week ended July 31st. The “Free Money” theme is at least four months too late!

Growth investing is in the midst of a record run this year, extending its decade-long dominance over the Value style.

Select Industries, Global Industries, and AdvantHedge performance

In July, the Leuthold Core and Global Portfolios both turned in strong performance.

The S&P 500 gained another 5.5% in July and now stands 49% above its lowest close in March.

Public companies are loading up on debt. Since we wrote about this topic over a year ago, a few metrics have reached, or are surpassing, peaks of 1999-2000. When the readings move to extreme levels, we recommend readers take precautions.

Read this week's Major Trend.

There was no movement among the sector rankings. Health Care, Communication Services, and Information Technology are the top-three rated sectors (out of eleven total). The bottom-three rated sectors are Real Estate, Energy, and Utilities.

A major driver of the division in recent performance among retail groups has been the burgeoning “nesting” theme. Stuck at home, consumers are directing their dollars toward indoor and outdoor home upgrades. A related theme has now established itself in the upper rankings of our group work—Housing.

Year-to-date, the Equal Weighted S&P 500 has massively underperformed the Cap Weighted index. The return spread of 8.85% (price change) is the widest seven-month performance gap in favor of the Cap Weighted index since the top of the Tech Bubble.

For our Royal Blue segments, the Growth/Value P/E ratio is heading toward Y2K extremes at tremendous speed. We started the year near our long-term average of 2.23x and today it stands at 3.19x—easily the highest reading outside of the Tech Bubble.

Small Caps are selling at a 25% valuation discount to Large Caps. The absolute P/E ratios for both cap flavors have risen roughly 40% from their March month-end lows.

With the first month of Q2-2020 earnings in the books, our Up/Down ratio reads 0.63. This pathetic “one-month” figure joins only four other readings below 0.70 in our 36-year history.

Read this week's Major Trend. 

Read this week's Major Trend.

How can an equity manager possibly keep up with the QQQ—an ETF that’s almost 50% invested in the six largest U.S. companies?

Easy! Own the vehicle that benefits the most from a collapse in global trade volume and an escalating cold war between the U.S. and China—the EEM (iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF)!

Doug Ramsey, CIO at The Leuthold Group gives his mid-year update, provides some valuable context for the current market, and presents his outlook for the rest of 2020. Scott Opsal, Director of Equities and Portfolio Manager, also gives a brief update on portfolio positioning and asset allocation considerations before a Q&A with both Doug and Scott.

Read this week's Major Trend.

As we wade into the waters of second-quarter earnings, muddied by economic shutdowns and suspended guidance, we thought it might be a good exercise to pull back from the “micro” of firm-level beats and misses and examine the “macro” picture that is the Great Earnings Washout of 2020.

One of the signature traits of the U.S. small cap market is the prevalence of money losing companies. A recent tally indicated that prior to Covid, 38% of small caps were reporting trailing year losses despite the widespread economic strength of 2019.