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Among six major monetary gauges, five are now graded bullish, compared with just three a few months ago, and zero at the end of 2018.

Three months ago, Large Cap Growth and Momentum were the winning ways to play the market; the long-time resiliency of these entrenched leaders was a cornerstone of the bullish case. Suddenly it’s Value and Deep Cyclicals leading, anything possessing Momentum, of late, has turned toxic. Ironically, this “new” leadership is now the foundation for the bullish reasoning.

The top-three-rated sectors are Communication Services, Information Technology, and Consumer Discretionary. Financials dropped from the second-highest-rated to #4 (it ranked in 9th place out of the eleven sectors last March); it has now placed among the top four since May. This is the eighth consecutive month in which Utilities, Materials, and Energy have dominated the bottom three positions.

Even though the S&P 500 roared ahead by nearly 50% over the last three years, the traditionally low beta slow-growth Utilities sector outperformed during that powerful upswing. Nevertheless, today Utilities seldom look attractive by active managers and calls to overweight the sector are scarce.

We take a look at different data sets reflecting labor costs. The main finding is that using Unit Labor Cost as the measurement for the true cost suggests that the labor market is very tight in terms of affordability for businesses.

Improvement in the Momentum category overpowered smaller losses elsewhere as market valuation and sentiment both remain elevated.

A preview of the upcoming Of Special Interest that will examine if the tortured process of Brexit is creating an opportunity to bottom fish washed-out and unloved U.K. stocks. Time to buy?

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The S&P 500 rose 2.2% in October and ended the month just a day removed from setting an all-time high.

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At last night’s close, the Russell 2000 generated a “low-risk” BUY signal on our Very Long Term (VLT) Momentum algorithm, a possibility we’d alluded to in the September and October Green Books.

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The fear (or hope) that U.S. bond yields would fall to zero or below subsided over the last month. However, the belief that low yields merit significantly above-average P/E ratios remains stronger than ever.

A look at underlying conditions at each stage of the bull market.

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The approach of Halloween brings thoughts of jack-o-lanterns, scary movies, and buckets full of candy. The season also marks the time when investors finally give up the ghost on the optimistic, even wishful, earnings forecasts made early in the year.

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With promised breakthroughs on Brexit and the trade war miraculously occurring on the same day, few pundits now believe the market is anywhere close to an important peak. (A peak in the S&P 500, that is, since peaks occurred long ago in the ACWI, MSCI Emerging Markets, NYSE Composite, Value Line Arithmetic, S&P MidCap 400, and the Russell 2000.)

Equity market themes have been boringly consistent of late; growth beating value, large beating small, and domestic beating international. In the factor world, Momentum and Low Volatility have been investor favorites for most of 2019 while Value resided in last place – the same old, same old. Then, something remarkable occurred on September 9^th.

The December 2018 stock-market low was the second most expensive among historical “major market lows.” The most expensive low was October 1998. The S&P 500 corrected -19.8% in late 2018, and by -19.3% in mid-1998. In the current post-correction rebound, the stock market’s breadth is more fractured than at the same stage in the rally following the 1998 correction.