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Years ago, Monty Python’s classic comedy sketch introduced us to the Department of Redundancy Department.

Read this week's Major Trend Index.

In mid December an Interim Memo was sent advising clients of a negative change in our Early Warning Index, an indication that an intermediate top was forming. It has been about four weeks since that alert and the work has continued negative.

In 2010 and 2011, we were sometimes chastised for not paying more attention to exploding federal  deficits, which at the time were running between 8% to 10% of GDP. We argued that a substantial share of these budget shortfalls was cyclical in nature, and would eventually be reversed by an improving economy.

Market history teaches us that investors behave differently in groups than they do as individuals.

The Leuthold Core Portfolio slightly lagged the S&P 500, while the Leuthold Global Portfolio narrowly outperformed the MSCI ACWI during October.

This multi-factor estimate of stock market risk is based on a regression to median stock market levels.

Read this week's Major Trend Index.

Starting back in the early 1990s, The Leuthold Group began constructing and sending out an annual list of stocks that appeared to have been the subject of unusual selling pressure late in the year.

In March 1991, an article titled “Investor Sentiment and the Closed-End Fund Puzzle” was published in The Journal of Finance.

The implication from VLT Momentum is that bonds are sufficiently oversold (or, equivalently, that yields are sufficiently overbought) to trigger some degree of mean reversion over the next several months.

Sometimes we feel compelled to report findings that conflict with our outlook. And then there are the even rarer times we actually do it.

The Equal Weighted S&P 500 now trails the S&P 500 by 400 basis points YTD, and the rally is increasingly assailed as too narrow.

Stock market bears had a field day when the latest Investors Intelligence sentiment survey (Chart 1) saw the percentage of bullish newsletter writers spike to its “highest level since 1987.”

We don’t have a strong capitalization-bet recommendation, other than to remind readers that Small Caps have been especially responsive to the favorable seasonal window that began November 1st (and which extends through April 30th).

Bobby Knight thought coaching would be perfect “if it weren’t for those damned games.”

The last few months have served up some of the strongest readings observed during the U.S. economic expansion.

Record lows in implied volatility (VIX) have been analyzed ad infinitum throughout 2017, but the readings shouldn’t come as any surprise.

We remain bullish on stocks but with very limited visibility into 2018.